HELP - My email account keeps sending junk

[the naked beekeeper]

Help please any computer bods!

My email address (hotmail.co.uk) keeps sending stupid junk mail to everyone in my mail box. No subject header, just links to random products. How the hell do I stop this?!

I am so fed up of it and I cannot find any solution to stop it.

If I am not careful, my contacts will start blocking me!

Help!!!

 

[Storm™]

Change your password now to something complicated ie random letters and numbers in different cases and it will stop.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I don't use hotmail but a quick google revealed this site. Hope it is of some use.

http://http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/272630-hotmail-sending-spam-to-my-contact-list-solved/

 

[JamezF]

Starting with a decent virus scanner would probably be sensible. Changing your hotmail password, perhaps from another machine, and not to "myname1" might be a good precaution, too.

But do you know these emails actually originate from you? Or could it be someone faking your email address?

Mined ewe, if people do start blocking your email then perhaps it's only fair. Hotmail seem to throw away a large proportion of the email I send to them, for no obvious good reason. I don't know of a single email system admin who has anything positive to say about them.

James

 

[Storm™]

I don't use hotmail but a quick google revealed this site. Hope it is of some use.

http://http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/272630-hotmail-sending-spam-to-my-contact-list-solved/

I had this on mine. My mate has it. And my partner had it. I looked it up. Ours was "would you like to see my holiday photos. Click here"

Changed password to something like 3D27xA6s and it stopped. So did a lot of the crap. That was the recommendation when i searched. Clear your cookies as well. If your very worried go to trend micro and run housecall for free. Takes a while but that also clears crap.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

Wow, quick responses! Thanks.

I've changed my email to a non-dictionary word, with numbers and case changes.

I did google the problem and it seems common but there didn't seem to be a definite solution as such.

The link you provided seems very long winded! I use Firefox as my browser anyway, so I've taken the link's advice about some security add-ons and will install them.

I also pay an annual subscription to Norton as well!

Thanks for your help so far!

 

[For want of a better word]

I also pay an annual subscription to Norton as well!


Of Buckfast fame............................

I dont think you would want to see those holiday snaps anyway... probably some dodgy site!

 

[Arfermo]

Are you sure your hotmail account ends "@hotmail.co.uk" as mine ends "@hotmail.com"? I keep it specifically for those sites and emails that I am not sure of. As for Norton, imho you are wasting your money paying an annual subscription for a whole lot of supposed security that is available free from AVG. Piriform CrapCleaner is another freeware for ridding yourself of junk that even the MS system can't dig out when you look in the "Properties" tab of the C Drive. CrapCleaner needs very careful watching as to what you let it get rid of. A particularly good feature is that you can select which cookies you want to keep so that it will delete all the other trackers etc that you don't want and which are otherewise spying on what you do. Be careful to keep those cookies that incorporate logon passwords etc eg your bank, credit card people, etc as otherwise you will have to setup the logon memory again. Can help with other queries if you wish. Pm me.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

There's some knowledgable people on here!
Thank you very much.

I may well have to send a pm Arfermo. That's kind of you to offer.

For now, I have changed my password.
Added 'McAfee' and also added 'no script' firefox plug-in.

And yes, my email account is .co.uk

icanhopit....keep Norton and his Buckies away from me! lol!

 

[Brosville]

Don't waste money paying for antivirus programmes, AVG free (or others) will do the trick!

 

[nosmoking]

Don't waste money paying for antivirus programmes, AVG free (or others) will do the trick!

Best free one out there and, hotmail is rife with virus's/spammers etc that's why I don't use it. I was given a tip years ago from a pc engineer. When someone forwards emails to you and you want to forward them on delete all the email addresses in the mail. Apparently this will reduce the amount that 'bots' pick up. You will never stop spam mail either as the isp's are not interested in helping to stop it. Oh for a decent spam filter.

 

[Arfermo]

There's some knowledgable people on here!
Thank you very much.

I may well have to send a pm Arfermo. That's kind of you to offer.

For now, I have changed my password.
Added 'McAfee' and also added 'no script' firefox plug-in.

And yes, my email account is .co.uk

icanhopit....keep Norton and his Buckies away from me! lol!

First Norton and now McAfee. Why won't AVG do? Have you not tried it? Brosville agrees and you are definitely wasting your cash on these two. I'm off to bed.

