An email from myself

[Kath nr the Crooked Spire]

I have an email in my spam box and underneath the heading 'From' it gives my email address as if from the sender. I haven't sent it myself so I'm wondering how this can be done, anyone any ideas.

[WendyPusey]

Your e-mail address can be picked up anywhere. I have several e-mails sent to me from myself. I just delete them.

[Kath nr the Crooked Spire]

I have deleted it Wendy, I just can't get my head round it looking like it has been sent by me when it hasn't...lol
What with bogus emails from the tax office and believe me their website does look convincing, identical in fact except the links to home etc don't work......several phone calls from microsoft to say there are errors on my pc it's enough to drive you up the wall. I'm sure these people could put their skills to something more useful
......rant over....

[lorry53]

This is called "spoofing."

[Kath nr the Crooked Spire]

mmmm.....wonders how I stop that happening and I can't think of a reason why they would want to do it.

[Christine in Herts]

That's one of the reasons that people recommend that you use the BCC if you're sending to lots of people.

Christine

[Kath nr the Crooked Spire]

Sorry Christine you have lost me there, 'use the BCC' I don't send lots of emails, its just really to friends.

[Christine in Herts]

When you're setting up an email, the headers are usually something like:

To: email address of person you're contacting
From: your e-address - usually filled in automatically
Subject: whatever you put in as the topic
CC: addresses of any others whom you want to "keep in the loop"
BCC: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Attachments: the bit that often gets forgotten! ;)

Where "CC" stands for "carbon copy", "BCC" stands for "blind carbon copy": that means that no other recipients will see those addresses when they receive the email. It also means that those BCC addresses can't get "harvested" to be used for spamming.

On Yahoo, you have to click on a little "button" to the right of the CC window, if you want to use BCC.

Christine

[TrevorFranklin]

If the address you use is a Hotmail address, there have been a lot of occasions where the account has been hijacked in what is known as phishing scams.
I won't go into the mechanics, just that the originator captures both your address, AND log-in details.
They then use these to send out automated emails by having their system dial into your Hotmail using your password.
If you use Hotmail and have friends telling you that you are sending spam, just change your password.

[Kath nr the Crooked Spire]

Thank you for the explanation Christine I will look into that .....and thank you Trevor I don't have a hotmail email but one of my contacts has and it has been sending spam emails.