Junk E-mail

Some of you have good spam filters on your email systems so don't get much junk email. Filters can be created by you, or by your email supplier. Gmail, for example, is said to have a very good spam filter.

Others of you aren't so lucky and get tons of junk email. Here's something you can do to help the situation. It won't help in the short run, but will help all email users.

Many emails pretend to be from legitimate companies. Examples are Microsoft, your bank, my bank, Chase Bank, PayPal, etc. Some tell you your account has been suspended (even places at which you have no account!) and that you need to "click here" to get it turned back on. These sites are usually "phishing" for personal information from you! Don't give it to them!

You can "Forward" such emails to "spoof@company.com" where "company.com" is the real address of the real company the email is pretending to be, such as "paypal.com." When you do this, don't clean out any of the headers; just forward the entire email as you received it.

Then delete it!

You can also forward suspicious emails to "abuse@company.com". Sometimes I send to both; usually the company accepts one or the other, if not both. And usually they'll send you back an automated message confirming that the message you forwarded to them was indeed a forgery.

Here are the addresses again:

• spoof@company.com
  
  
• abuse@company.com

Be sure to replace company.com with the real email address of the company.

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