I am apparantly a spammer!

dlk

My girlfriend has just recieved an email saying 'I have just earned more this week than I have ever done....etc...etc' from my email.

Now I certainly didnt send this email in fact it's an old email address I don't even use anymore. I have gone to the email (its hotmail) to log in and it said I was suspended and needed to reset my password etc which I've done through hotmail.

Now as someone has been sending spam messages from my email (although it wasnt trying to sell anything so seemed a bit bizarrely pointless) do I need to be concerned about viruses etc on my pc if I use that email address again

tealady

Hi
I had that problem with my Hotmail acount. I now use 2 email addresses a "secure" on which I only give to people I trust and a general one for every one else. Seems to have worked.
HTH

wonka

No need to worry about viruses, but clearly someone has accessed that email account. Reset the password with a strong password.

birkee

DUMP HOTMAIL !!
Everybody I know who uses that. get's targetted with all sorts of carp.
Nearly every computer I've had to sort out for people, has been for users of Hotmail, it's like using a drain cover to keep the rain off you.
Try "Mozilla Thunderbird" as a mail service programme, and avoid getting sucked into Widows live systems when getting upgraded to Widows 7.
I've found Hotmail and Windows Live are like printed invitations to Hackers and spam etc.

Pikeyp

It's not really that simple.
Spammers 'harvest' email addresses from all sorts of places , forums (just like this one!) , chatrooms , facebook etc , etc.
Wherever you have gone you leave traces like that.
Then of course they use your email to send out blindly to any other emails they can find , another list maybe?
I'm not really sure how they go about it , but there's not much you can do about it ..