Toni, if you're concerned, you can always have your attorney send a cease & desist letter to him, to stop this person's threats. Sorry to hear that. I would not put much stock in these threats. He would have to have a lot of dinero to be able to follow through, and file suits against all the people who have entered negative feedback comments on Garden Watchdog about his company. As long as you have proof to back up your comments, I wouldn't give this another thought. You always have the right to counter-sue to recover your loss, btw. This person would have been told this by his attorneys, that he risks a counter-suit right then and there if he takes someone to court and the court finds in favor of the defendant. Not sure if would want to risk that. I'm not an attorney, but checking with an attorney could certainly give you a bit of piece of mind. Patty S.

But, you have to be logged in to e-mail a post... Do we have that many members that are also spammers? lol Seriously though, only members have access to your e-mail address... I'm fairly certain that any Cooking Forum member who got "The GardenWeb member XXXXX has elected not to receive communications through forms on the site." wouldn't bother trying to send you any mail... Then again, I may be wrong. But if you truly don't want mail from anyone, for any reason, all you have to do is open a Hotmail account or other free e-mail account to use here and only check out that account every two months or so to kill off the mail. Hugs, Rita

I just received one from Stonebridge Life Ins. Co. regarding "Epsilon's breach" in security. However, the email I received asks for no reply. Seems just to be a notification of the Epsilon problem. It reads as follows: "Epsilon Email Issue We were recently informed by Epsilon, a marketing vendor used by Stonebridge Life Insurance Company and its affiliates to send emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to email files of a number of Epsilon�fs clients, including our email lists. For your security, you are receiving this notice from us because Stonebridge Life Insurance Company or its affiliates has sent you information via email in the past using Epsilon as our vendor. What information was accessed? Your email address and first name has been accessed. No other personal information regarding you was accessed. How does this impact you? In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be cautious of unwanted emails, emails that contain links with potential viruses or emails prompting you to provide personal or financial information. We urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties. What is Epsilon doing about this? Epsilon has notified us that they have identified the cause of the breach and have taken the necessary steps to prevent additional data access. Epsilon has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities for investigation. We sincerely regret any concern or inconvenience this may have caused you. Your privacy and the security of your information is a top priority for us. Sincerely, Stonebridge Life Insurance Company and its Affiliates 2700 West Plano Parkway �� Plano, Texas 75075-8200" The above email from Stonebridge made it past my McAfee and personal IP spam filters. I assume it was able to do so as there was no real phishing contained therein? I really didn't think much about opening the email since I receive both personal and business emails through my email address. I think I have been lulled into a false sense of security, relying on McAfee and my IP spam filter to catch spam. Our IP spam filter is so diligent/effective that I have to review the daily reports with a fine tooth comb as emails that I do want to receive have gotten caught up in the IP spam filter. That said, I am fairly certain that I haven't communicated with Stonebridge Life Insurance for any reason, either through the business or personally. Thanks so much for posting this information!

Interesting - I cannot see any date, either on the cautionary message, or on the copy shown of the nefarious email. Which is rather unusual. I also note what appears to me an error in the composition, near the end of the message, something like, we suggest that you print a copy of this message ... the attachment, or such like, but then it continues, " ... and bring it alone to the airport" ... and it should be " ... bring it along to the airport". ole joyful ... getting closer to becoming a suspicious old man