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Email Address Hijacked
Name: skip77 Date: March 7, 2008 at 13:02:47 Pacific OS: Win XP Media Center Editi CPU/Ram: 2.8GHz / 1GB Product: Dell Dimension E310
Comment:
Someone or something hijacked my email address and now I am getting junkmail from myself to myself from a growing variety of companies or spammers. Is there anything I can do to put a stop to this? I am concerned that others may receive emails from me that are actually from the hijacker - if someone that knows me gets such an email they will trust the message because it comes from someone they know and possibly invite an infection etc. I will appreciate any suggestions or help.
Name: XpUser Date: March 7, 2008 at 14:48:02 Pacific
Reply:
Is there anything I can do to put a stop to this?
Nope. Once your e-mail address is harvested for spam etc there is nothing you can do other than close it out and replace it with a new one.
To minimize the chances of having the new address harvested, use numbers at the beginning, following by whatever name you wish to designate.
i_Xp/VistaUser
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Response Number 2
Name: Derek Date: March 7, 2008 at 18:06:11 Pacific
Reply:
...and then NEVER put your undisguised email address in open text on the internet. If google can find it so can the spammers engines.
some other bloke...
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Response Number 3
Name: skip77 Date: March 13, 2008 at 18:51:56 Pacific
Reply:
thanks guys - appreciate the advice.
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Response Number 4
Name: skip77 Date: March 16, 2008 at 10:34:16 Pacific
Reply:
Is there any chance that the hijacker is also actually intercepting emails that are supposed to come to me?
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Response Number 5
Name: Derek Date: March 16, 2008 at 17:27:21 Pacific
Reply:
Very unlikely indeed. When I used to get junk email it wasn't unusual to get some "from myself".
Intereception is not too easy unless you are on wireless and even then they would not be silly enough to give you clues about what they were up to. They wouldn't bother with all that for an ordinary domestic user.
Change you email address and then be very careful with the new one. It will also prove/disprove the point.
some other bloke...
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Response Number 6
Name: skip77 Date: March 18, 2008 at 09:11:52 Pacific
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