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Subject: Undeliverable:Returned mail: User unknown


Keighley-England

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i wonder if you can point me in the right direction i am getting mail back with a subject line Undeliverable:Returned mail: User unknown.

i did not send these emails and each one has a attachment with them (i have not opened any of them).

i have scanned my computer with norton internet 2005, Ad-Aware pro, Spy Bot and nothing showes up,

i can post a detail and message source print out of one of the emails if that will help ;)

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SpamCop FAQ entry "here" - Why am I getting all these bounces? .... for starters.

Do a search on "Forged address" (unfortunately, a lot of previous posters here have tried to call these "Joe Job" e-mails, but that's a mistaken representation of the term. There are many Topics that address others asking the same question, usually with tales of overflowing/stuffed mail-boxes, etc.

Other items/entries are focused more at ISPs, but the subject matter is the same, Backscatter, Blowback, Mis-directed Bounces, etc. .... you can find some write-ups on these words in the Glossary, also found "here"

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi,

Please excuse if this is posted in the wrong place.

Im hoping someone more experienced than me can point me in the right direction to getting this solved, as its outside my area of expertise.

For the past week or so, I have been receiving emails bounced "back" to me by mail systems and spam filters. The emails are being coming into two of my email address, one of these is my main email address, the other is rarely used and is associated with a domain which is completely unconnected with the other one (hosted on a different ISP etc).

I cant think of any connection between the two, other than someone is targeting me for some reason...

I'm not clear what I can do to trace who is originating these emails. It appears to me that the email addresses are being used to send to a spam mailing list, as the outgoing emails are definitely "spammy" and I get a lot of bounces from redundent email addresses, all seemingly unconnnected.

Im previously a hardware engineer. I'm no expert on the Internet except as a long-time user, and have no inside knowledge of how email works except in a superficial way.

Can someone point me in the right direction to getting this stopped? (or at least find out why its happening and perhaps I can possibly prevent a re-occurence).

I have not posted any further data (email contect etc) as I believe the forum forbids this? Please let me know if you think you can help me and you require further information.

The ISPs that host these domains are not being very helpful (but I suppose they get a lot of these problems reported?).

All responses much apppreciated.. thanx.

MikeA

Moderator Edit: Merged into an exisiting Topic/Discussion. PM sent to advise of this Move/Merge.

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I have not posted any further data (email contect etc) as I believe the forum forbids this?

39355[/snapback]

Not sure where you saw the "forum forbids this" description ... I modified some code such that it now mungs e-mail addresses posted into any of the discussion boxes. I did place a bit of emphasis on people using their e-mail address as a "user name" ... but if you saw that announcement, you'd have seen how few folks followed up on that issue. Add in a few more of those folks that "reported as spam" the forum-generated e-mail notification that I'd sent them a PM here, well .... I gave up worrying about their e-mail-in-the-clear situation.

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There is a FAQ 'Why Am I getting all these Bounces' ask if it is too technical for you.

Basically you are not alone. There is nothing you can do to stop the spammers from using your email addresses. You can complain to the ISPs who are bouncing them and tell them that it is now considered spam to reply to the return path with undeliverable message. Since you don't know how to find the correct person to complain to, you can use the spamcop parser.

Miss Betsy

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Not sure where you saw the "forum forbids this" description  ..

Maybe I was mistaken, I thought I saw somewhere that data from emails should not be posted. P'raps I was dreaming (not unusual!).

Just to clarify, I'm not only getting bounces, but some auto-replies ('away from office' etc), and also some server messages ('your email delayed' etc) so Im fairly sure what is going on. Doesnt seem like much I can do to stop it though.

The strange part of it was, that it was two of my email address that were (are still) being used, and they are totally unrelated, different domains, hosted at different ISPs etc (the only common factor being me).

It just seemed too coincidental.

Thanks for the help.

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... The strange part of it was, that it was two of my email address that were (are still) being used, and they are totally unrelated, different domains, hosted at different ISPs etc (the only common factor being me).

It just seemed too coincidental. ...

39493[/snapback]

I agree - I doubt it is coincidence (if it were, you should buy some lottery tickets while you're on a roll, the odds against random selection must be phenomenal). Evidently there are more common factors than you think - configration files on your PC, address books, whatever. Can't help thinking there are some insights to be gained on just how your addresses were harvested.
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