You know how you may get a RETURNED MAIL email if you sent an email to someone's email who couldn't accept it for some reason? Well, I'm getting numerous emails like that that shows it was sent from my email, but the name is someone I don't know. Does anyone know how to fix this w/o calling my internet company & completely changing my email address?
Sounds like someone who knows your email address was a victim of a computer virus. Some of them steal email addresses from address books and send them back to someone who uses them to spam other people. Not much you can do about it other than filter your returned mail or change your email address.
I had that exact problem with AOL a few years back. They fixed it somehow but it took several days. I was not the only one affected, somehow someone had stolen the AOL IDs of a lot of people and were sending out bulk SPAM mail under those names. Some went out to real emails and I got lots of nasty responses complaining about what I sent them and some were bounced back. I would first change all of my passwords and next contact your internet provider. Double check that your virus scan program is up to date and run it too. Good luck.
Sometimes this happens even if the actual email did not come from you. I get returned emails like this all of the time (and have for years). Viruses/worms will often plug in a bogus email address as the sender. This can be an email address from the address book of someone who was infected, or from a list of email addresses embedded in the virus. If you can get a copy of the actual email that was sent to someone, you can look at the headers to see if it was indeed sent from YOUR email address through YOUR internet provider, or if your email was simply plugged in as the sender.
Don't open the email that couldn't be sent if you don't think you sent it. (It's usually there as an attachment.) Many times these are viruses. If I don't recognize the name, or think that I sent it, I just delete it.
I get those on my sbc/yahoo account, they are sent straight to the junk e-mail folder and I just delete them, I don't open them either.
