Stopping Unwanted Solicitations

1) Phone call solicitations:
"You have been approved to refinance your home," the recorded voice told me when I answered the phone. Umm, I don't have a home to refinance (well, a rented apartment can be every bit a "home", but it doesn't need financing by the tenant). And there wasn't any way we would be approved for refinancing at that particular moment in time, even if we had a mortgage to refinance. But there was no one to tell any of that to, only a rude, automated interruption to my busy day, occurring on a daily basis. So I did a search, filled out a form, and today I don't receive unsolicited phone calls.

Whatever solicitations you receive, you can eliminate most of them...all but the ones from charitable institutions. All you have to do is go to the website of the National Do Not Call Registry and you can submit your number by phone or online.

2) Unsolicited emails (spam):
No, I don't have as easy an answer to this one, but I ldid learn something new about this today! I always wondered why some bloggers have their email addressed listed as so-and-so at such-and-such dot com, with the "at" and the "dot" written out as words instead of putting in the @ and . symbols. I just learned that this is called masking and eliminates spammers from lifting your email address from your blog or website. The article by Gina Hughes at Yahoo Tech gives other spam-protection tips as well.