Can't delete redundant BT Yahoo email accounts i.e btopenworld.com

[smugshodan]

Hi,

I am receiving scam emails from on old btopenworld account and need to delet it or at least delink it. The BT website does not give any information on this. Can you help please ?

[gg30340]

Deleting the email address, if it is still active, would make no difference what so ever because the emails will not be coming from that email account.

Scammers spoof email addresses to make them look like that they are coming from an email address which is not the true sending email address.

They do this to "lure" the receiver into thinking that the email has come from a trusted email address and will therefore be safe.

If you check the actual headers of the email address you will most likely find that the emails are not originating from the btopenworld address.

What has probably happened is that either your email account or a contact had their email account hacked at some point in the past and the hacker will have stolen the contacts of the hacked account. The hacker will then use the contacts email address to spoof emails to the other contacts of the hacked account in attempt to get a response because they will believe that the email came from a trusted source.

See link about spoofing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing

[smugshodan]

Sorry I didnt explain my problem correctly. The scam emails are being sent to my old btopenworld account (which is linked I assume to my current bt account) from what looks like a made up account. Hope this explains.

[gg30340]

Does the btopenworld email account have the same prefix as your current BT email address which presumably ends with btinternet.com?

[smugshodan]

yes it does

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

Your "old" btopenworld.com and your btinternet.com email addresses are one and the same,  btopenworld.com and btinternet.com are interchangeable.

As has been pointed out, the scam emails will not coming from the btopenword email address and there is no way to stop the scammer from spoofing that email address. 

If it was your email account that was hacked, you may find that your contacts are also receiving scam emails purporting to be from your btopenworld address. 

If it was not your email account that was hacked in the past, it must have been an account that had your btopenworld email address listed in the contacts that was hacked and the hacker is spoofing your email address.  

If you use this checker you can check to see if your email account was hacked. Try using both the btopenworld and the btinternet suffix.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

[smugshodan]

Thanks for that. Both have been hacked btopenworld X3 , btinternet X6

[gg30340]

The hacks probably happened a few years back but I would suggest that you get a new email address and stop using the hacked email account.

Until you do that you should log onto your email account and check that there are no forwarding email addresses set up in the account. You should then change  your password.

Once you have set up your new email account, notify your contacts via your new account that you have been hacked and that you will no longer be using the hacked account and to treat anything that comes from it as spam and to delete it without opening it.

You should also change your email contact details with any bank accounts etc that you uses the hacked email address.

[smugshodan]

Many thanks for this. To clarify so I get it 100% - I should not use the current prefix? Its still ok setup a new email in BT i.e. I don't have to change provider 

[gg30340]

Yes that is correct. You can set up a new BT email address or if you prefer you can use another email provider such as gmail. 

If you decide to use a gmail address it has an added advantage in that it is not tied to an Internet provider so you can move to another Internet provider without having any hassle about needing to change your email address or lose it because it is part of your broadband package.