returned mail

There are four possibilities I can think of off hand:

* Someone else is using your computer. To solve, make sure you have to enter your password to login. (Not automatically remembered.)

* Someone else has your password, and is using your account to send spam. To solve, change your password, and make sure it's not easy to guess.

* Your computer has been infected. If you use MS Outlook, Thunderbird, etc, "guests" can use the account to send out e-mail to random addresses, making you the spammer. To solve, scan your computer thoroughly with antivirus and antispyware programs.

* Most likely, someone is spoofing the e-mail address. Basically, this means someone else is making it appear as if mail is coming from your account, when in fact it isn't. This is fairly common (happened to my "junk" accounts several times), and hard to deal with. If the e-mail service is paid (AOL, Yahoo! Plus, etc), you should notify the provider immediately so they can take the appropriate action. If it's a free service, your best bet is to simply change your e-mail address. Afterwards, be careful who you give it out to and keep a second "junk" account for use when signing up for subscriptions/downloads or participating in forums.

Hope this helps,
John

There are two possibilities:
1) Somebody is using your address, but not your computer. That's something you can't do anything about, because it happens elsewhere. Could be Russia or so.
2) Somebody is using your computer from the outside, or you let a virus or worm install itself. Do a free on-line scan with housecall, panda or www.bitdefender.com to find out. Here's a link to first 2: http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7813-0.html?forumID=44&threadID=2853&messageID=34691

Tell more on your use of firewall and anti-virus if you like.

The best way to discriminate between this 2 possibilities is simple, by the way. Turn off and disconnect your computer, take a 3 week holiday and see if any mail is still being sent in your name.

Hope this helps.


Kees

Once, your email address gets out(public) its available to be gleamed by the nasties out there. All, too often even refusing or informing that you don't want that email can in itself say, you're a "live contact" and get further email. I used a pgm. called "Mail Washer" that after setting up the filters, etc. it whittled some of it down. It did work, but the flood was just too great. I finally gave-up on that email acct. and started a new one elsewhere and was more aggressive in its protection. Companies(I want) and true friends get through and some others, but that number is far less than before. And yes, I even get email from "me" from that old acct., so in the future don't be so generous with your email address, allow only certain areas and any that are openly public, like forums, blogs, etc. keep it safe and edit to reflect a 1/2 true address with explanation, like emailxremovex.com(replace xremovex with my name or whatever), so its not complete, someone has to manually interpet, not likely other than those in the know.

tada -----Willy