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Tips what to do if you received spam

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• If a company you trust, such as your credit card company or bank, appears to ask for personal information, check into it further. Call the company using a number you retrieve yourself from the back of your credit card, a bill, phone book, or the like—not a number from the email message. If it’s a legitimate request, the company’s customer service department should be able to help you.
• Think twice before opening attachments or clicking links in email or instant messages, even if you know the sender. If you cannot confirm with the sender that an attachment or link is safe, delete the message. If you must open an attachment that you’re less than sure about, save it to your hard disk first so that your antivirus software can check it before you open it.
• Don’t buy anything or give to any charity promoted through spam. Spammers often swap or sell the email addresses of those who have bought from them, so buying something through spam may result in even more spam.
  Plus, spammers can make their living (and a lucrative one, too) on people’s purchases of their offerings. Resist the temptation to buy products through spam, and help to put spammers out of business.
  Criminals use spam to prey on people’s desire to help others. If you receive an email request from a charity you’d like to support, avoid donation scams by calling the organization directly to find out how to contribute.
• Don’t forward chain email messages. Not only do you lose control over who sees your email address, but you also may be furthering a hoax or aiding in the delivery of a virus.
  Plus, there are reports that spammers start chain letters expressly to gather email addresses. If you don’t know whether a message is a hoax or not, a site like Hoaxbusters can help you separate fact from fiction.
• There’s no other choice, if you have to, you can shut your spam-ladened email address for a temporary time or permanently, and don’t forget to let your acquaintances know in advance your new email address to keep in touch. The spammers will receive a bounce back email notifying them that your email address doesn’t exist and will sooner or later “unsubscribe” your email address from their spam list.

Meanwhile preventive precautions taken may be as the following.

Tips to avoid or minimize your mailbox ladened with spam

• Use a secondary, not your main primary email address, for your casual daily use such as: mailing list, newsletter subscriptions, My Space, Friendster, etc. In case something goes wrong, and you got lots of spams there, it’s only your non-primary email address and you may shut it down anytime. Many providers of free email address to use: Yahoo, MSN / Hotmail, Gmail.
• Disguise your email address when you post it to a newsgroup, chat room, bulletin board, or other public web pages, for example, johan AT example DOT com, Mary [at] example [dot] Net, etc. This way, a person can interpret your address, but the automated programs that spammers use often cannot.
• Only share your primary email address with people you know. Avoid listing your email address in large Internet directories and job-posting Web sites. Don’t even post it on your own Web site (unless you disguise it as described above).
• Set up an email address dedicated solely to Web transactions. Consider using a free email service to help keep your primary email address private. When you get too much spam there, simply drop it for a new one.
• Create an email name that’s tough to crack. Try a combination of letters, numbers, and other characters—Don2Funk9@example.com or J0e_Y0ng@example.com (substituting zero for the letter “O”). Research shows that people with such names get less junk email. But your email may not be easy to memorize nor spell by your acquaintances as well.
• Watch out for pre-checked boxes. When you buy things online, companies sometimes pre-select check boxes by which you indicate that it’s fine to sell or give your email address to responsible parties. Clear the check box if you don’t want to be contacted.

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