Using Part of My Email Address

[pstiles]

Moderator Edit: Topic originally posted into Discussions & Observations > How to use .... Instructions, Tutorials > SpamCop Forum .. ass seen, there is no content in this post about Hpw to use this Forum .... One of the Moderators¹ moved this into the Discussions & Observations > SpamCop Lounge Forum section. Somewhat more direct, faster action may have occurred had the SpamCop FAQ or the SpamCop Wiki been checked 'here', use of one of the 'Search" tools provided, even scanning of Topic Titles (in the appropriate Forum section) Subject is not unknown, FAQ entries exist, as well as numerous previous posts on the same subject.

Noting that this is also one of those "search didn't find anything" type posts/queries. Folks have use 'failure message' .. 'bounces' .. 'DSN' ... 'spammer is using my e-mail address' ... 'my e-mail address has been forged' .... the Original/Official SpamCop.net FAQ uses the term 'Misdirected Bounces' .... on and on, just pointing out that the lack of appropriate / proper terminology surely confuses things for a lot of folks. And as in this case, looking/posting into a totally non-involved section of this Forum fails to help anyone involved at all.

Hi,

My first post. I have come to the forum hoping someone can explain the following. I keep getting a failure notice from MAILER-DAEMON saying that they weren't able to send my message. Of course, this "message" is actually spam, and I never sent it. Also, someone is also taking part of my email address, typically "paulst" and combining it with other letters. Can someone tell me how to prevent this? I have done a complete virus/spyware check using two different programs and my computer is clean. Thanks ahead of time. Here is an example I received today, which includes the key part of the message:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at cache.zipcon.net.

I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.

This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<fidpaulsteuckeqid[at]paulsteucke.com>:

vdeliver: Invalid or unknown virtual user 'fidpaulsteuckeqid'

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <paul[at]paulstiles.org>

Received: (qmail 18691 invoked from network); 28 Dec 2007 07:41:31 -0000

Received: from unknown (HELO vajur-server) (88.200.164.228)

by paulsteucke.com with ESMTP; 28 Dec 2007 07:41:31 -0000

Message-Id: <20071228154004.15173.qmail[at]vajur-server>

To: <fidpaulsteuckeqid[at]paulsteucke.com>

Subject: RE: December 73% OFF

From: Doctor Jenna Leonard <fidpaulsteuckeqid[at]paulsteucke.com>

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/html;charset="ISO-8859-1"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

[(another) moderator edit ¹Yep, that was me. Bold tags balanced in section above]

[Miss Betsy]

What you are experiencing is very common and doesn't come from your computer at all. Your email address is being forged in the FROM. There is no way to stop it, but it usually doesn't last long. You can reported these 'misdirected bounces' through spamcop.

More detail may be found in the "Why Am I Getting All these Bounces" FAQ. There is another topic in another thread just recently about someone else experiencing the same phenomenon.

Miss Betsy

PS someone will move your post to the appropriate section soon. I can't figure out how to do it.

[rconner]

More detail may be found in the "Why Am I Getting All these Bounces" FAQ. There is another topic in another thread just recently about someone else experiencing the same phenomenon.

Also this is described in the SpamCop Wiki at FromAddressForgery.

-- rick