Unfortunately, a lot of those who post negative comments in forums, either have no clue what they are talking about, or are just too lazy to actually take a moment to read how the software works. Many just want to make themselves sound important and have everyone admire them for what they regurgitated from another uninformed individual, and feel that since they have a little bit of knowledge, that this makes a "computer expert". Nothing could be farther from the truth, because it is sad that there is so much truth to the saying 'a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing'. And of course, in some cases there have even been spammers trying to discredit anti-spam efforts, because of course they don't like people getting back at them (go figure!).

To address the most common misconceptions that we've seen posted in forums, we will address them one by one.

• "Oh my! Spammers use fake return addresses, so how could the software ever get a real spammers address?"
  
  The software uses 'verified' spammers addresses -- it does not simply extract them from e-mail headers -- because of course, 99.9% of the time the return addresses that spammers use are fake. However, there are many, many ways of getting a spammers real address, from something as simple as actually visiting the spammers website and looking for contact information (and of course, doing some checks to ensure it is a live & real address), to doing more sophisticated programming techniques, which of course we don't divulge here (but if you are a programmer, you are probably aware of them). So no, only 'real' spammers addresses, that go to the spammers e-mail box, are entered into the database. And it is actually rather funny, with this software, there have been a number of spammers who have closed there e-mail accounts -- seems they don't like getting their message sent back to them -- imagine that!
  
  
• "Oh my! Can spammers get your e-mail address and then spam you back?!?! Oh my, what shall you ever do?!?"
  
  Again, it would be nice if people who posted comments like these actually read how the software works. First of all, many people are not aware that there are multiple ways of sending e-mail -- and the fact that you can actually send an e-mail with a different address than your own, or use a free e-mail account. First of all, when you use the Type III defense against spammers, this software does not use your e-mail address, so the spammers cannot extract your e-mail address from any message you send. Second of all, unless you were a mass emailer sending out unsolicited messages yourself selling products or services, it would be highly unlikely/next to impossible that a spammer could find your e-mail address. But again, if you felt uncomfortable with this defense mechanism, you still have many others to choose from. It should also be noted that "spam" is when someone sends you an unsolicited message for the purpose of getting you to purchase products or services. If you reply back to a solicitation, it would be absurd to call that spam, as that would be like saying a friend who replied back to your e-mail invitation, saying sure they'd love to go the ball game with you, would be 'spam'.
  
  
• "Oh my! This software only sends e-mails back??? Is that true??!?"
  
  Again, another popular misconception, and it would be nice if forum posters that make comments like this actually learned how to read. This software has numerous defense mechanisms, one of which is sending e-mail back to the spammer (and again, to re-iterate, your e-mail address it not sent back to them). However, if you were not comfortable with this, you can always use the other defense mechanisms, such as the one that simulates visiting the spammers website (after all, the spammer sent you a message inviting you to do so), or automatically filling out forms on the spammers website (again, they invited you to do so).