Is my computer sending unsolicited emails mails?

sugar_2

Over the last two months I have an ever increasing amount of emails saying “no reply” or not known or blocked by server. These are mails I did not send out so must be being generated elsewhere, I am now getting 20 to 40 a day. I have run virus scans and can find nothing out of the ordinary.

I am using Thunderbird as my email programme on Windows XP with macafee anti virus and Windows fire wall, I use Wanadoo broad band.


All help gratefully received.

cwoodham

No, your computer is not sending out the emails. What's happening is spammers have picked up your email address perhaps from a website you have or perhaps its been passed on by someone you contacted. The spammers are now using your email address in the 'FROM' field of their spam emails to disguise their identity. Many people 'bounce' the spam emails mistakenly thinking its going back to the spammer but because your email is in the 'FROM' field they are coming back to you.
I get 40-50 of these a day at the moment.

You will need a spam filter like Mailwasher (version 1.33 is free, search for it)to delete them on the server or filter them out with Firefox.

There was a disussion about this here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=203400

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=192883