Strange emails from myself

[tinaeva]

Hi. I'm brand new to the Forum, have recently bought Super Affiliate Handbook and am just learning the affiliate business.

This week I have received 2 emails from myself (as if they came through my autoresponder) that I did not send.
One is about PROFITmatic, a program I only just heard of in emails recently that I deleted. It gives this link: http://14802.profitmatic.com/

The second says, "Welcome to the most lucrative, most dynamic and most complete business opportunity on the net!! http://onlinebiz020.atspace.com/signup.html"

Both of these links look like affiliate links to me and both emails give my email address as who to contact for more info, as if I'm promoting these opportunities.

I never signed up for either of these programs nor became an affiliate for either. I know nothing about them.

This rather alarms me. Can anyone suggest what has happened? Is this some new fraudulant technique?

Any answers appreciated.

Kristina

[Jodi]

This happened to me too. I wrote to my hosting service and this is the reply they gave me:

This problem is email spoofing,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
We checked our server mail logs and the spam messages do not appear to have
originated from our servers. Looking at the bounced messages that you
received, it appears that this is a case of e-mail spoofing where a spammer
randomly picks a domain name to use in the "From" address of the e-mail.
Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this since the e-mail
originates from outside of our network. However, you can be assured that
spammers typically move on to a different domain name after each batch of
spam that they send. Also, your domain will not be reported as a spammer
since the e-mail message headers indicate where the true origin of the
e-mail came from.

If you feel that someone is attempting to damage your business name, then
you may want to contact your local law enforcement agency. They should be
able to point you in the right direction on how to pursue the spammer.

I hope this helps...
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[tinaeva]

Thanks, Jodi, for your reply.

It's certainly a weird feeling, and I really don't like it, but it sounds like it might not do any actual damage.

I was afraid I'd get emails from people asking me about this since my email address was given, but perhaps people who get this will just click on the link provided.

I don't undrstand the benefit to the spammer of using someone else's email address; well, I guess it cloaks the spammer's real identity.

I may go ahead and report it to my ISP to cover all my bases.

Thanks again for your help!

Kristina

[Jodi]

your welcome. It upset me too especially since the address used is my website and business and has my home and cell phone numbers on it. I didn't want people calling me up and upset that I spammed them. Fortunately it only happened a couple of times in my e-mail and then stopped.

[Tropical Tundra]

It is a good idea to report it and keep a record incase your URL ends up on a spam blacklist you can provide evidence your email addy was spoofed and that you reported it as such so they can un-blacklist you.

[tinaeva]

Thanks for the advice. I definitely will!

Kristina