Linux Format forums

Re: Am I a Spammer?

MikeHarvey — Thu Aug 23, 2012 7:31 am

Author: MikeHarvey

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 7:31 am

MartyBartfast wrote:

I'm not certain but I think that suggests the mails are being sent through your VM mail account on the web, rather than from your PC. The first things I would do is:

1. Change the password on your VM Email account, (http://mail.virginmedia.com/ ).
2. Virus scan your system, particularly if it's Windows!, possibly an overkill if it's linux but it won't hurt, also run a rootkit checker.

Thanks, I'll give that a try and see if that helps.

Re: Am I a Spammer?

MartyBartfast — Wed Aug 22, 2012 4:43 pm

Author: MartyBartfast

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 4:43 pm

MikeHarvey wrote:

the spam emails are appearing in my BlueYonder>Google Mail>Sent Mail folder but not in my Blueyonder>Sent folder, which is where I've told Thunderbird to stick copies of my outgoing mail.

Am I a Spammer?

MikeHarvey — Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:53 pm

Author: MikeHarvey

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:53 pm

You'd think I'd know the answer to that question, but I'm currently baffled. For my sins I'm a Virgin customer, solely because when the music stopped they were the ones left holding the remains of BlueYonder. That's the background, now to my problem.

Recently I've been receiving 'bounce' message for emails I've never sent. There were only a few so I thought it was just some sort of weird spam and ignored the messages. A few days ago I got quite a few of them so I thought I'd investigate further. On checking my folders in Thunderbird it appears that I have indeed been sending out a load of spam. However, looking a little deeper things are not so clear. Virgin, presumably for strictly financial reasons, use Google for their mail servers and the spam emails are appearing in my BlueYonder>Google Mail>Sent Mail folder but not in my Blueyonder>Sent folder, which is where I've told Thunderbird to stick copies of my outgoing mail.

My question thus is: am I really sending spam and if so how do I stop it and if not is there some way I can get the relevant email address 'cleaned up' so that spammers can't pretend to be me please?

Many thanks.

Mike