Bill Myers

Each week when I send out this tip, I usually get a few autoresponder messages that say, 'We will be out of town until March 12, and won't be replying to our email until we get back.'

People who set their email programs to send these kinds of messages when they are traveling think they are doing a smart thing. But in fact, they are doing a very dangerous thing.

Recently, it was discovered that spammers have been sending blank spam messages hoping to receive the 'I'm out of town' autoreply message set by vacationing computer users. Using this information, the spammers were often able to locate the home or business address of the person who is out of town. This gave them (or their associates) the opportunity to drive up to an empty home or office, stealing everything in it.

If you are going to use autoresponder messages at all, keep them very generic. Indicate only that the incoming email has been received and that you will answer shortly. DO NOT indicate that you are on vacation or that you are not at home/in your office. The same holds true for telephone answering machine messages.

Telling the world that you are away from your home or office is not a good thing to do. (If you expect to be away, you might even want to set up a web based security cam as shown in my article at Easy Guide to Setting up a Web Cam Security System )