You get a message you did not ask for. You write back: "Please remove me" or "This is not for me."

Do not.

Why replying makes it worse.

A reply tells the sender your address is live and that a person reads it. That makes the address worth more. It gets kept, passed along, and sold.

The reply almost never reaches a human. Spam comes from forged or throwaway addresses. Your message goes nowhere, or to a stranger who now knows you exist.

Replying can also break your email.

A client wrote back to a spam message last week. Her spam filter caught the reply and blocked it. The message could not leave, so it sat in her Outbox and kept trying.

From her side, email stopped working. She saw an "unknown error." Nothing was wrong with her computer or her account. One stuck message was the whole problem.

If your email program says it cannot send and you do not know why, open the Outbox folder. If something is sitting there, that is likely the cause.

In Outlook: open the Outbox folder, open the stuck message, and delete it or move it to Drafts. Then try sending again. If it will not let go, click Send/Receive, then Work Offline, and turn it off and on again.

Unsubscribing depends on who sent it.

If the message is from a company you know, a store or a bank or a newsletter you signed up for, unsubscribe. Legitimate senders are supposed to honor it.

If the message is from someone you do not know, do not click unsubscribe. A link like that can confirm your address is real, or take you to a fake page. Delete the message or mark it as junk.

A quick test: did you ever give this sender your address? If not, treat the unsubscribe link as a link in any other spam. Do not click it.

What to do instead.

Mark it as junk. That tells your email program to treat the next one the same way. Part 3 covers how in each program.

Do not reply. Do not click anything. Do not forward it to friends to warn them.

If it looks like a scam, one that wants money or a password, see [How to Spot a Fake Email: The 3-Second Check].

If your email will not send and nothing makes sense, call me. I can look at it with you.

Tomorrow: Part 3, Teach the Filter.