'Unique' Spam / Junk E-Mail Problem

@GCarlD

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

A friend of mine has a major problem with her junk mail, something I have not come across before, hence why I titled this thread 'Unique.'

Basically, she is receiving lots of junk mail, everyday, as most of us do, but the difference is the e-mail address it is being sent from, is exactly the same e-mail address as hers.

It is a Hotmail (Outlook) e-mail and it does not let her block the spam as it is seemingly, somehow being sent from her e-mail address (so she can't 'block herself'). We have changed her password, done virus and malware scans, but none of that has helped.

We gave Outlook support (or whatever they are called) a call, and they seemed confident they could fix the problem for a fee, they suspected it could be a virus, but scans say otherwise. I'm not sure what can be done to 'fix' this issue, the only thing I can think of is creating a new e-mail address, but that is not at all ideal and would have to be a last / worst case scenario. Outlook also said that if it is some kind of bug / virus on her laptop, the same problem would eventually happen with any new e-mail account created.

My friend said she first noticed this problem after she frequented a couple internet cafes to check her e-mails etc.

Any ideas folks?
 
first stick the email in the checker at https://haveibeenpwned.com/. It's safe and annoyingly you'll likely find your details on there if you had anything to do with adobe prior to their hack... thanks adobe :rolleyes:.

It's likely your email address has been 'aquired' and it's being spammed by a machine. The use of your own email address is actually fairly simple believe it or not but I was pretty sure most accounts block this these days..

Honestly I'd NEVER use an internet cafe to check my main accounts of anything, too much risk of getting it keylogged.

Not really sure how to fix it to be honest as I don't really get that much spam.... plus I have enough 'alternatives' if need be :)
 
Thankfully this has never happened to any of my e-mail accounts but I do get a lot of spam in my e-mail that I use for work, from GoDaddy. Nothing like the above problem though!
 
first stick the email in the checker at https://haveibeenpwned.com/. It's safe and annoyingly you'll likely find your details on there if you had anything to do with adobe prior to their hack... thanks adobe :rolleyes:.

The result of her e-mail address: "Good News - no pwnage found!"

BUT you were right with regards to my own e-mail that I use for Adobe. What should I do about that? It was in 2013 afterall... I have changed my password since then.
 
There's nothing you can do about adobe.... yeah it's so nice when a company is 'easily' hacked and doesn't seem to have our 'personal' data encrypted....
 
I've had this before, contact email support at hotmail.

Did they sort it out for you? They are asking for a £60+ fee to put her on some kind of monthly plan to sort out and monitor her account. Not sure if they are requesting a month fee also. She will have to weigh up whether or not it is worth the cost(s) I suppose.
 
That's a joke. I'd be all over Social Media slating them about this.

I didn't have to pay but this was going back about 20 years ago.
 
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