[Rob M]

There is a small problem with sending these things back.

Often you will find that the address they appear to have come from isn't actually where they originated from, the poor person who's address they appear to have been coming from will already be being inundated with bounced emails from addresses that don't exist - sending these emails back simply compunds the problem.

You should also realise that most of these emails have an identifier buried in them. This means that, in the unlikely even that you do send one back to the address that it actually originated from, they can use the identifier to work out which email address they originally sent the spam to. This means that, regardless of the fact that you've used a '3rd party' email address to send your reply, they still now know that the original address was a valid one - so you'll just end up with more junk.

The very BEST thing that you can do is to install some good anti-spam software and just delete the whole lot. Don't reply, don't forward, don't open, just delete.