When Spammers Use YOUR E-Mail Address?

AlphaOne asks: "Is there any legal recourse (in California or otherwise) for a spammer sending mail out with MY e-mail address as the forged 'from'? I have received an (only one for now, thankfully) 'undeliverable' message for an e-mail I never sent. Upon closer investigation, it looks like a bounce from a much larger mailing for a porn site. To make matters worse, the message is JavaScript encoded and I had to spend about 30 minutes decoding the message just to figure out who the spammer could potentially be. I'm confident I know at least who was paying for the spamming, but I may not be able to directly track down the spammer him/herself (as is so often the case). Does anyone know of a precident in a case like this? Is it worth litigating if I get bombarded with bounces, hate-mail, removal requests, or anything else?" SPAM is one thing, but cowardly spammers who have to use someone else's address for their crap advertisements is something else. What can one do in this situation?

Comments

Contact a Lawyer, and The Police

[scotpurl]

This is a plain theft-of-identity case. They used your name, engaged in public activity that made you look bad, and it's going to cost you time and money to clean it up. (Start keeping a diary of when you work on something, and how long.) Also start contacting ISP's. Yours is a great first stop. Have them pull logs and such, and archive them. That's part of the proof that you did nothing.

Civil suit is fastest, as the Police in some parts of the country are either "duh" or "we're understaffed." Jourisdiction is another one. Civil suits have a wonderful way of cutting across boundaries.

Yeah, you'll spend a coupla grand on a lawyer, but I'll pledge $100 for your lawyer fund, right now.