 

[The Cumbrian]

You will never stop spam mail either as the isp's are not interested in helping to stop it.

I shouldn't say this too loud but I can't remember when I last had a spam email.

I think it depends on where and how your email address is out there. When I frequented news groups I got hundreds a day.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

First Norton and now McAfee. Why won't AVG do? Have you not tried it? Brosville agrees and you are definitely wasting your cash on these two. I'm off to bed.

The McAfee was free, but I can always uninstall it if you think it's pants.

I'll give AVG a go on your reccomendation.

 

[BeeJayBee]

I'll give AVG a go on your reccomendation.

Good idea, it's brilliant.

It might be worth your while scanning with AdAware too. It's also free.

 

[Headnavigator]

The McAfee was free, but I can always uninstall it if you think it's pants.

I'll give AVG a go on your reccomendation.

nothing better than AVG, go for it.

 

[Storm™]

Agree AVG is best. AVG updates itself every time you log on. They update their software for the latest threats. Macafee and others are only as good as their virus update databases. As far as I'm aware - not as good as AVG updates.

Hotmail .com .co.Uk - don't worry about that. If you have had your hotmail account roughly over 3 years it will probably be a .com. After that (roughly 3 years ago) they ran out of .com's. So everything became .co.Uk. Well for us here anyway. I have new and old accounts and some are one some are another.

Dont be surprised if your inbox is empty day in day out now. I used to get regular emails from various places. Now - nothing. It's actually a little disappointing lol some were funny.

When you get an email from your friends and it's says something like - amazing look at this. You open it up and it's a heart wrenching story about a child who has survived cancer (here's the important bit as the story could be anything from this to pictures of puppies) and then it says pass this email on to 10 of your friends and the angels that helped me will help you - delete and ignore. Ok. The premis will be different and could be quite genuine but whatva - delete.

Never open or reply to emails asking for your bank details. They will never do that. And for any service that you use your card online through - paypal, iTunes, th**nes, eBay, amazon anything like that. Change those passwords too. Most require a log in email contact address. So you use your hotmail as it's easy. And maybe the same password. As it's easy. Neve do this. Different Passwords for each k. I have just had £20.00 spent from my iTunes account. Some bloke called Hang Long from china. So all my passwords are different. iTunes refunded the money but said it was against their policy to do this. Only because the details were all in Chinese (no one could read it) did they refund my money. But said initially all purchases are final.

If you get emails sending you password reminders for anything, someones tried to get into that account and they have triggered the auto password reminder.

And it is going to get worse. Just one last thing - in my experiecnce anything NORTON ANTI - WHATEVER has one effect. It marmalises your PC. But that may just be me that had to reinstall everything several times thanks to NORTONS crap software.

Hope that helps.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials both free and good.

Password change will have sorted your problem, the issue is how did the spammers get your password in the first place - either from a virus on a machine you have used for hotmail (neednt be your own) or by phishing (ie fooling you into telling your password).

Afermo - hotmail have issued both .com and .co.uk addresses for a few years now, I think they started off with just .com.

 

[Brosville]

The other thing is to ditch Hotmail all together and set yourself up a "proper" email address - your service provider should be able to give you the details to set it up on your computer (you'll then have an email address ending in "@btinternet.com" or "@plusnet.com" or similar) - use a competent free email programme like "Thunderbird" to handle it, and you're free of the scourge of Hotmail.

I'm admin on another forum, and we have a warning at the top of it that says
"Anyone wishing to register as a new member on the forum is strongly recommended to use a "proper" email address - following recent spam/hack attempts on the forum, all security is set to "high", and "disposable" email addresses like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail tend to be viewed with suspicion, and the application rejected if there is any doubt whatsoever" - to put that in context, probably less than 1% of applications from those named email providers are genuine, all the rest are dictionary attackers, spammers and spambots....

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Matter of opinion - I've been using Hotmail happily for many years and have no problem with it. Similarly gmail, although for a lot less time.

Don't ditch unless you have a very good reason. Hotmail is a "proper" email address,and to be honest it gives a lot less trouble than btinternet.com which insists it knows best about what is spam. I cannot remember the last time anyone refused me because I was using a hotmail account.