Scott's Corner

Who likes Spam? Do you?

When it comes to seeing emails in my inbox that I did not subscribe to I get a little upset. Maybe upset is the wrong word; it is more like, Good Try! I wonder if these spammers think they are doing anyone any favors by trying to trick people into responding or clicking that link. Being that I have my name out there and own websites they must think I am a free ride or something.

What spammers do not realize is that there are people out there like me that will report your ass. I look at it like this, if a spammer took the time to buy my email and name or just was on a harvesting of emails I will return the favor and take a moment of my time and forward their email and message to the Government. And why not, it is almost like they are asking me to.

I get all sorts of spam into my main email address compared to my Gmail or Yahoo email accounts. That is what makes me believe that my email is harvested from my web sites or someone sells my email after signing up for something. I wish there was a way of knowing but I am using trends of where I see the spam emails and which email accounts they are showing up in.

So what do I do to the spammers?

I do something that is very simple and easy and I believe if more people were pro-active at doing this little thing that most spammers might quit doing what they are doing. After all it is against the law and after I do this I do not see the same spammer sending me that daily email. All I do is forward the email to “Spam Report” spam@uce.gov. Now I will say this and it is a must for the Government to take you seriously and as a real person or the emails will not stop. You must put your real name, address and phone number in the email when sending it to the Government. When you provide your information the emails will stop coming in about a day or two. If you don’t the government will do nothing and the emails will continue.

I run Word Press sites and I like doing everything there possible to keep the spammers from using my site for their purposes to.  Basically if you are not a real person you will not be able to post on my site and if you do get through, my back-up is my final approval. I don’t know if the spammers are signing up just to get my email, but they could. To me that is a lot of hard work that can get you in trouble if you send me an email that I did not authorize permission.

I will get phone calls to from site owners teams trying to sell me stuff too. It amazes me there no matter how many times I ask to be taken off the call list of how often they will still call me. I am looking at how to report them too. But the best thing I have found is to register my number in the Do Not Call Register.

My mail box also will see pieces of mail too from all sorts of places which tell me that there are people who will not only harvest my email and phone number but my physical address too. This is a direct mail marketing method to sell me or introduce me to their products. This I do not mind so much, but it just shows me that people actually take the time to dig for this public information. Why didn’t they save themselves postage and just send me an email or heck make a comment on my website. So, here is a note to those who are doing all these things. Try doing three things to get my attention. Leave a comment, send me your literature and follow up with a phone call. Maybe, just maybe we can do business then. Just quit trying to do things the hard way, after all I have made it possible in many ways for you to contact me. Try using Google and see all the places I am public at, connect with me, and then again I might like what you are showing me or want to sell me. Just try doing it in a more up front way instead of the back door way.

I challenge everyone to report spam and be pro-active to shutting them down before they take advantage of people who don’t know any better, like my Grandma. Be the Keeper!