Somebody knows my IP address and is sending bad emails. Can you help me close my account?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #9, I explore the prevalence of spam, how to close a web-based
email account, and why closing an email account will not likely save you from
unwanted emails.

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IP addresses and spam

So, somebody knowing your IP address has absolutely nothing to do with email that you receive. The two are, for all practical purposes, unrelated.

Email is not sent to an IP address. It’s sent to an email address: you@yahoo.com.

Getting rid of spam

Changing your email address will stop certain types of email that are directed at your old email address, the one you are leaving. The problem is that spam is ubiquitous. Lots of people are sending all kinds of email relating to sex to any email address they can find. So, closing your email account will not, in all likelihood, make that go away.

Closing the account won’t help much

It may change the nature, it may change the amount, it may make it worse, it may make it better: but just switching to a different email account doesn’t do much… unless you have a specific person who is sending you specific email (which, in cases like this, is almost never the case).

Closing your email account isn’t the thing to do. It’s not gonna help; it really isn’t.

If you still want to close the account

Closing the account doesn’t take effect immediately.

If you are still receiving emails on that account, you must be logging into that account: which is telling Yahoo, “No, I don’t want to close this account.”

What you need to do is to close the account (whatever the steps are for Yahoo) and then never, ever login to that account again.

You will not get email from that account because you’re not looking for email.

Like I say, Yahoo, and other online email providers often take the fact that you logged into an email account as a sign that you don’t want it to be closed.

So, submit the closure request and then never, ever check that account for email again.

Next – Why do hackers hack and spammers spam?