What to do

[GlennaRae]

Hope someone can help. My email addresses have been hacked, spammed or whatever the term. I call it hi-jacked. Pharmaceutical companies and making money from home are a couple of examples of emails being sent using my address book. Has this happened to anyone and if so how did you handle it?

Thanks,
Glenna

[asirimarco]

yes happened to me - apoligize to your friends and CHANGE your email password is the advice I got since then its been okay

[mtngal]

It happened to me too. Like Carol said, change your password (and often!). An additional twist for me was that they turned on my vacation notification function; that was how emails were going out to my addresses!

An aside re: passwords....I read an article recently that suggested using the first letter of words in a sentence along with numbers, etc. My most sensitive accounts have been changed to this method. Turned out to be easier than I expected!

[mitch5252]

An aside re: passwords....I read an article recently that suggested using the first letter of words in a sentence along with numbers, etc. My most sensitive accounts have been changed to this method. Turned out to be easier than I expected!

What a great idea!

[Acadianmom]

The first letter of a word in a sentence would be good if you can remember the sentence. I can't remember for 5 minutes what I was going to do next. I have a Rolodex that has nothing but user names and passwords in it. My DH is always wanting to order something on line. I hate the web sites that want you to create an account. I just want to place an order, not have to remember something else.

Martha

[retiredhappy]

Set up a separate email account to use ONLY when shopping on line. That way spammers don't have your "real" email address and change your password often

[Bethers]

How you got this "worm" is most likely because someone you trusted sent you an email with it - and you opened it or clicked on an attachment in it that allowed it into your address book. Or your acct was hacked. Both can usually be fixed by changing your password. What's strange about the first case, is that the worm never got your password, but when you change it, it stops it.

Rarely does a week go by that I don't get at least one email from someone I know that this has happened to. So don't get upset about it - just change your password, and move on.

Oh, and it's good to hear from you!

[GlennaRae]

Thanks ladies for you help.

Sending all the information to my son so he can fix me up next time he is over.

I do sent apologies when I send an email. Several months ago I received an email from a brother in law that seldom writes and when I opened it was from a Canada Pharmacy. I was mad at him for setting me up, now since this has happened to me, he probably knew nothing about it. The first time I knew something was wrong, I got an email that said they were happy to hear from me but was just to much to read. I explained that I had not written. Another son called and wanted to know why I wanted him to work from home and address envelopes.

Thanks again,

Glenna

[JudyJB]

I also have two separate emails: one I use for personal emails and one I use when I buy something or on discussion boards such as these. It means I almost never get junk mail on my personal email account, which is the one I have set up to upload to Outlook. I only check the other one once or twice a week.

Most service providers allow you to set up multiple email accounts at no extra costs, so I can change the junk email if I need to.