E-mail spammed-what to do?

Posted: Tue, Mar 13 2012, 3:37 pm Post subject: E-mail spammed-what to do?

I got an email from a friend that was obviously not from her. I told her about it and she asked me what she should do. I have no idea-short of changing her email address.

Is there s/t she can do to stop whoever it is from taking over her email address?
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Executive Member Joined: Jun 26 2010 Posts: 364

Change her password.

Senior Member Joined: Apr 03 2011 Posts: 158

happened to me too. All she needs to do is change her password

Gold Member Joined: May 27 2010 Posts: 2142

Change the password to something at least 6 characters, capitals, smalls and alphanumerics.

Other than that switch to Gmail or Hushmail. They are more secure then the others.

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 17 2008 Posts: 5050

What the others said. If she doesn't want to do that, you should at least insist she delete you from her address book.

I've known some cases where even changing the password numerous times didn't help and the only solution was to close the email account. That's pretty rare though.
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Silver Member Joined: Jan 09 2012 Posts: 633

Posted: Tue, Mar 13 2012, 7:08 pm Post subject: re: E-mail spammed-what to do?

BIL had it once. Tell her to send an email to all her contacts saying that her email was hacked and she didn't send those emails....
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Platinum Member Joined: Mar 24 2008 Posts: 6528

Posted: Tue, Mar 13 2012, 7:32 pm Post subject: re: E-mail spammed-what to do?

She should change her password quick before the hacker changes it! My husbands twitter account was hacked and the password was changed. He couldn't even log into his account.

Platinum Member Joined: Nov 17 2008 Posts: 5050

Posted: Tue, Mar 13 2012, 10:29 pm Post subject: re: E-mail spammed-what to do?

Thank you all. I have passed on the info.

Posted: Tue, Mar 13 2012, 10:46 pm Post subject: re: E-mail spammed-what to do?

She should also check her autoresponder - often the hacker gets into the e-mail account and then actually pastes a message there, which then automatically spams anyone who sends an e-mail to the person's address! Sneaky and so obnoxious. Also very creepy when you go into your account preferences and see someone else's "handiwork" sitting there. (Yes, it happened to me!)

If that turns out to be the problem, there's no need to close the account.

And of course, yes, change the password.

Posted: Wed, Mar 14 2012, 3:48 pm Post subject: re: E-mail spammed-what to do?

She emailed me today to let me know that yahoo sent her an email saying her account was compromised and to change her password. Which she did.