Tips on Being an Informed Consumer

"Can" Unwanted Email!

Do you receive lots of junk email messages from people you don't know? It's no surprise if you do. As more people use email, marketers are increasingly using email messages to pitch their products and services. some consumers find unsolicited commercial email - also known as "spam" - annoying and time consuming; others have lost money to bogus offers that arrived in their email in-box.

Typically, an email spammer buys a list of email addresses from a list broker, who compiles it by "harvesting" addresses from the Internet. If your email address appears in a newsgroup posting, on a website, in a chat room, or in an online service's membership directory, it may find its way onto these lists. The marketer then uses special software that can send hundreds of thousands --even million -- of email messages to the addresses at the click of a mouse.

How Can I Reduce the Amount of Spam that I Receive?

• Try not to display your email address in public. that includes newsgroup postings, chat rooms, websites or in an online service's membership directory.
• Check the privacy policy when you submit your address to a website. See if it allows the company to sell your address
• Use two email addresses - one for personal use and one for chat rooms and message boards
• Choose unique email addresses
• Use and email filter

What Can I Do With the Spam in my In-Box?

Report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Send a copy of unwanted or deceptive messages to spam@uce.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email. Let the FTC know if a "remove me" request is not honored. If you want to complain about a removal link that doesn't work or not being able to unsubscribe from a list, you can fill out the FTC's online complaint form at www.ftc.gov.

Send a copy of the spam to your ISP's abuse desk. Often the email address is abuse@yourispname.com or postmaster@yourispname.com. By doing this, you can let the ISP know about the spam problem on their system and help them to stop it in the future. Make sure to include a copy of the spam, along with the he full email header. At the top of the message, state that you're complaining about being spammed.

Complain to the sender's ISP. Most ISPs want to cut off spammers who abuse their system. Again, make sure to include a copy of the message and header information and state that you're complaining about spam.

How Can I Avoid Spam Scams?