Hopefully it is not me, because I have a relative that send out a bunch of junk. My spam received is way down. If it is, PLEASE let me know.
marie

I, along with other KTers (I recognized some member names in the email address section ) got some some time ago. I think their address book had been highjacked or something. I can't remember who it was, and I may have just blocked her address in my Hotmail.

Maybe the member will reply here about it.

Sue

Can you block the sender's address through your e-mail service? I have earthlink, and I can enter the addresses of weird emails I get. Have to be careful not to block any that come from major email providers (like yahoo.com), but usually it's some odd provider.

If I start getting strange emails, I edit my GardenWeb profile to exclude anyone sending me emails (even tho' I love to hear from the occasional KTer). Later I reactivate.

It is troubling, because you just wonder how/where someone got your address and if it is being spread all around to other spammers.

P.S. It's not me.

That happened to me last week. My niece sent me an email from her hotmail account inviting me to a birthday party. This was the first email she ever sent me. After I sent her a reply I received an email again from her that was spam (viagara). The subject was "Innocence" This actually was the first piece of spam I have ever received on my Yahoo acct. I rarely send out emails so maybe that is why.

Anne

"Have to be careful not to block any that come from major email providers (like yahoo.com), but usually it's some odd provider."
You block individual email addresses. If you block xxxx at Yahoo.com., just email from that person is blocked....not all email from Yahoo accounts.

Socks...I know who it is...I just wish she'd answer, because I'm sure she doesn't know it's happening.

Of course if it was coming from me and someone told me about it...I wouldn't have a clue how to fix it.

I remember this happened a few months ago...I didn't get anything that time.

patti

I was so afraid to go check my email, Patti! But I did it, and thank goodness I didn't have a notice from you.

I signed up for a Chili's restaurant special and now my work email, private email and DH's email have all received "special offers." I was sooooo afraid it caught you too! I've sent Chili's a very DISCONTENTED notice that I don't appreciate them doing this without my permission. And yes, it was definitely their site that I signed up at, not a bogus site.

Hope it's not me! I haven't received anything in my mail email...but last week I had a weird message from one of my friends on FB! I clicked to read it..and it wanted me to click on another link. Gut feeling said "Don't go there" mainly because this gal has NEVER sent me a message (matter of fact, she's "hidden" on my FB because all she did was play stupid games). Next morning...I had 3 message from her. I went to her FB page to send ger a message to see if she was sending them...but she'd already posted to not open anything from her...her computer had a virus and she wasn't sending anything. The "notices" did go to my Yahoo account..since that's the one I use on FB.

I've been getting several of those "no Subject" emails also, they are from friends, and the pc is doing it on its own. They don't know how to stop it.

stoney usually if it is from a reputable business, you will find an "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email.

I got one of those FaceBook notices too, from a friend, and it said to "look at this naughty video of me". I know this person. She would never do or send such a thing, so I went to her page and she, too, said she didn't know how it got out there and that it wasn't really from her. I hate that kind of stuff.

I just checked my email and there weren't any messages from you. So hopefully I am in the clear as well. I have also gotten the strange emails from friends. And once I've opened them realized it wasn't from THEM at all. A couple of weeks ago my step sister sent me an email all upset that she was in England and had her passport and money stolen and that the hotel wouldn't let her leave until she came up with the money. Only she wasn't in England at all, and never sent the email. Scary stuff. :(

I had messages going out to folks about 1 1/2 months ago. Contact your email provider and change your password.

Many (if not most) computer viruses and trojans carry their own smtp engine. If "Jane's" computer becomes infected with one of these viruses or trojans, it (the virus/trojan) immediately grabs all of the addresses in Jane's e-mail address book (contact list), and then it replicates itself and sends itself out to everyone on the list. It may use Jane's e-mail address as the sender's address, but more than likely it "spoofs" an address -- it will send itself out using someone else's address as the sender's address. The "someone else" will be another of the addresses in Jane's address book. Often the virus/trojan will send out many replications, using different addresses (from Jane's address book) as the sender's address.

Also, it's not uncommon for the person who unleashed the virus/trojan to have it "report back" with the pilfered address list. Then, this person will sell the address list to spammers. Those spammers then also spoof the sender's address on the outgoing spam.

So, just because spam reaches your Inbox showing that it came from "Susie" or "Annie" or "George," it doesn't mean that Susie's or Annie's or George's computers are infected with a virus/trojan or that the messages in any way originated from their computer.

Patti,
One day in this past week (or was it 2 or 3 weeks, I don't know) I received an email with no subject and it came from ME!

I looked over the properties and couldn't figure out anything, so I deleted it and emptyed my DELETED file.
I hope it wasn't me! I HATE these things!

My account was hijacked once, and I found out because I had about 5000 returned messages when I first opened my account. So whoever it is may be madly deleting as I did for days and has not stopped to read your message.

" usually if it is from a reputable business, you will find an "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email."

NO NO NO NO NO. The unreputable ones have an unsubscribe button more often. ONLY use the "unsubscribe" link if it's something that you know how you got on their list. Example: I recently bought something from JC Penney online, had to give them my email address, and I immediately started getting email from them (unrelated to my purchase.) That one I did unsub in the email. But if something just pops up, don't use that option!

The bad guys count on you using it. All they are doing is selling 'real' email addresses.

The only way Chili's has your addresses is if you (or someone) gave them to them. If it's a legitimate Chili's email you're perfectly safe to use their unsubscribe link. But I'm not sure it's actually coming from Chili's from the limited description given.

Hijacked address lists and such are usually from people who refuse to secure their computers and it makes it tougher for everyone else. This is why I quit using any email account but the freebie webmails (unless of course for work accounts). Then it's a simple matter to close it and set up a new one when people expose me to the hassles.

Computers, like cars and, well, people for that matter, require some basic maintenance and protection. Spammers are getting creative and make things look legitimate and people get fooled easily, which the scammers and spammers count on to profit. People buy or just plain send money to them. It's profitable, which is why they do it. If nobody sent them money, they wouldn't bother.

Plus when people forward everything, they're asking for trouble. They give a list of addresses without using bcc and not only expose themselves but everyone in the list. Then a bunch of those people hit the forward button too, refuse to use bcc and expose that many more, and so on and so on. The forward button is the cause of a lot of problems for a lot of people.

I seldom even open forwarded emails, especially from certain people. Some are only sending dumb jokes I've heard before, "warnings" that are hoaxes and political rhetoric and false anyway or are silly chain emails purporting that if you love God, you'll spam everyone you know plus 100 people.... If people can't take ten seconds to set up a new email, bcc it and clean off the extraneous characters they're rude and inconsiderate and I don't care to try to decipher the email
>>>>>though
::>>:all >>>the
>>>>>garbage.

Are you running a good firewall? Have you run antivirus *and* anti-malware programs lately? Secured your browser? Now's a good time to do it if you haven't. Most will run in the background and many can be set up to run automatically so effort is minimal.