Email Address Forgery

Have you been spammed by us? No! We do not send out unsolicited bulk email. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly common for spammers to hijack the identities of others and subject innocent third parties to the inevitable bombardment of undeliverable bounces, auto-acknowledgments, and sometimes abusive "remove me from your mailing list" diatribes. It has happened to us a number of times:

The spammers usually just forge a fake address in the From: or Reply-to: lines but sometimes they also link to or include copies of logos and other images taken from legitimate web sites which are in no way associated with the web sites being advertised. As the above links demonstrate, this has happened to us on numerous occasions.

Why Did This Happen?

In some cases, we believe that we were targeted simply because we regard our email addresses as our private property and operate a zero-tolerance policy with regards to spam. This means tracing the spam that we receive back to its source and sending complaints to those responsible:

Those who provide email addresses for spammers.
Those who provide web space for spammers.
Those who provide open mail relays so that spam spews out across the world.
Those who provide support for spammers in many other ways.

In other instances, we were a random victim. In either case, we pay for our email addresses and they are ours. We don't give permission to spammers to collect, store, or use them for any purpose whatsoever.

What Can You Do About It?

Please don't complain to us or to our ISP. We didn't send this junk mail to you. Our email address was forged, so we are even more of a victim of this spammer than you are.

In any case, it's never a good idea to reply to a junk email or to click on a "remove me" link, because

The address may not exist.: Your complaint may bounce back to you or it may end up in the domain owner's "catch-all" inbox.
The address may be forged.: In this instance the spammer will have chosen someone else's email to use in the From: or Reply-To: lines of the header. The address may have been chosen at random or the spammer may have deliberately targeted someone. In either case, an innocent third party will be inundated with bounced emails and irate "remove" requests, some of which can be very abusive or threatening. This can turn into what is known as a denial of service attack if the flood of bounces or replies overloads the innocent party's computer system. This is a crime.
The address may be legitimate.: Spammers rarely provide legitimate email addresses but if they do, it is almost always for the purpose of collecting viable email addresses for future mailing lists. This is the worst case scenario for you.

Isn't about time that you reclaimed your electronic mail box? Be part of the solution and don't just hit Delete.