ok this was really wierd today, i got a spam email from myself? :suspect:

no i didnt send it and im fairly certain my email address cant be used by two people......

so how has this happened?

could it be my account has been compromised?

could my pc have been compromised?

am i just going barmy?

can anybody offer any suggestions as to how this has happened and what i can do about it?

eek! :help:

*actually, i got 2 trying to sell myself pharmaceuticals online!!!!*

x

so how has this happened?

Your email address is being spoofed (quite simple to achieve) and has been covered many times on here:thumbsup:

I had this a few years ago when I was on AOL.
They cut me off completely and I had to phone them- aparrantly someone had compromised my account and I was being blamed for spamming half the planet.

Might be an idea to contact your providor and tell them before they slice you.

ok this was really wierd today, i got a spam email from myself? :suspect:

no i didnt send it and im fairly certain my email address cant be used by two people......

so how has this happened?

could it be my account has been compromised?

could my pc have been compromised?

am i just going barmy?

can anybody offer any suggestions as to how this has happened and what i can do about it?

eek! :help:

*actually, i got 2 trying to sell myself pharmaceuticals online!!!!*

x

Did you buy any?

Spam is the bane of my life!

I use cloudmark software, which is about 20 dollars a year, but it has stopped literally thousands of spam e-mails from getting through.

I used to get about 100 e-mails a day of which 90 were spam.

No I just get the 10 I wanted, plus about 2-3 spam per week.

I get 30-40 spam every day 7 days a week! :rant:

I've set up spam filters to stop the pr0n and viagra ads coming in but they're about much use as used khazi roll because the viagra and pr0n ads still come! :rant: :loopy:

I get 30-40 spam every day 7 days a week! :rant:

I've set up spam filters to stop the pr0n and viagra ads coming in but they're about much use as used khazi roll because the viagra and pr0n ads still come! :rant: :loopy:

Were you researching viagra on the internet? Sometimes Spyware gets on PC's just through visiting certain webpages, and that certain spyware sends messages back to it's 'home' which then starts spamming you with relevant ads - So I've read anyway.

Did you buy any?

no i didnt! :hihi:

this is the response i got from a techy mate from another forum

sometimes you will received spam that looks like it has come from your address.. this can happen for 2 reasons - one, the spammer is an idiot and accidentally set his spam software to insert the recipient's address (i.e. you) in the "From:" field, or two, the spammer deliberately put your address in the "From:" field so it is less likely to be blocked by your spam filter..

long story short - don't worry, nothing bad's happened, and it probably won't be the last time you see such e-mails :)

although i have to admit- i am still a bit concerned about this....mainly because of what happened to jabbers.

phone call to virgin later may be a good idea me thinks.

thanks for the replies folks.:)

x

They should just confirm that it's backscatter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_%28e-mail%29) (just another name for what is happening to you) - there's nothing they can do, but they certainly should be aware of the cause, that it's nothing to do with you, and that they don't need to lock the account or anything like that.

We've had customers with the same issue, it'll stop after a few days when whoever it is starts spoofing a different address.

Were you researching viagra on the internet? Sometimes Spyware gets on PC's just through visiting certain webpages, and that certain spyware sends messages back to it's 'home' which then starts spamming you with relevant ads - So I've read anyway.

No! :shocked:

I'm not some 50 odd year old perve who doesn't get any so resorts to drugs to get his leg over! :rant:

After a lot of grief recently from amounts of spam flowing around (since Google, Yahoo & MS's Captcha systems all got hacked) I have found Spamhaus.

Seriously, if you want to instantly lose the great majority of all crap find an email provider who uses Spamhaus. I've gone from (with filtering turned of) 300+ daily, through (using Spamassassin) about 60-80% success depending on the day to (with Spamhaus) 2 on a bad day.

There's a system proposed (google for openspf) which would pretty much cut out all spoofed address spam, but unless the entire world (or vast majority of) starts using it it's effectively useless.

I've just received an email "from myself" entitled "Sorry, lost you cell phone number"

The message was blocked for my own safety though and I thought I'd come on here and ask about it. Lo and behold I find this thread.

I will delete it without opening

I use google mail, and very very rarely get spam email :)

Whenever ive used the internet providers email, ive always had lots and lots of spam

A month or so back I started getting loads of spam email from my own email address. It lasted about a week and then stopped. The levels of other spam also reduced drastically at about the same time, probably because of this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7725492.stm

I get very little spam now despite this updated news item:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7749835.stm

I use google mail, and very very rarely get spam email :)

Whenever ive used the internet providers email, ive always had lots and lots of spam

Most of the email I get on google mail is spam, thankfully it all goes in the spam folder automatically, sometimes several hundred messages at a time.

I've just received an email "from myself" entitled "Sorry, lost you cell phone number"

The message was blocked for my own safety though and I thought I'd come on here and ask about it. Lo and behold I find this thread.

I will delete it without opening

Ive just repaired a PC, which the owner, had Sky broadband suspended for own safety. This was due to spam being sent from her PC, (she had no idea!) and it had been hijacked/malware etc.

Sky wrote to her, and said, until she had formatted hard drive and reinstalled OS they were suspending internet access. Anti virus software is not sufficient, must be complete format to get rid.

An extremely good (and free) solution to Spam for people who use windows standard email programs is spamihilator:

http://www.spamihilator.com/

It is easy to use and install and supports all major clients (outlook, outlook express and thunderbird) supports pop3 and imap to boot.

I was drowning under the volume of spam at work until I found this gem. It creates a separate spam bin available in your tray, you just have to teach it a little to improve its detection rate. I only get one or two spam messages a week in my mail box at most.