So I was checking my Proton Mail inbox, as I usually do, when I came across a hilarious email in my spam folder.

Your Mailbox storage is 99% full

You are currently using 4852.3 MB of 5000.00 MB available

Don't risk losing new incoming messages, Follow below to increase your email account storage.

Increase Your Email Storage

I was very careful not to click on any links in the email.

I was not fooled even for a second. It was impossible for me to have run out of storage. You know why? Because I paid for a Proton Unlimited subscription a few months ago, and I have more than enough storage!

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The fact that I got this email means someone got access to my email address, which makes it hard to narrow it down because I used to sign up for a LOT of services. I've started using Addy to create new aliases, but I really wish I had done that sooner, so I could see who sold me out.

Here's a lesson: always use an email alias, so that when/if this happens, you'll know who leaked your email address!

  • Lawn_and_disorder [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    22 minutes ago

    I use my own domain and catch all. So signupatservice1 will be at signupatservice1@mydomain.ml and so on easy to check whats what

  • davidebro@lemmy.ml
    ·
    3 hours ago

    That's why I don't use Proton, but Startmail. Their email aliases system is perfect. Haven't got any trouble so far. Is this a common problem with Proton?

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
    ·
    9 hours ago

    Maybe I'm desensitized because our group address is published in multiple places on the web, but that email is not even slightly noteworthy. This November we've already gotten 7 emails that said our mailbox was full or we needed to change its password.

    To me this is just background noise of the Internet.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
    ·
    edit-2
    15 hours ago

    Duckduckgo email offers kinda the same idea of anonymous emails for free. If you use their extension you can generate one-off subsidiary random accounts to be deleted later after use. You can do this on the spot, a single click while filling whatever registration form, really convenient.

  • kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de
    ·
    14 hours ago

    I got a similar phishing mail as well though not for my primary email account. Most of them just redirect to a similar looking login UI and ask the user to enter password.