Scam phishing emails

[David2023]

On 5th Dec. I received an email which I opened and it was purportedly from the UK Gov., so I deleted it as it was obviously a scam as the sender email address was nothing to do with the UK government.

On the 6th & 7th Dec. I received 30 emails from postmaster@outlook.com and Email Administrator saying my emails could not be delivered as incorrect email addresses. Also I've received 3 emails from very annoyed people saying I've sent them a scam email, (which I haven't!). So far this morning I've received another 15 emails from Postmaster and Email administrator saying undeliverable email addresses.

It appears to me that someone has used my email address to send out masses of emails to random addresses as a scam to get them to log onto the link provided in the email.

None of the emails have been sent to anyone that I know, so they have not got access to my directory.

How do I stop this? Can someone help please!

[licquorice]

You can't. If somebody is spoofing your email address there is nothing you can do about it I'm afraid.

If you opened the original email, I would do a full scan of your device with your AV software and also Malwarebytes.

It might be prudent to change your email password.

[WSH · Accepted solution]

It could be that just opening the mail has confirmed to them that it was a live address, especially if it downloaded graphics as that calls back to the server for the images.

I know it doesn’t help at the moment but if you do receive emails like that in the future, and feel you must open them, move them to Outlook’s junk folder first.  That opens them as plain text and prevents them doing anything.  You can always move it back to the inbox and reactivate the links etc. if it is genuine.

[David2023]

Many thanks for your reply.

I'll do as you suggest and change my password. And suffer a continuing flood rejected emails.

Since writing my previous enquiry, I've received a further 7  rejected emails!

[David2023]

Thanks for your reply to my problem.

Like all such emails, you don't really know it to be scam until you open it, however, I will take your advice and open suspicious emails in Outlook first.

[gg30340]

As regards checking if an email address is genuine before opening it.

If you use BTMail on a  browser (webmail), single click the box to the left of the email and then go to the menu bar and select "More" then scroll down and select "View Source". This will show you the email headers which will show the email address where the email originated from. 

[David2023]

Thanks for the further info, in future I will look in 'View Source' first for any suspicious emails.

Further info, yesterday BT suspended my account because of the suspicious activity and because I had contacted the BT Community. After re establishing my authenticity with them and changing my password I'm now back on line and haven't received any more 'Postmaster' or 'Email administrator' emails, I'm glad to say!

Again many thanks to all for their assistance.