Web-based e-mail

Because many free e-mail services do not require valid identifying information, and also allow communication with many victims in a short span of time, they are the preferred method of communication for scammers. Some services go so far as to mask the sender's source IP address, making the scammer completely untraceable even to country of origin. Scammers can create as many accounts as they wish and often have several at a time. In addition, if e-mail providers are alerted to the scammer's activities and suspend the account, it is a trivial matter for the scammer to simply create a new account to resume scamming.