Who can anyone go to about these aggressive scammer/telemonkeys?

Factual Questions
1

I realise this is a desperate last resort, but since all of you guys have proven in the past to be the most level-headed/non-troll/generally WISE bunch of people it just occurred to me that perhaps THIS is the place to ask this – sorry if I’ve mis-chosen!

I’ve been on the Internet since 1995. I am not a newbie. I’ve seen scams come and go; I receive about 300 spam emails a day which are all thankfully (well, 99%) removed by a cool spam filter, but yet the bastards keep coming.

I’m sure each and every one of you have received and email from mylife.com, saying (threatening) that people are searching for you, your private info is all over the Internet, yada yada and oh, just pay us $16.95 per month and we will see to it that your private info will be removed yada yada . . . I’m sure you know the drill.

It’s the old “You have to opt-out” strategy that’s as old as the hills, but I’m truly PISSED OFF at these jerks in particular. I called their 800 number and pretty much told them where to shove it – it’s obviously an India-based call center (boiler room?) but even though I kept berating the idiot over the phone she kept referring to “your account” – even though I have no such thing – and I pretty much had to summon every f-word in the book to get her to just remove me permanently from their database.

But what about people who don’t have my kind of savvy? What about elderly people who are really, suddenly concerned that they might be targets of identity thieves because of the fake bullshit mylife.com is shoving in their faces every day?

Isn’t there some law to shut down these assholes?

I’m in Canada, ferchrissakes, yet they still manage to hassle me here. Where does one go to shut people like these up, like permanently?

Just because I may have posted my email address online like, 8 years ago, how can I undo that?

Isn’t there some kind of class-action lawsuit I can join, or set up some spam-generating emails on MY side that inundates their servers with huge amounts of emails to clog up THEIR networks?

I figure, if anyone is going to have answers to these questions, it’s gonna be here.

Cartoon of man with steam erupting from both ears

Happy Messhuginahs, by the way. Whatever these holidays are called this year.

2

When I rule the world, these people will be first to face the firing squad.

I have lost customers at my computer shop because they think they are getting these emails due to a failure of my virus cleanups or incorrect configuration of a windows reload causing a security breach. Two even went out and bought new computers because the one I built for them a couple yeas back obviously had security issues for this kind of “problem” to occur.

3

It’s probably bad luck to say it, but I don’t recall ever getting email from these people.

Maybe it’s because my private info (like everyone’s) is all over the internet, but no one is searching for me. :frowning:

4

I don’t get this shit either.

Maybe it’s because I never put very much of my private info all over the internet? :wink:

5

Ditto. I’ve had the same email address since 1996, and on a really bad day I might get ten spams. I have NO spam filter running, because too often I’ve had legit email end up there.

And, by the way, I don’t have any funny characters in my email address. It is my first name, middle initial, and last name. No digits, no punctuation of any kind. Any robot with a list of common names would generate it easily. I really wonder where the OP posts it that it got so popular for the spammers.

6

Tempted to live dangerously and see what happens if I netsurf over to mylife.com, since I too have never had any spam from them. However, although I do check out questionable sites occasionally, taking careless advantage of the fact that I use Linux rather than Windows, I think I’ll leave that one be. I get other spam, but maybe 5-10 a day.

As to the general question the OP asked. It is in many cases against the law (but are you SURE you never gave your e-mail address to an organization that said in itsy-bitsy print “we may give your e-mail address to affiliated companies with products that may interest you” or something equally vague), but damned difficult to enforce, especially given the much greater nastiness going on with cybercrime these days. You’d basically have to sue mylife.com to get anything accomplished.

7

Pretty much- dont do this. Dont “unsubscribe” to dodgy emails either.