Need Some Expert Assistance With an Email Problem

[TVDOC]

For the past three days my email has been flooded with "email delivery failure" (the headers all start with mailer-daemon@*****) messages.......most of them arriving from a few large email servers (yahoo, google, hotmail, aduanet, dnsix, runhosting, etc).

I have received THOUSANDS of them, they've overloaded my mailbox several times.

All are "Bulk" mailings, and almost all of them contain a message from Nigerian scammers (see below).

It's almost like they are spoofing my email address as the originator of their message.

I've installed MailWasher (free version), and so far managed to isolate them at the server, unless I wait too long to purge them, and my mail client downloads the contents of the box.

The message is (of course):

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)
HEAD OFFICE NO: 23 ADEBOYE ST,
APAPA LAGOS-NIGERIA.

Attn: Beneficiary,

This is to intimate you of a very important information which will be of a
great help to redeem you from all the difficulties you have been
experiencing in getting your long over due payment due to excessive demand
for money from you by both corrupt Bank officials and Courier Companies
after which your fund remain unpaid to you.

I am Mr. Donald Campbell. a highly placed official of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).It may interest you to know that reports have reached
our office by so many correspondences on the uneasy way which people like
you are treated by Various Banks and Courier Companies Diplomat(s) across
Europe to Africa and Asia London UK, and we have decided to put a STOP to
that and that is why I was appointed to handle your transaction here in
Nigeria.

All Governmental and Non-Governmental prostates, NGO's, Finance Companies,
Banks, Security Companies and Diplomat(s) which have been in contact with
you of late have been instructed to back up from your transaction and you
have been advised NOT to respond to them anymore since the IMF is now
directly in charge of your payment. Your fund will be transferred to you
directly from our source with immediate effect and we shall give you
further details on how your fund will be released.

I hope this is clear. Any action contrary to this instruction is at your
own risk. Respond to this e-mail on Regards,

--
Este mensaje ha sido analizado por MailScanner
en busca de virus y otros contenidos peligrosos,
y se considera que está limpio.
For all your IT requirements visit: http://www.transtec.co.uk

The name and reply email address on this message is CLOSE to my email addy, but not an exact match, and the provider is nowhere close.......

MailWasher is supposed to have the capability to "bounce" selected emails from defined sources......however, either I haven't been able to figure out how to set it up correctly, or the free version doesn't include that feature......anyone use this software?

Short of changing my email address any suggestions??

doc

[zeitgeist]

What are you using for a mail client?

Take a look here:

http://danielcurran.com/outlook/how-to-fix-your-port-settings-if-cannot-send-mail-from-outlook/



Sounds like you have geeks inside the wire.  If it gets too bad you won't have to do anything your ISP will do it for you.


Note:
If you are still using port 25 change it to 587. 

[TVDOC]

What are you using for a mail client?

Take a look here:

http://danielcurran.com/outlook/how-to-fix-your-port-settings-if-cannot-send-mail-from-outlook/



Sounds like you have geeks inside the wire.  If it gets too bad you won't have to do anything your ISP will do it for you.

I'm using Windows Live Mail (the Win 7 version of Outlook), and my settings include authentication and a port other than 25.......

No problems sending email, just getting the box spammed with all these returned messages.

doc

[zeitgeist]

I'm using Windows Live Mail (the Win 7 version of Outlook), and my settings include authentication and a port other than 25.......

No problems sending email, just getting the box spammed with all these returned messages.

doc

It sure sounds like your mail has been hacked and is sending out spam which is being rejected.  Check your sent folder if you haven't already.

Also do you have MalWare on your computer?  If not download a copy and run it.

[thundley4]

I'm using Windows Live Mail (the Win 7 version of Outlook), and my settings include authentication and a port other than 25.......

No problems sending email, just getting the box spammed with all these returned messages.

doc

Just curious, are you on facebook or use that email for any online forums?  The same thing happened with my Yahoo account last year.  I had the same mmaelor-daemon messages but a few from people on my address list asking why I sent a spam link.  

It sure sounds like your mail has been hacked and is sending out spam which is being rejected.  Check your sent folder if you haven't already.

Also do you have MalWare on your computer?  If not download a copy and run it.

When something similar happened to me (above) there were no messages in my sent folder or my trash can.

[TVDOC]

It sure sounds like your mail has been hacked and is sending out spam which is being rejected.  Check your sent folder if you haven't already.

Also do you have MalWare on your computer?  If not download a copy and run it.

Nothing in "Sent Items" that I didn't send, and the first thing that I did was run Malwarebytes (and my AV ad Adware program scans as well).....

I suspect that since the return address on the scammer's email is close to mine, the servers are just punting and finding the most similar email to dump them in.....

doc

[zeitgeist]

Just curious, are you on facebook or use that email for any online forums?  The same thing happened with my Yahoo account last year.  I had the same mmaelor-daemon messages but a few from people on my address list asking why I sent a spam link.  


When something similar happened to me (above) there were no messages in my sent folder or my trash can.

I suppose if you are going to hack an account you would set the save mail bit to off? Yeah, that would make sense.  

[zeitgeist]

Nothing in "Sent Items" that I didn't send, and the first thing that I did was run Malwarebytes (and my AV ad Adware program scans as well).....

I suspect that since the return address on the scammer's email is close to mine, the servers are just punting and finding the most similar email to dump them in.....

doc

It sounds like spoofing rather than a hacking at this point so you are pretty much limited to changing the account or waiting until it stops.