Like many other people I have been getting loads of spam emails telling me about shares I should buy. I think this is also some sort of virus as I keep getting undelivered messages from weird names at my email address that I didn’t send. I have up to date virus and spam software (mcaffe) but it doesn’t seem to stop them. Anyone got any ideas what they are and how I can get rid of them. I am getting between 20 and 30 undelivered email notifications a day that I did not send.

HELP!!!!

Like many other people I have been getting loads of spam emails telling me about shares I should buy. I think this is also some sort of virus as I keep getting undelivered messages from weird names at my email address that I didn’t send. I have up to date virus and spam software (mcaffe) but it doesn’t seem to stop them. Anyone got any ideas what they are and how I can get rid of them. I am getting between 20 and 30 undelivered email notifications a day that I did not send.

HELP!!!!

I had exactly this problem, my solution may or may not apply to you, but here it is anyway

The weird undelivered addresses are someone spoofing your domain, you probably don't have anything on your PC.

I have a top level .co.uk domain so my email address is [email protected]. Normally all mail ending in @somethingelse.co.uk will arrive at my inbox.

My domain host (UK2) has a free facility to allow email redirection to multiple addresses. I set it up so ALL my mail EXCEPT one or two valid addresses goes to [email protected]. That killed off the returned mails.

The other crap still arrives, as it comes from multiple and varying locations theres not a lot you can do. Luckily it's a small proportion of my mail so I just ignore it.

Well, there's half a solution

thanks mate i will try that!

thanks mate i will try that!

Once you set it up, send yourself a couple of emails, just to make sure you're not filtering ALL your mail to the trash

thanks too

You do not say what sort of e-mail address you have or how you read your mail.

If you are with yahoo or hotmail, then simply get a new address and tell your friends.

DO NOT quote your real address when signing up for anything.

Have a second free hotmail/yahoo/gmail address for that purpose.

Most e-mail clients allow mail filtering, as Crossy has suggested, this will save you having to set up a new address

You guys might also consider using Gmail to wash the Spam out of your Inbox.

I'm sure there is no one that can identify Spam better than Gmails' servers. If you go into Gmail> Settings > Forwarding and POP you could configure it to route your ISP sourced email into and directly out of the Gmail servers and back to your PCs email client.

As always, prevention is the best method.

As stated above, never use your "normal" e-mail for registering/signing up for anything, except very important things (banking, etc). Create a backup e-mail for this purpose. It will be flooded with spam. When signing up for anything, also try to uncheck all the options of notifying of promotions and marketing mail.

On a similar note, never ever post your e-mail in any public or private website or forum. If the forum has an option to hide your e-mail, use it. If it's absolutely necessary to post your e-mail, make it so that e-mail harvesting programs can't catch it (ie, ffox at yahoo dot com).