Spammer sending email from my account

[korkus2000]

I am getting replies to an email message I didn't send. Apparently a spammer harvested my email off my site. What is the best course of action for this. People are going to attribute my domain with spam.

I do not really have control over my mail server. My host is in control of that. I am now also recieving replies to spam from my yahoo account too. Man someone needs to lock down mail so spammers can't run rampant!

[oilman]

It's unlikely that the culprit is using your account - rather they are just using your addy as a reply-to address. There are two things you need to do:

1) Type up a form letter apology and explanation and save it as a text file so you can cut and paste into emails you get from the spammees.

2) Get a copy of one of the emails with full headers so you can track down where it's really coming from and report the spammer to his ISP.

Good Luck. It can take quite awhile to dig out from under this kind of thing. Hope it all works out.

[korkus2000]

The jerk used [e-mail]. Thanks pally!

[oilman]

>abuse@mydomain

ouch - that's just kicking you when your down.

One more thing - I'd consider putting up a notice on your website explaining what happened as well. You're probably gettin more visitors checking you out to see who sent them the spam.

[korkus2000]

If I get the header How do I find out the isp that is using that ip? I have never really looked into isp's ip addresses.

[oilman]

When you get it you can StickyMail it to me and I'll help you out with it if you like.

[korkus2000]

that would be excellent. Thanks

[mack]

It may be worth checking your log files for any form of harvester spider that has been on your server. If you find one, ban it. And i would certainly do what oilman said about having an appology email ready. Spamm is something that people refuse to accept especialy recently. This may work in your favour because quite a lot of the emails sent may not have made it through the end users spamm filter.

[bird]

Sounds like you have a special friend out there...

Oilman mentioned several good points already. Most importantly:

1) Inform your hosting provider and/or ISP, to keep them from shutting you down when the inevitable complaints start coming in.

2) Put a prominent note on your site, with an explanation.

3) Set up an autoreply on your [e-mail] address, sending out the same explanation (maybe your host will have do that for you).

[MarkHutch]

We've had the same problem too. I've had pretty good luck looking up their ISP via Arins and sending a couple of copies of the messages to them. These guys are not too bright because when they enter one of our @ addresses as the return address, we start receiving bounced messages almost immediately. We receive ALL email to our domains, even if there is not a user by that name, so we are aware of their little game pretty quick and have been able to take quick action. The funny thing is, the last time this was done, it was done by some students at a middle school in New Jersey. Best to break this bad habit when their young, in my view.