A few months ago, a federal grand jury returned a 26-count indictment against a Pasadena, CA man.
Samuel H. allegedly made threats to harm, rape, and kill 10 women he met through social media.
He sent his victims grisly emails saying things such as: (warning, they are graphic)
“Someone I can guarantee will come out and first bash your head in, rape you, slash your throat and burn your car and house.”
Even after the FBI and local police contacted Samuel he continued to send e-mails to his victims.
He warned his victims that contacting the police would cause the death of their family members.
The Los Angeles Police Department and the Pasadena Police Department arrested him.
The stalking counts and the alleged threats carry a penalty of up to five years in federal prison.
In the U.S., one out of every 12 women and one out of every 45 men are stalking victims at some time in their lives.
It’s estimated that e-mail communications are a factor in at least 20% of stalking cases.
And 41% of adults in the U.S. have been the target of some type of harassment online.
So, when it comes to sharing your e-mail with people online… or responding to sellers on classified ads, you need to be careful.
This is a perfect time to use a burner e-mail address.
A burner e-mail address is simply a disposable email address.
You get a unique email address for every contact, or for a limited number of uses.
The benefit is, if anyone compromises the address you can quickly and easily dispose of the e-mail address.
It’s a great tool to prevent unwanted spam or harassment.
And you never put your main email address at risk…
So, it’s perfect when you don’t yet trust the person or business you’re providing your email to.
Now, here are some of the top “burner e-mail” services…
Burner Mail: Burner Mail protects your privacy by providing you with custom email addresses.
These addresses can forward all incoming emails to your main e-mail account.
If you start getting spam, or no longer want to receive emails from the senders you gave the email address to, you can turn off that burner address.
Then, those specific e-mails won’t go to your true e-mail account.
If you want to receive emails from a burner email again, you can turn it back on.
Burner Mail works with all e-mail service providers.
The free version provides up to five burner e-mail addresses.
The premium version costs $2.99 a month.
10MinuteMail: Oftentimes when you want to read a news article or visit a website, you need to give them your e-mail address.
10MinuteMail is perfect for this scenario and is one of the most popular disposable email providers.
It’s a free service that gives you a temporary email address that expires after ten minutes.
After that, your e-mails are gone from the server.
Once you close the window, your mailbox is gone.
And you never have to use the same email address twice…
That’s because every time you visit, 10MinuteMail generates you a new email address.
10MintueMail is a great choice for avoiding spam e-mails…
Just be sure you don’t need long-term access to a particular email.
EmailOnDeck: EmailOnDeck lets you create a temporary email address in two easy steps.
First, complete the security system check to prove you’re a human.
Once that’s done, you’ll be provided with a fake email ID.
There is no specific time limit for which your email will stay in the Inbox.
Instead, the company wipes their servers periodically.
EmailOnDeck offers a free version that gives you one disposable e-mail address.
With their premium service you can have multiple disposable email addresses, plus the option to save emails to your computer.
The cost for the premium version varies depending on the rate of BitCoin.
So, when you are dealing with someone you meet online but don’t know…
Or a Craigslist advertisement…
Or websites that you don’t trust…
Using a temporary email address is a safe option and can shield you from being harassed.
