Stand up to SPAM!

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As a woman who conducts business online, I have several email accounts and receive roughly 500 emails per DAY. The amount of SPAM and SCAM email that I have to sift through is angering...to put it gently. I have recently set up my personal email accounts to generate an automated response (Vacation Response section of most free email providers) which will be sent out automatically to everyone as soon as they send me an email. In order to avoid confusing my friends and family, I let them know ahead of time what to expect in their mailbox before they happen to send me another email, and to instruct them to simply ignore it or delete it. I actually DO report EVERY Spam, Scam, Money-Laundering, Lottery Scheme, or general unwanted email I receive to the appropriate authorities. The latest one I received ask me to "work for some company" and agree to receive packages from other countries, then to repackage them in another package with a prepaid label and send them to the location instructed for a "payment" of about $1000 for each task completed. I can see MANY desperate people will be very tempted to fall for something like this, especially when the email came from someone in Ohio rather than outside of the US. The packages could contain anything from illegal drugs to terrorist paraphernalia to body parts for all I would know. So, I reported it to our Government. The US Government DOES investigate schemes involving potential Money-Laundering, Lottery Winning, or those which may compromise national security. They can be reported (with FULL HEADERS showing) for investigation and potential prosecution to spam@uce.gov All other public email abuses can be sent to the email server. For example spam showing up from a Yahoo account would be forwarded (with FULL HEADERS so they track the IP and source) to abuse@yahoo.com, those arriving from Hotmail would go to abuse@hotmail.com and so forth. Feel free to set up your own vacation response by copying what I have written, or a variation of your choice. This is the text people will receive every time they send me an email: This atuomated response is to inform you that your email has reached the address of an individual who works closely with the US Government and other Agencies to report, investigate, and put an end to those promoting SPAM, Phishing Schemes, Income Scams, Lottery or Money-Laundering SCAMS, and other forms of ILLEGAL email abuse. If your SPAM or SCAM email has arrived at this address, be prepared to face investigation and/or legal penalty. ALL suspected violations ARE reported to the appropriate source within 48 hourse of arrival. Unless you are sending a legitimate or requested email to this recipient, you are STRONGLY ADVISED to remove this address from your mailing list immediately. If you have purchased this active email address through an Email Harvester, I would suggest that you request a refund of your payment becasue YOU were just scammed! ----------------------- Finally, DO follow through and REPORT EVERY Spam email.