Unexplained "failed" email messages

[Broadback]

I, fairly often, get failed email messages for messages I have never sent, to addresses I have no knowledge of. what is the explanation for this please?

[Dex]

Do a virus and malware scan as well.

[Huge]

Someone is using your email address to send spam.

[leenowell]

Yep sounds like you have been infected.

[Brian Gaff]

Somebody has spoofed the return address on an eemail as yours. The reasons for doing this could be some kind of scam or just a complete c*ck up. Personally I just delete them as if you reply to the original sender that is conirming you exist and hence your address gets on a list of live addresses and is sold, or worse, so I just ignore and delete these days. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Not always the case. Sometimes its just a bit of social engineering to find out active emails. Most systems should bounce emails with at least a clue in the header. If your IP address or computer name shows up then yes, maybe you have been botted but I've yet to find this is the case. In most cases its just an error or some kind of way to harvest email addresses that work.

Obviously you should check. Brian

[Robin]

Or, as the link Dex posted indicates, very probably not.

I've had bounce messages on and off for years on various accounts and

*always* as a result of the address being spoofed.

[john west]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

use well established, and well regarded free: Malwarebytes and CCleaner

[Jim GM4DHJ in the Radio Shack]

It's DIGITAL ...no reason needed .......

[Fredxx]

The failed message will often have the original sender's IP address.

If it does, best check it to make sure its some Russian IP address rather than one connected to you.

In the past I've had literally thousands of bounced emails when someone unpleasant was trying to add credibility to their spam.

[TimW]

[The Natural Philosopher]

In my friend-with-BT-mail's case, his account had been compromised, and we finally discovered what had been done - the reply-to AND mail forwarding had been set to a spurious outlook.com address.

Not that BT was the slightest help in identifying which one

But do check to see that accounts have not been compromised byt looking at te IP addtess of the original sender

[Tim Lamb]

Umm. I use CCleaner but find the upgrade *clickbait* page annoying. Also AVG. They persist in telling me how long I have been using their free version, threatening all sorts of mayhem on the unprotected bits and offering discounted upgrades that I assume will morph into an auto-renewal subscription:-(

[John Rumm]

Your email address (and likely millions of others) is being used as the source address for a spam campaign. By using a selection of addresses it makes it harder to block based on simple metrics like sender address. Its also "good" (for the spammer) since if they are using compromised PCs to run the campaign, the bounces are not going back to the real senders which may alert them to a problem.

[newshound]

They've been bought by Avast, I hear, who are pushing their AV hard.

Used to find CC ok.

[alan_m]

Usually if that is the case your ISP will block your email account and you will not be able to send or receive any emails.

My guess it's the normal crap and the reply/from address has been spoofed by some spammer. My email program catches quite a few of these each month and routes them directly to my spam older.

[alan_m]

Malwarebytes now installs as the full premium edition with a 15 day free trial. After 15 days it reverts to the free version and disables the "premium" functions. The free version is still worth having/using and has the same functionality as the free version previously distributed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

How quaint, having to install a malware trap...