I have been thinking of using my real e-mail address.What are the pro's and con's of doing it?

-- Maggie (aaa@aaa.com), November 28, 1999

Answers

Maggie,

Can you say SPAM? Don't use a personal E-mail. Go to www.hotmail.com and set up a free e-mail address just for this forum. I did this a couple of weeks ago. That way if you start getting spammed all the time, it won't be your primary account that is getting slammed.

I used my home e-mail at first when I started here, and my e-mail was getting trashed, big time. Now, with the hotmail account, I don't worry about it. Also, do not put your personal information in the form when you fill out the application.

snoozin' on the porch...

The Dog

-- The Dog (dogdesert@hotmail.com), November 28, 1999.

I went to the hot mail site and read all the legal mumbo jumbo,it sorta scared me off.Thank you,for telling me not to use my home E- Mail.I don't really understand the word spam,is it people trying to sell you things?I guess you can you tell that I am sorta new to all this E-Mail stuff?

-- Maggie (song bird@iwon.com), November 28, 1999.

I use my personal email and I have never been spammed (yet). Neither have I ever been emailed; not even from someone at Hotmail.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 28, 1999.

Maggie,

I have not found that there was an increase
in SPAM because of using a real email address.
I would suggest that you use an online email
account that can be easily dropped if there
is a problem. Hotmail is run by Microsoft and
is heavily intrusive of your privacy rights.
There are many other good sources. The advantage
to having a real email address is that any time
someone posts to an old posting you can read
the reply without having to find it again on the
forum. Also this gives people a chance to send
you personal replies.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), November 28, 1999.

I used to use my "real" email address (that is, the one given to me by my ISP). The only reason I'm now using hotmail is so I can check my mail at work or from a friend's computer. I have not gotten any spam at either address except for a little from sites where I registered or bought something, and I don't really consider that spam.

-- biker (y2kbiker@hotmail.com), November 28, 1999.

Speaking as a Hotmail user with about 20 different Hotmail accounts,

I hate using Hotmail- however, its FREE.
I use the different accounts specifically for tracking SPAM.
Hotmail asks you to answer all kinds of questions which I fill in with fake info.

As for getting SPAM from or because I have a Hotmail account, this is patently false, I only get SPAM on the accounts that I have used in public forums like this, and elsewhere on the web, USENET and even the "link" on a web page I have that was harvested by 'bots.

I got the reply address you see (which of course, is a real address) specifically for this forum and the TB2000 main forum.

Actually I started using it first at the other TB forum and immediately got subscribed to a White Supremecists mailing list. then I just started getting on several "lists". So this email account gets SPAM, not a lot, 2-3 per day tops.

I do not know if this is due to automagic name-harvesting, or if there are certain individuals (such as those that were recently banned from posting here) that just added my name to some list somewhere's for fun.

If you use your real address, you can insert something that has to be removed before it will work as an email address
Example: Realaddress@hotmail.comXXX or Realaddress@hotmail.comREMOVE I would have emailed you this, but of course, your email is fake, or so you thought, actually you are using the DOMAIN (aaa.com) of:
American Automobile Association (AAA-DOM)
1000 Triple AAA Drive
Heathrow, FL 32746

If you are going to use a fake email address, be sure its really fake.

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), November 28, 1999.

Maggie, I too have never been spammed, but it probably is only a matter of time. I have a "web mail" account at Netscape and another at www.deja.com. both are free and work pretty well and you can access your accounts from any computer on the globe with an internet connection. Occasionally someone may want to respond to your posts in private, (There are probably many thousand people who read this forum and never post) just because they don't want to open up too much to the whole lurking world.

A number of my internet friends have gone to mailcity.com for email accounts and like it a great deal.

Cheers,

-- Roger (pecosrog@earthlink.net), November 28, 1999.

I went to iwon and got a free E-mail address.I will see how it goes,I could always change if need be.

I clicked on something on my web page and got a call by the next night from a credit card company,who was associated with what I clicked on.I also got something in the mail from them,wanting me to sign up for the service,plus another web related thing in the mail from someone else.I knew it wasn't just a fluke,but I didn't know how they got my name and address.

Thank you all,for your suggestions and help.I really appreciate it.

-- Maggie (song bird@iwon.com), November 28, 1999.