October 20, 2005: You should be scared of spam-bots missions that complete orders with free e-mail account addresses this Halloween. Products in your estore are at risk and 'Free Email Accounts' are often an indicator. Free email accounts are often used in fraudulent activity such as stolen credit cards, bank accounts and company credit information.

If you own a website with an estore, beware of users with free email address accounts. Many emails with the intent to fraud use 'Free Email Accounts' such as hotmail, yahoo and gmail. 'Free Email Accounts' are easy to setup and easy to dispose of after completing a spam-bot mission.

Fact: Not all orders from free email accounts are fraudulent. But, fraudulent emails, overwhelmingly come from 'Free Email Accounts' . 'Free Email Accounts' have been such a problem with business to business sites that many B to B websites won't accept free email accounts to transact business.

At minimum: Verify that the email address really goes to the intended recipient of the product ordered. This will at least assure you that you are taking to a real person and not a 'bot' running 'scripts' on your estore or product inquiry form.

There are over 1 billion malicious 'bots' on the web that do nothing but deliver spam services to every email and website order form findable on the internet. Here's why: An unscrupulous programmer who asked not to be identified explained the logic behind the huge influx of spam: "When I create one bot, it goes on a mission 24-7. That bot will find at least one thing to exploit every hour of every day. I don't just make one bot and neither do my friends."

Bottom line: Verify before working a lead or shipping a product. It could be worse than a waste of time.