Those e-mail scams

Last night was catching up on Saturday's paper, and came across an article about a guy who scams the scammers. Basically, when he gets the ''Dear Sir, I am the solicitor for a large estate and please to need your help in transferring millions of dollars...'', he e-mails them back, strings them along, and often requires them to do wacky things like e-mail photos of themselves holding signs saying ''Ima Scum'', etc. -- for ''identification purposes.''

Has a website -- 419eater.com -- and has written a book containing a number of his e-mail exchanges with these folks, called Greeting in Jesus Name! The Scambaiter Letters.

He's a professional I.T. guy; he advises regular folks to **not** engage these folks, because (1) he and his team ''cloak'' their identities, server locations, etc., and (2) by actually sending e-mail back, your e-mail address gets flagged as a valid address, which will just lead to even more spam being sent your way.


--GG