Is this spam or missed opportunities?

[Neil B]

Sorry if this is a long question, but I hope that you can help.

I have an account with a major UK ISP. With this I have an email address naturally - n.buxton"AT"tesco.net but I also have a secondary email address too
buxtons"AT"tesco.net

I have a website (on a different server than my ISP) and the secondary email address is only used from this website (you know – “email us for details or to place an order” sort of thing).

Now, I have no problem with my main email address but I get lots of strange emails to my “web” email address.
These contain only rectangles and weird symbols as the text. There are no attachments.
I have tried various encription codes, opening them in Notepad etc, all to no avail.

I’m not sure if they are spam or if they may be genuine emails placing orders for paintings or giving us feedback on the website.
We would hate to be missing out on anything, but gut feeling says they’re spam.

Does anyone else have this problem?

I used Panda for my virus protection but am sure that none of these emails contain viruses.

I’m really puzzled

I'd be grateful if a few of you over the next couple of days could go to our website (see below) choose a page at random and send me a quick email - perhaps title it "Z Test".
This should prove if it is an email problem or whether I'm just getting spammed.

Thanks everyone

[garyb]

probably asian text which doesn't display properly(you don't have the asian characters installed on your pc). likely, it's ads for cell phones, penis enlargers, porn and viagra. i'd treat it like spam.

btw-putting you addy here with the "AT" as "@" will assure that a spambot will find that address and send lots of extra spam to you...

[hubird]

just wanted to say that also
site message sent

Today I got a rather 'realistic' mail saying that an explosion did take place in an atomic reactor in Holland, and that the authorities were trying to keep it secret...
more info on blabla.
The funny thing is, a day before about 25 people got spontaniously sick in a strange way, they were visiting a big distribution market shop for animals, you know, exotic birds, fishes, whatever, everything very legally tho.
People got sick, showed strange skin reactions, scary really as it all looked like.

To make it short, the authorities took it almost like a nuclear reactor drama, mobile hospital, quarantain of the victomes, isolation of the wide area, even the journalists on the spot had to overnight on the scene.

After the infamous bar fire in Volendam and the fireworks explosion in Enschede things have changed a bit, one cannot deny that

(both were in the end due to lacking authorities control).

PS. after a few days the authorities announced that it was not possible to find the cause of it all, not a single clue tho do tried hard...
Still something...?

[Neil B]

Thanks everyone for your help and thanks for taking the time & trouble to help.

All the emails that you sent came through fine, so as suspected, they must be spams.

So anyone reading this now doesn't need to email me - case closed.

Gary thanks for that tip too.
And in reply to your suggestions:
I don't need a cell phone.
I don't need viagra
I don't need porn
and
why is it nobody ever advertises penis reducers ?

[garyb]

it's doubtful if you are receiving japanese character inquiries and orders for your products, but you could install asian language support on your pc if you wanted to be sure and actually read japanese, thai and chinese.....