Email Fraud Question

[Dryr]

I heard from a family member in her 80's that she has been receiving emails from an unknown email address ([email protected]) with the sender's name matching another family member who says that it is not her. As a result, she has not opened them and doesn't know what's in them.

Is this a local issue where the persons contact info was stolen, or did someone perhaps hack the senders email for their address book and is now sending out fishing or virus emails?

Otherwise, is there anything that can be done to track down the unknown sender's info?

[The Stig]

This was rampant during the hotmail days. I actually don't know the actual cause of them but from what I gather it's:

1. Spoofed
and a combination of:
2. The sender may or may not be infected with something (although this is usually the case)
3. A mutal third party with your addresses is transmitting them

In 99% of all cases, it's junk, and it's a waste of time trying to track them down. You can attempt to open these e-mails from a secured/locked down machine or environment but you'll mainly find nothing but disappointment/a waste of time.

I won't rule out the contact info was stolen but this is extremely common with Yahoo/Hotmail.

[Dryr]

^^kk thanks.