DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Has anyone ever received this in their email?

For the past several months at least, I have received what appears to be personal emails from complete strangers whose email addresses I don't recognize. The content of the emails have to do with ordinary, every day stuff, like how their day is going, or an update on family members...stuff that you would send to a close friend or relative.

I have received several emails like this from several addresses. The email provider from which they are sent are legitimate providers, and their usernames are "spam-ish" at all. One time, I emailed the woman back after she had been sending emails for months...I finally told her that I didn't know who she was, but she had the wrong email address, and to stop sending emails. She wrote back saying that she didn't understand how I was receiving emails that were intended for her friend, which REALLY seems strange to me, because wouldn't it come up with your friend during a real life conversation that the emails aren't being read and/or responded to?

Anywhoo, like I said, she is not the only one....there have been several other people, all with totally different email addys, sending me these personal style emails, and I'm just wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else. Is this a way for a spammer to get your email address if you reply to it?

I'm just really confused...

I would say it was spoofing, but if the woman replied back to you claiming they were real emails meant for someone else, then that's a little strange, unless she is a spammer and was lying, but what you describe are emails that have no purpose. No attachments, no ads, nothing?

Were the content about distress or issues this person is having?

If so, it may be part of a phishing scam, where they send out emails randomly, that look like they just got sent to the wrong address, then when someone replies they lay in with the scam of a person in distress.

Email being routed incorrectly isn't totally impossible, but improbable. Especially repeatedly.

I'm assuming they're all from different domain names?

Did you do a google search by any chance on this? I know that when I've had goofy things like this come up (although I've never dealt with this exactly), I do a google search and find that a lot of people have had the same experience.

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No attachments, no ads, nothing?

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Nope, nothing.

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Were the content about distress or issues this person is having?

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No, just ordinary conversation....what they had for lunch, what they're going to do when they get home from work, how their day is going, etc.

Sounds like the old days when phones used to be on party lines.. maybe that's just where Pittsburgh is technologically.

My family is having that problem. Whenever anyone sends an email to my mom, it goes to my brothers email address. She claims she has checked all her settings and can't figure out why this is happening. It's really strange and creepy since I guess you don't always know that what you send is only going to the person intended.

My mom lives in Vegas, so none of us can go investigate her computer or settings for her. It's just a reminder to never include anything private or personal in an email.

Have you checked to see if the intended recipients all have similar e-mail addys or are of the same domain? Something similar to yours?

If I don't recognize the sender, I don't even open them. "Delete" key, big time.

SOOOOOO how long have you had this multiple personality disorder

It's a nasty trojan horse like infection on their computers. This happened to an acquaintance of a friend of mine, and his emails were being sent to a lot of people that he didn't know. I didn't know him at all, but my friend was a common denominator.... and I think with a little research you can find that you're on an email list of someone these people know. I would write each of these folks back from a free temporary email account and tell them their personal emails are being sent to unintended recipients and to do a virus scan ASAP. Whatever you do, don't reply from your main account or open any links or attachments.

Aha! Now THAT makes sense! Thanks jfan!

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SOOOOOO how long have you had this multiple personality disorder

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She's not sure she's gonna have to ask herself.

Bet she gets many different answers

I agree with jfanet, with the other details you have provided.

Problem is, that most likely the person infected doesn't know it, doesn't knwo how to scan ro fix it, and/or doesn't care.

Did you try Googling their email address?

I've been getting e-mails from an attorney in Toronto for about eight years. My name must be close to one of his co-workers or something. I could have easily told him to delete me, but he kept sending updates about this huge court case, it was like being in the middle of a good book I couldn't put down. It took four years to learn the case involved some disputed property, like the land between two houses. One party had apparently planted trees to defy the neighbor, who promptly chopped them down. The lawsuit involved both the ownership argument and the replacement cost of the trees, I was both intrigued and involved but suddenly the law firm moved to a new location and updated their mailing list. Now I'll never find out how it was resolved. It's like hearing the whole body of a joke but missing the punch line.
Now, all I get from him is the stock Christmas greeting every year, and an update on all the members of his family.

I agree and had a friend that had the same problem, he ended up just starting from scratch (reinstalled the operating system) because he couldn't get it off, though he is pretty dumb when it comes to computers, but your probably right on about Christy's issue, the weren't spam emails I seen them they were just regular everyday emails. Weird stuff he actually thought someone had is road runner email address along with his, but that wasn't it.

Christy did you reply to any of them by chance? I hope not, and good luck removing the probable trojan.

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Whatever you do, don't reply from your main account or open any links or attachments.

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Too late.

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Christy did you reply to any of them by chance? I hope not, and good luck removing the probable trojan.

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Yeah, I did to one of them....but I have a Mac, so there's a good chance my computer wasn't infected, right?

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but I have a Mac, so there's a good chance my computer wasn't infected, right?

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Has your computer started giving you illogical error messages in bright yellow?

Nooooo...is this leading up to a joke?

Was wondering if you could cut and paste an example email WITH the headers from the email? Headers will show valuable info (like where the mail really originated from) that may help in figuring out what is going on.

Those people may have a virus that sends crap to people in their address book.

When I had AoL back in the day I had an e-mail very similar to someone else and I used to get his e-mails. I used a 0 (zero) in my name and he used a o. They were pretty interesting and a few times I wrote them back acting like that guy (b/c when I wrote to him saying I was getting his e-mails he was a jerk) and got him into trouble with his g/f lol