The Checker Maven has suffered from what computer geeks call "a joe job." It's an almost universal spammer's trick: they take an email address or domain name found on the internet, and then use that address as a phony "from" address for millions of spam emails. The idea is that bounced and undeliverable mail, and especially angry complaints, won't get forwarded back to the spammer, but instead go to the address that the spammer "borrowed."

Believe us when we tell you The Checker Maven hasn't been sending out solicitations to buy pirated software or the like! Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this rash of spam mail which some low-life has sent out in our name.