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After receiving a number of abusive and offensive phone calls, having his email address deluged with unsolicited messages, his cellphone swamped with text messages and his life generally made a misery, the spammer threw up his hands and shouted "I give in."

This was very interesting, particularly in light of his bravado and unrepentant dismissal of people's anger at spam just a week or so earlier.

From this we can conclude that anti-spam vigilanteism obviously works -- at least in some cases.

Similar "attacks" against "outed" spammers in the USA have shown a more variable result -- but generally it seems that giving a spammer a taste of their own medicine at least provides some satisfaction to those dishing out the revenge.

But when it comes to "educating" spammers through a bit of retribution, how far is too far?

The reason I ask is that I (and a number of other NZers) yesterday received a spam from Dennis Lines of Australia.

Dennis offered to show me the quick road to riches through is wonderful "opportunity" that had a 100% money-back guarantee, involved no bookwork or collecting money and represented "NO FINANCIAL RISK!"

Be still my beating heart!

Now if this spam simply contained the postal address of a serviced office or post-office box somewhere then I'd have filed it in my huge folder of similar dross -- but this was a little different.

I suspect that poor old Dennis is one of those victims who've been sold a lemon by some other fast-typing spammer.

You see, Dennis is planning to come out to NZ and meet those who might wish to avail themselves of his wonderful "opportunity" to become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Does Dennis know what he's getting into? I don't know -- because he hasn't replied to my email yet.

Will some of those who he's spammed reply to his message and organise to meet with him when he comes out on September 15? If so, will some of those respondents be anti-spam vigilantes bent on "dealing to" him?

Let's hear from Aardvark readers. What would be the most appropriate way to deal with someone like Dennis?

For my part, I've added his email address to my payback page and I'm certainly not about to ring him (his number is + 61-8-9345 0040) or engage in any other anti-spam vigilanteism -- but will you or anyone you know?

Just where do we draw the line in "educating" spammers and should the idiots who spam be treated any different to the career spammers -- or should they all be treated the same to show other would-be spammers what to expect?

If any Aardvark readers want to share an opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

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