1) If the junk mailer is sophisticated enough to send out thousands of messages at a time, his incoming mail is probably handled entirely by machine. He may even have a filtering system that automatically deletes unfriendly messages. Chances are, he'll never even see what you send him.
2) If the junk mailer has provided you with a phony return address, whatever you send him will simply bounce right back to YOU as undeliverable - or worse, may possibly be dumped in the lap of an innocent third party (such as your own ISP, or if the spammer is a total scumbag, possibly even a leukemia ward for orphaned children!)
3) If your attempt at revenge succeeds in annoying him, he may retaliate - and he's got more chance of crashing YOUR mailbox than you have of crashing HIS!
4) Harassing other people is against the law. If he complains about you to the authorities, YOU could get in trouble.
5) Even if you do succeed in crashing his system, it's not really HIS system. You'll be shutting down the SERVER that's renting him space, and in so doing, you'll be hurting a lot of innocent people who also rent space there.
6) For you to send out thousands of junk messages wastes your time and costs you money for your online usage. Calling the junk mailer's 800 number, however, is free to you and costs HIM money! (Note, please, that repeatedly calling an 800 number just to harass someone is illegal.)
Junk mailers are getting a lot of attention these days, most of it negative. There have been a lot of lawsuits, and multiple acts of Congress, and lots of bad publicity, and the spammers are starting to run out of options. Eventually, one of the anti-spam bills will pass, or some federal judge will rule that junk e-mail is already illegal under the same statute that forbids junk faxes. Once that happens, ALL JUNK MAILERS will be shut down.
Until that time comes:
Revenge has NEVER been an effective means of resolving conflict. Be patient. Be polite. Follow procedure. If you don't get results, express your displeasure in responsible ways:
First: contact the junk mailer AS DIRECTLY AS POSSIBLE. Do NOT send e-mail. CALL THEM - BY PHONE - DURING THE WORK WEEK. DO NOT LEAVE A MESSAGE ON A MACHINE. YOU MUST SPEAK TO A LIVE OPERATOR. Ask to be removed from the list, calmly and politely. If you have more than one e-mail address, tell them so! (This particularly applies to PRODIGY MEMBERS WITH NETNAMES!)
Second: complain (calmly and politely) to whoever is renting server space to the junk mailer. This can often be done through an e-mail message addressed to postmaster@(whatever).com.
Third: contact the companies that are advertising their services through the junk mailer. Tell them (calmly and politely) that junk e-mail costs you money and you want the ads to stop. Point out to them that unhappy people do not make good customers.
Fourth: call the Better Business Bureau, your congressman, your local TV station, your consumer rights advocate, and/or anybody else you can think of. Make it known (calmly, politely, but FIRMLY) that junk e-mail is NOT to be tolerated.
Have faith.
Be determined.
WE ARE GOING TO WIN THIS FIGHT.
The Almost Totally Unofficial Florrie Dugger Fan Club!
Are You a Free Thinker?
Fight the Outrage!
Do you need money?
A Visual Interpretation Test
Guess Who's Speaking!
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