I think someone has accessed my BT email contact list

[orinocowomble]

Three of my legitimate contacts have contacted me today saying that they have received emails, purporting to be from me, asking them to do things like buy Google Pay vouchers.  When they have researched this further the email address that actually sent the messages was not mine, nor even a  BT email account.

How has this happened, and what can I now do to secure my email account?

Thanks in anticipation. 

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

It would appear that the scammers have "spoofed" your email address to make it appear that their scamming email has come from a genuine email address. 

See link

Email spoofing - Wikipedia

It may be that sometime in the past your email account was hacked and your contact list was stolen and is now being used by the scammers.

As you cannot "unsteal" the contacts list and the emails are not being sent from your email account, there is nothing you can do about it other than to warn your contacts that scam emails may be sent to them that are purporting to be from you or stop using that email account and warn your contacts that anything coming from that email account has not been sent by you and they should delete any email received from it.

[licquorice]

Unfortunately the horse has bolted and it is too late to shut the stable door. Your address book has been stolen and your contacts harvested for scammers to use. Like a paper address book that has been stolen, it is impossible to 'unsteal' it. All you can do is warn your contacts that the emails are not genuine.

You should change your password anyway just to be safe.

[orinocowomble]

Thanks for your advice

[orinocowomble]

Thanks for your email