Have you received spam e-mail that appears to be sent to you from me?
But I am not spamming you. I wouldn’t, even if I knew how.
There are a lot of very intelligent people out there in the world, who do not necessarily use their skills for the common good.
I have been the victim of a spamming for some time now.
What the spammers do is use my primary e-mail as the reply address when they mass-spam lists of people.
Where do they get the lists? Why are they using my e-mail? What is the point of all of this?
None of these answers are forthcoming.
At first, I was upset. I felt victimized. I was angry. I wanted to know what I could do about it.
I also wanted to strike back…because they were using my identity to do their dirty work.
After all the time I have spent building up my reputation, spammers could just swoop in and ruin my name with one click of the “send” button.
That stinks.
Initially, I felt threatened by their misuse of my identity.
I realized I could go to great lengths to try and correct the situation, and to try and protect my e-mail addresses from spammers in the future.
But there is no guarantee that I can protect my e-mail addresses from falling into the hands of spammers now or in the future.
So, I’ve chosen to change my attitude about the situation instead.
I am powerless over spammers, the same way I am powerless over the behavior of anyone. And since I am not the one who is doing anything wrong, I have decided to let the whole thing go.
So if you get an e-mail that appears to be sent from me, it isn’t. It’s sent by a spammer.
I don’t know how they got their hands on your address. I don’t know why they think spamming is the best use of their time and energy. I don’t know what brought them to this level of desperation.
But I do know that I don’t have any energy for them beyond sharing this information with you.
And I would encourage you to ignore them, too.
If you are a victim of spammers, I am sorry. I know how it feels. It really does stink. But don’t let it ruin your day, okay?