Barry- This was true until recently that the non-paid AOL accounts just sat there. With AOL's "free" email accounts (which would be any account you are not currently paying for) they DO now go in and delete/inactivate those old unused accounts from time to time. In fact, they recently notified all current paying AOLers that lots of usernames had been freed up if we wanted to try and see if ones we couldn't have in the past were now available. So it may take time for an old unused username to no longer be associated with you (meaning Bette) but it will happen. Until then, she should make sure that all of her acquaintances and any mailing lists or other places that had the old AOL address know that she is no longer using it and that they have her current email contact information. Joan In a message dated 9/24/2010 7:28:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: AFAIK AOL e-mail accounts are for life but if you don't use it at all for a while they may just delete it at some point. Either way, if you've locked out the spammers then job done :-)