Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 17:30:46 PST Sender: editor@telecom-digest.org From: (Tad Cook) Subject: US Warns Junk E-mailers Against Scam Offerings WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal regulators said Thursday they had warned more than 1,000 senders of junk e-mail not to distribute fraudulent or deceptive offers. The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Postal Service said the warnings followed a review of more than 60,000 questionable e-mail offerings that were forwarded to them by consumers. "The FTC is on the Internet beat and will follow up with spam artists who don't clean up their correspondence," Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's consumer protection division, said. The junk e-mail pitched a wide array of scams, from illegal pyramid investment schemes to bogus job offers and loans. Internet users who received the mail forwarded it to the FTC at a special mailbox, uce+ftc.gov, set up to help track online schemes. While the e-mail pitches reviewed likely violated the law, the agencies lacked the resources to pursue every case, an official explained. Instead, the agencies sought the names and addresses of the senders and issued warnings. The agencies would likely commence legal proceedings if they receive further evidence that a junk e-mailer had ignored the warning, the official said. The move followed a similiar warning issued in 1996 to more than 500 Web site operators promoting pyramid schemes.