The reason being is that the spammer is spoofing a removal address, as do most of them. The best advice I can give anyone is to never respond to an unsolicited email. If you do not wish to go to the trouble to report it to, say, spamcop, then just delete it. Responses to unsolicited email only confirms your email address is good, and will subject you to an even heavier spew of the junk mail. ====================================== We can get rid of spam on your domain! , Anti-spam solutions http://www.clickdoug.com/mailfilter.cfm For hosting solutions http://www.clickdoug.com ====================================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "joe" <joej@rocknyou.com> To: <nanog@merit.edu> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 10:31 PM Subject: Spam handling : : Ok so I send an email to a friend at SBC. Here's the result. : : The original message was received at Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:23:51 -0400 : from pc2.rocknyou.com [192.168.1.28] : : ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- : <myfriend223@ameritech.net> : (reason: 553 5.3.0 DNSBL:To request removal of,[xx.xx.xxx.111],send an : E-mail to removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net) : : ----- Transcript of session follows ----- : ... while talking to mx1-klmzmi.klmzmi.ameritech.net.: : >>> MAIL From:<joej@rocknyou.com> : <<< 553 5.3.0 DNSBL:To request removal of,[xxx.xxx.xx.177],send an E-mail to : removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net : 501 5.6.0 Data format error : : Ok, I send an email to to removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net : result: : : The original message was received at Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:24:09 -0400 : from pc2.rocknyou.com [192.168.1.28] : : ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- : <removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net> : (reason: 550 5.0.0 Access denied) : : ----- Transcript of session follows ----- : ... while talking to mx.dia.sbcglobal.net.: : >>> MAIL From:<joej@rocknyou.com> : <<< 550 5.0.0 Access denied : 554 5.0.0 Service unavailable : : Nice, why bother advertising such a removal via email? : : Cheers : -Joe : : :