[nih]

I've been getting NZ-based spam from someone who sets up their mailing lists manually for a few weeks now. I decided I'd had enough of it when someone tried to sell me an appointment to have my wedding dress fitted yesterday and sent some emails to Xtra's abuse team to get it sorted out.

Anyway, a bit of fairly obvious detective work led me to the conclusion that someone who operated a legitimate mailing list had then started usinbg those gathered addresses to send all sorts of junk about weddings and travel for other companies.

Busted! I had already sent the loathesome bitch an email asking how she had my details prior to figuring it out, and she'd told me I'd had my details 'forwarded to [her] by a colleague who believed you may be interested in receiving press releases.'. This was of course bullshit, and I told her as much, and described how it was obvious she'd pilfered the mailing list from her other employer.

Typical disgusting spammer, she tried the innocent act until the very end, and even tried claiming she hadn't sent any of the emails in question in her last response to me. Yeah, right.

Man I hope we make spam illegal in NZ pretty ****ing soon. And some sort of a bounty for bringing the ****ers in, dead or alive.

[Darkling]

Damn spammers!

Simple email management system.

Keep a safe box to receive email and never give the address to anyone.
Create a different alias forwarding to that box for every list you subscribe to, every site you buy from, etc.
If you start getting spam you can easily trace where you used that alias and, if you get no joy hauling them over the coals, set that alias to bounce.

Of course you do have to keep track of all those aliases.
A spreadsheet should do it.

[nih]

A good plan, and quite doable since I'm only on one mailing list. The only time it's a pain in the ass is when a list or service wants a reply from that actual address, but that is almost never required anymore so someone must have had the same idea as you.

Addenum: I've had direct conversations with kiwis three or four times over their use of spam techniques in the past few years, and I've never seen a deviation from the "I'm not hurting anyone and the laws are stupid" attitude. I wonder if this is a global thing, or if we're just prats here in NZ. My overall feeling now is that people who resort to spam don't have a lot of respect for the rest of the world.