Fresh email-address created for this site is already receiving phishing mails

Can someone explain to me how this is even possible?

I created a new email-address and paypal for the sole purpose of buying something from this site.
2 weeks later and I'm already getting PayPaI (yes that's an I) phishing mails to get my PayPal credentials.

 

Spam mails are sent out random generated. Even if you only register an email-address and never actually use it, you get spam.

 

Following from what DaSoul said. This occurs when you create an email from popular email hosts like gmail, hotmail, live, etc. If you create your own domain & email this is a lot less likely to occur.

-Grim

 

I always create emails from some local not-so-popular platforms. Having dozens of mails for using on various of games. All of these receive zero spam.

But my several yahoo/hotmail/gmail addresses, even after most of them are used just on single occasion, are receiving tons of spam each day. Including both my oldest email addresss - in yahoo.com (both are with 4 letters and 18-19 years old) - they are not used for registering new stuff since 15+years, but still receive 30-50 spams each single day!

 

This is not fool proof by any means, but a neat little trick to help you track down which webistes "might" be giving up your information is to add a + after the email and before the @. You can put anything after that + as a description.

For example, lets say your email is

Test@Gmail.com

You can do Test+Honorbuddy@Gmail.com

Google mail recognizes this format and will auto-send it to the correct address "Test@Gmail.com".

When you start getting the phishing/spam e-mails, look at what address they're sending them to. SOME people will strip the + off before or after selling your e-mail info though, so it isn't fool proof.

 

Yes. I do agree with you! That's why it's best to create our own domain and create an email there. Most hosting companies offer it as an option