Genealogy Chat

Can anyone tell me how someone who sends spam e-mails which are really awful but the main problem is they look like they are coming from my e-mail address just with a few letters in the address changed, how can that be.

Betty

Hello David,

I do understand what you are saying about the sender BUT the sender uses my e-mails address as there's if you follow me. I can't block it or I wouldn't get any mail.
Both there e-mail address and mine are the same apart from two letters.
Sorry I know this sounds strange most spam e-mail comes from another e-mail address nothing like mine.

Betty

Hi Ann,

The e-mail address that this rogue is using in my e-mail addres except they changed 2 letters in it. Thats why I can't block their e-mails, I did try and didn't receive any e-mail at all for 3 days, then I unblocked it and had 30 e-mails from other people who I know but I could receive the friends e-mails without unblocking this rogue address.

Ann I am sending you a PM to let you see what I mean.

Betty

Hi David,

Thanks again for your reply!

This is not my e-mail address but just to give you an idea of what I mean.

say my e-mail address is

[email protected]

they send it to that me like this it comes to
[email protected]

and they send it to me at that address and it says it comes from exactly the same address [email protected]

Betty

Glad you have brought this up... I have corresponded to a Genes member for a couple of years through our regular email addresses and not by pm.

For I while now I'm been getting annoying spam (nothing nasty) from her regular hotmail account. This stopped after I made contact and someone (not the Genes member) wrote back and said it was fixed... however, it recently started up again.

The interesting thing is the header on the email is my FULL name which I never use... interestingly Genes would be the only people to have this. Genes is our only link... Hmmm!

Cheers Gerry

I'll start with the bad news: there's almost nothing you can do.

This is spam, pure and simple. Abusing your email address is only one of many techniques spammers use to throw their garbage into our mail boxes.

What you're seeing is called "spoofing" or more correctly "From-spoofing" - sending email that appears as if it's coming "From:" someone that its not.

Spoofing is a technique that is used in just about every bit of spam you see today. Spammers are trying to hide where the email comes from and are doing so very effectively. The From: address is meaningless on spam - it tells you absolutely nothing. It requires more detailed analysis of the email headers, and even then at best you might be able to get the IP address of the computer sending the email. As I've discussed ad nauseam, the IP address is pretty much useless to you and me.

The fact that you're seeing your email address used in the "From:" field shouldn't alarm you. It might be annoying, but there's no need to worry about it. You're already on spammers lists to get spam and they're using that same list, or variations of it, to select which addresses to use when spoofing. And there's currently no effective way to stop them from spoofing.

All you can do is delete them without opening them.

I kept on getting bombarded by virus e-mails which were dealt with by AVG. They were from spoof addresses but the IP addresses weren't spoofed. I went to http://www.whois.net/ looked up the IP address and contacted the ISP concerned.
Result-No more viruses.

Hi,
One of the biggest problems is when people send out emails to friends by add all their contacts in their address box to the To: box. Your email address may be one of them. If another friend does likewise at some time then your email address has now spread even further to many more inboxes. Any one of these inboxes if compromised will give the spammers your email address, even though it's nothing that you have done.
It's a pain, but the easiest thing to do is change your email address.
Herbert

Oh thanks everyone for adding to the thread I didn't know until I came online that more messages had been added.

My e-mail address is Freeserve which then became Wanadoo which then became ORANGE!!!!
I have been on their wesite as they have a forum and many people are saying they hav had the same thing happen to them. In fact one guy said am I send spam e-mails to myself?

So looks like I am not the only one to have this happen to them, I will keep all the info from the thread and try what you have all suggested. Thanks again everyone!!!

Betty