Returned email

[Harrys mum]

I have been getting a scam email lately from different people. It's the same email but the senders are different. Nobody I know.

Well, this morning I got a message from the "Mail Delivery System" saying
"Undelivered Mail Return to Sender" (me). It has attachments which are the scam emails I was deleting. The message said there was no such delivery address, as though I'd sent an email to an incorrect address.

I'd never done anything with these emails other than delete them. How did my email address become the sender???

[Mary from Italy]

It's quite common, lots of programs insert a false From address. Just delete them, and don't worry about it.

[Harrys mum]

Thanks Mary. Thought the originals might have "got in" somehow.

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Libby, I guess you have an anti virus program running on your emails? Its just I had a spate of stuff like that a couple of years ago and it was so embarrassing because the virus or whatever had got into my address book and was sending random emails (from my email history!!) to people in the address book. People were getting emails about things totally not to do with them from apparently - me!

[WendyPusey]

Heather this is not a virus, it is a way spammers use to send out more spam!

[bobpullen]

It's likely to be a case of email spoofing and whilst it's a nuisance it does tend to subside after a bit.

Having said that, there's certainly no harm in performing an up to date virus/spyware scan just to be on the safe side!

Rgds,