"In your newsletter on August 13, 2003, Angie Keating inquired how to
combat spammers forging her email address for sending their spam.
"I encountered the same problem with an affiliate of [name of offending
company]. I went directly to the website of the company, not the spammer
but the company's home website. I sent a formal complaint to the owner
copying the web address of the spamming affiliate. I explained what happened
and expected them to discontinue the affiliation of the involved person
and to post a notice to their affiliates that using a false e-mail address
to send spam was against company policy.
"The spamming continued. I sent a second email to the owner as well as
the marketing director and the person in charge of the website. Still
no resolution. I then filed a complaint with the U.S. Attorney General's
office. I wrote all three of the above people once more and told them
that I had filed the complaint and that I was in the process of contacting
all the large search engines to request that their website be dropped.
Further that I would inform the search engine folks that [name of offending
company] refused to reply to my complaint and refused to take any measure
against the affiliate. I have not had a problem since. I never received
a letter of apology from [name of offending company] but at least the
spamming has ended. Angie might want to try this approach." -- Mary Findley,
Mary Moppins Cleaning
Systems
