How can someone use my email address to send me or others junk/spam emails?

1. 82

   Abby Campbellposted 11 years ago

   How can someone use my email address to send me or others junk/spam emails?
   
   A few months ago, I had a friend tell me that she was constantly receiving junk emails with my address as the sender. I figured that those spammers were using my email as their name to get people to open their emails. However, I started getting emails from spammers with my own address. As I move them to my block list, I go through confirmation before actually blocking them. Lo and behold, my email is not only used as a sender's name but has actually been used as the incoming email address. How can this be? And, what can I do about it? I don't want my real emails being blocked from clients.

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2. 60

   LindaSmith1posted 11 years ago

   Did you sign up to make money supposedly from a site like fan box?  This is exactly what that site and others do.

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      Abby Campbellposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi LindaSmith1. No, I haven't signed up for any sites like that that I know of. But, then again... certain signup lists for other things can sign one up unknowingly and without permission. It's so frustrating! Thanks for your comment.

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      LindaSmith1posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Abby: Ones like the one I mentioned require you to give email, FB etc and even cell phone number to join.  This is why companies require password changes every few months.  Search email has been hijacked in search engine. Tons of information.

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   3. 82

      Abby Campbellposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I will search and change my passwords too. This is such a pain in the butt! LOL.

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3. 60

   duffsmomposted 11 years ago

   It may be a virus. It gets into your address contact list and begins to send spam emails.  OR--your email account has been hacked and your contact list hijacked. This happened to me a long while ago and my daughter still gets emails from my email address that are total SPAM and certainly not from me.
   
   If it is virus it can be dealt with but if your contact list was hijacked, you may have to change your email address.

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   1. 82

      Abby Campbellposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you, duffsmom. I would have never thought it was a virus because I have a pretty good anti-virus program. I don't understand how my email list would be hijacked, but I do use MailChimp and Outlook... just never know.

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      duffsmomposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. I know it seems impossible. My email account was hacked and the only way I knew it was a note from Yahoo telling me that someone had accessed from Turkey!  So I changed my password.  But the emails started going out to my contact list.

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4. 71

   Thief12posted 11 years ago

   Be sure to check your computer for malware, contact your e-mail provider for any help they might offer, and then contact your clients to apologize for the inconvenience.

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   1. 82

      Abby Campbellposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you, Thief12. I will do that. :-)

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5. 82

   Abby Campbellposted 11 years ago

   I've done some research to find out if's it a virus, malware, or something that I've signed up for. What I've found is that it's "spoof" emails. There is nothing that can be done about it, and it happens to the best of us. However, it's good to know that it's not a virus or malware. Thanks for answering, Everyone!

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6. 61

   Oneitposted 11 years ago

   More often when people receive junk emails claiming to be from you, it is because someone you know who has your email and details in their address book has been infected with a virus.
   
   So for instance if Tom's PC was hacked and he had Jenny, Sally and John's emails in his address book. Then the virus would send emails to Sally and John but they would say the sender was Jenny when it's actually Tom's PC that's hacked.
   
   The other thing that might have happened is someone has hacked your password for your Webmail. And they are actually sending it straight from there, you would definitely need to consider changing that password.
   
   You can often work out where the problem is by inspecting the headers of the email, which can be a bit tricky if you don't know what you're looking for.
   
   Use this tool to help analyze your email headers: http://mxtoolbox.com/EmailHeaders.aspx
   
   And see this tutorial about how to get the headers out of your emails: http://mxtoolbox.com/Public/Content/EmailHeaders/

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