Q: How are spammers getting my email if I hardly ever use it? I don’t respond to any offers and I want to know if there is way to stop them!

Junk e-mail continues to grow no matter how carefully you conduct yourself online.

Your e-mail address is the online equivalent of our home address or phone number. Once you give it to anyone, it’s impossible to control what will happen with it.

A common misconception about spam e-mail messages is that we somehow have control over whether we get junk messages or not, but we don’t. It’s really no different than physical junk mail in your mailbox; despite our best efforts, it still shows up.

There are a number of ways that your e-mail address can fall into the hands of spammers, but here are some common ones:

Someone you did business with has been breached