Spams emails

[lilly76]

It is twice in about three weeks that I have had an email from two different people purporting to be someone I know.  I know that it is a scam, but I must explain so that others will know.

The first email asked how are you?  It was supposed to be from an acquaintance

The second email was "I would like you to do me a favour on your Amazon Account."  It went into detail and said that he was in hospital and it was his cousin's birthday and would I send a Voucher to his cousin.  He/she said I would be repaid when he is out of hospital.  I replied of course I can do that, but I didn't know he was in hospital.  I heard no more but contacted my acquaintance who said his emails were scammed and he lost his emails for a day and he worked all night to recover his email.  Just as well he knew what to do.

The second spam email was today, but I and other members were warned via the U3A that we belonged to.  I forwarded it to phishing@bt.com, but I still received a second email from the person today asking if I could do him/her a favour on my Amazon Account.  I did not respond and forwarded that to phishing@bt.com

Is there any way that I can stop receiving these scam emails?  Should I change my Password or does it not make any difference at all?

H

Your views would be appreciated.  It is very annoying.

[licquorice]

There is nothing you can do. Their email has been hacked and their contacts list stolen. The hackers can now spoof the email address and send emails to the stolen contact list. You can't 'unsteal' something that has been stolen.

Think of it in terms of a burglar stealing your paper address book, nothing you can do about it.

I assume the purported sender's are aware and have changed their passwords.

[lilly76]

Thanks, Licquorice for making contact and explaining it to me. 

I am an active 76 year old and there is still a lot I don't know or understand about the internet.  I didn't realise that it wasn't me who was scammed as well, but now I know.

Thanks for letting me know that there is nothing I can do.  I can relax now.

I have a friend who knows the person who was scammed and I will get her to phone and let her know she should change her Password.

Thank you and have a nice day.

H

[gg30340]

As has been pointed out, the emails that are purporting to be coming from your friends email address will not actualy be being sent from that email address. The email address will have been spoofed. This is to make the scammers email appear genuine to you so that you will feel that it is safe to click on links or carry out any requests that are made in the email.

See link about spoofing.

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

Your friend would be best to advise all her contacts what has happened with her email account and I would also suggest that she stop using that email account and set up a new email account to use. If she does that she should inform all her contacts that she is no longer using the "hacked" email account and that any emails coming from it should be ignored and treated as spam.

You never said who her email supplier is but the following links advising what to check after an email account has been hacked have good generic good advice regardless of who her supplier is.

https://www.howtogeek.com/email-account-hacked/

https://www.bt.com/help/email/email-security/how-can-i-tell-if-my-email-account-is-no-longer-secure