Earlier this week, I posted about one of our customers whose email was hacked and all kinds of problems ensued. (Hacking Email) I found out that one of the people who received the fake email replied to it with the word “No.” This person knew the email was a fake and, I guess, wanted to give the hacker a “piece of her mind.” The question is: was that okay to do? In short, that would be a “no.” There are a number of reasons why you should NEVER reply to an email that you know is fake.

First, the hacker actually has no clue as to the validity of an email address he or she stole from an account. Once you reply, though, you’ve told the hacker the address is valid. Now, your address might be sold to others and spam and other attacks may come your way.

Additionally, when you reply, you give the hacker a ton of information. Every email has what’s called a “header.” In most cases, you don’t see the information that is contained inside this area of your email. Here is an example of an email header:

In this example, I’ve replaced some of the numbers with the letter X so there’s no funny business. Also, this is not the entire header – this is less than 50% of it.

Granted, for most of us, when we look at the header, it’s all Greek to us. (Or, would that be “all Geek?” However, to some hackers, there might be a wealth of information inside. Thus, you shouldn’t reply to an email that you know is fake.

It’s true that on YouTube, you can find one man (James Veitch) who loves to reply to scam emails. In fact, he has several videos posted about it. If you want to have a good laugh, here’s one of them: