View Full Version : email problems
Dick Fisher
11th Dec 2006, 16:09
Recently, I've been getting up to 30 returned emails per day. And they were not sent by me, but apparently by someone using my address.
At first, they used a similar address to my proper one, so I was able to use my ISP to block the name they were using. However, now they're using my "real" name, so that approach is of no use to me.
Do you have any idea how I can; First, stop people using my name as a source for their emails; second, stop the returned mail notification reaching my inbox?
Any advice glady received.
Gertrude the Wombat
11th Dec 2006, 17:36
(1) No, there is no way to do this.
(2) Only by filtering out real bounces as well, which you may or may not wish to do.
There's a background noise of a few per day, which goes up to hundreds for a week or two when someone does a serious joe-job on you, but if you're getting thirty per day over an extended period that's a new one on me.
stickyb
11th Dec 2006, 18:02
Recently, I've been getting up to 30 returned emails per day. And they were not sent by me, but apparently by someone using my address.
Any advice glady received.
What has more than likely happened is that someone who has your address in their address book has been infected by a virus. This virus then sends itself out from their machine, but impersonating you.
If you look at the returned emails you may find a clue as to where it came from.
DF - this is quite common, as G the W says, and extremely tedious! Someone/several have 'harvested' my wife's email address (from a web site, so our fault!:{ ) and are 'forging' the 'from' address on their spams (easy to do) to look like us, so it bounces back. Now't you can do except change your email address. To 'lighten' your inbox, there are a number of progs which download only the 'headers' in your email and will allow deletion after 'inspection' before you download. I and many use 'Mailwasher' and there are several others.
There are ways to 'read' the email header (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=249084 post#3) and seeing true origin but the chances getting it stopped this way are minimal.