AUTOMATED REPLY MESSAGES AMONG END USER COMMUNICATION DEVICES

An exemplary method processes an electronic communication received by a first end-user communication device. A communication, received by the first end-user communication device, is a digital message sent from a second end-user device. A message processing program includes an auto-reply generation method that is active to automatically transmit a predetermined reply message to another device upon receipt of a message from it. A list of origination addresses to which the predetermined reply message has previously been transmitted is stored in memory. On receipt of the digital message from the second end-user device, a determination is made if the origination address of the second end-user device is in the list of origination addresses. If it is in the list of origination addresses, the auto-reply generation method is inhibited from transmitting the predetermined reply message. If it is not in the list of origination addresses, the origination address of the second end-user device is added to the list and the auto-reply generation method is permitted to transmit the predetermined reply message to the origination address of the second end-user device.