[MLB-WIRELESS] Re: Credit Application Declined

[Rowan Crowe]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Steve Smithies wrote:

> Isn't it a good idea not to reply to the spammer and let them know
> that the address they spammed is live, or feed them your address too?

There's a reason you should never reply to spam, and it's not because
you'll go onto some 'gold' list - it's because the from address is usually
faked these days. At best you'll be replying to an address that doesn't
exist, or you may even hit some unlucky person whose address has been used
- either randomly or deliberately.

Imagine that 10 million spams are sent out (successfully), and 1 in 100
people decide to reply to the spam and give that dirty spammer a piece of
their mind. That's 100,000 emails to the victim, not to mention the
bounces! (If 10% bounce then that's another million mailer-daemon messages
back to the victim...)

I have been the victim before, and the rate at which bounces were arriving
was phenomenal. They were coming in as fast as my 56k modem could go. I
ended up completely removing the MX records for that domain for about 2
weeks, and even 6 weeks later I am still receiving the occasional bounce.
:(

Cheers.


--
Rowan Crowe - Melbourne, Australia


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