inundateD with mail failures !

[mikey4444]

I have an email account with BT Yahoo. I am being inundated with mail failures, from Mailer-Daemon, into my in-box. It started 3 days ago. I am having as many as 200 a day. I can't understand anything from the messages themselves, as it is all gobbledegook.

Anybody out there know what is happening ?

[Huderon]

Someone has either
a) hacked your email account and sent a lot of spam mail from it or
b) has got hold of your email address and is sending spam mail from another machine but using your email address as the sender.

For a), change your email account's password to something unlikely to be guessed and check your sent folder to see if there are any messages in there that you did not send (if there are, the account was hacked).

For b) create another email address on Gmail, Hotmail.Live mail or Yahoo and tell your friends, family and other genuine contacts to use that one from now on. Do not use the new address to sign up for anything on line, and do not publicise it on line in any way. Then either delete your current email account and create another one you can use to sign up for things on line, or keep it but reserve it for signing up to things.

I have several email addresses - one is strictly for friends and family, one for work, one for signing up to sites I believe can be trusted, and one for sites where I'm not 100% sure they can be trusted. The first two are never publicised in any way..

The other advantage of using things like Gmail is that by not using the email address I get from my ISP, should I ever decide to change supplier, I don't have to worry about making sure all my contacts have the new address.

[ChuckFickens]

if it's b then you'll probably find it will only last a few days, spammers tend to change the address they use fairly often.

[mikey4444]

Thanks for this guys.

I have changed my email password this morning, so I will see if that works. I have had the same email address for nearly 18 years, since I bought my first PC. I am loath to change to another one unless I have to, as it would mean telling so many people. But I will have I suppose if this problem continues.

One thing I don't understand about spam is this. We all get plenty of these daft emails, but I don't know anybody who responds to them. Most of them are offers to increase the size of my manhood, although how people know that I have a need assistance in that area is a mystery to me ! Its a closely gaurded secret between me and my Urologist.

Its the same with junk mail. I must get at least 3 plastic sacks posted through my letter box every week, imploring me to put any unwanted clothes inside and leave out on a noiminated day. But again, I don't anyone who responds to these. I have asked my neighbours and we all agree to bin them. Its the same with all those stupid letters from people Readers Digest, etc.

Now I know that sending vast quantities of spam emails is terribly inexpensive
but surely it can't pay off ?

[AlBags]

Log into BT Yahopo webmail and set up the spam filters for subject lines with some of the phrases in them.
I did this with about 10 subject line phrases on Orange 2 years ago .. and never see any now.

[AlBags]

Nonsense Methyl ..

ORANGE have spam settings within webmail which one can change at will.
I have about 20 filters stored in there.
Your ISP can do what it likes.

[AlBags]

In fact .. I just went in there to check ... and as expected .. all the filters and words are still there in the anti-spam folder.

[VHG]

>>>>>>>We all get plenty of these daft emails, but I don't know anybody who responds to them.

Plenty of people DO respond to them.

See here a scam that came to light only a few weeks ago.

Students were getting scam emails telling them about their student loan, and they all logged on to a fake site, netting the scammers about 1 million pounds.

And these are mostly young people and you expect them to be computer savvy and not fall for these type of scams, but they did.

http://www.guardian.c...nt-loan-phishing-scam

[AlBags]

Yep ... Silly fools.

[mikey4444]

Thanks guys. I have changed the password and the amount of SPAM has gone down a lot but not stopped altogether. I have marked them as SPAM in my email account and they are no longer clogging up my inbox. This was causing a problem, not so much with my desk top PC but with the iphone.

People are probably right about why all this spam arrives. I had one the other day purporting to come from my Bank. It was only a slight spelling and grammar mistake which made me wary.

Mind you, with the wide-spread ignorance about English grammar in British life today, its not always easy to sort the wheat out from the chaff. My local greetings card shop has a hand-written note, stuck to the window that says
" All major credit cards excepted" I keep meaning to pop in and gently remind the young girl behind the counter that her sales might improve if she re-wrote it !