Worrying Spam Email

[camdave]

Over the past week or so I have received a number of emails apparently from people in my contact list with a link and all ending, "sent from my iphone". My wife too has had a few of these from her contacts.

We run two separate desktops and neither of us uses social media such as Facebook so the names could only come from our computers.  None of the contacts concerned has any connection with any of the others.

I retained the last email (received today) and it seems to have originated from "mycontact@adres.co.jp", where the contact name is in the correct format.

Neither Norton nor Malwarebytes come up with any 'nasties' which does not surprise me.  I have run F-Secure Router Checker (as recommended by Computer Active!) and it came up with an all clear in a suspiciously fast time of just a couple of seconds.

Should I panic, change our passwords or sit tight and wait for the emails to stop!

[Glenn]

I had one yesterday purporting to be from my cousin's husband, it was just a link and it went straight in the Junk folder, he is not in my contacts list.

[Simon]

I've had a few of them too, one was purporting to have come from another member of this forum.  He, of course, shall remain nameless, but I know Clive has had one or two as well.   

I just binned them as spam, but they are becoming worryingly authentic.   

[nowster]

Lots of them have been harvested from hacked Yahoo mailboxes.

[Clive]

I shall remain nameless but two of my contacts including someone quite unknown to me but his name is Simon, and a neighbour received spam e-mails from me just containing a link.  I have taken no action and nobody else has received anything untoward from me.

[Simon]

I shall remain nameless but two of my contacts including someone quite unknown to me but his name is Simon, and a neighbour received spam e-mails from me just containing a link.  I have taken no action and nobody else has received anything untoward from me.

The giveaway was "Sent from my iPhone". 

[Gary]

Unless you know anyone in Japan just block the whole domain.

[Clive]

The giveaway was "Sent from my iPhone". 

[Steve]

Didn't think you used an iPhone anymore Simon

[Simon]

I don't, but I was referring to the person from whom the email appeared to originate.  He still uses a mobile phone which requires a suitcase to carry the battery.   

[Technical Ben]

I've had a few of them too, one was purporting to have come from another member of this forum.  He, of course, shall remain nameless, but I know Clive has had one or two as well.   

I just binned them as spam, but they are becoming worryingly authentic.   

That suggests somewhere a database has been hacked. Could it be in relation to an Apple, Google or similar account? Or less obvious, a smaller company, like say... BT!

[Clive]

You have hit the nail on the head Ben.  My e-mail is with BTInternet.  I no longer have the old mobile Simon because it wouldn't work in the US.  So I had to buy a £25 Samsung from Tesco.  Strangely, I've just acquired another mobile phone!  It had been on sale at Tesco for £3.47 but was reduced to £2.  My sister-in-law bought it and has just given it to me - for free.     It doesn't have a simcard but I can buy one from Amazon for 1p.  Trouble is there are two sizes of sim cards and I'm not certain which type it uses.  It's quite a neat little phone - really small.  Have I been robbed?  I don't think it's a smart phone.   

[Den]

I have a iPhone 4s and my emails are with BT but so far have had no such emails from any one. 

[colirv]

My daughter and I have both just had spam emails as you describe, "sent from my iphone", from a joint friend with a Yahoo account. The emails had a different (i.e. not yahoo) domain after the "@".

[Simon]

You have hit the nail on the head Ben.  My e-mail is with BTInternet.  I no longer have the old mobile Simon because it wouldn't work in the US.  So I had to buy a £25 Samsung from Tesco.  Strangely, I've just acquired another mobile phone!  It had been on sale at Tesco for £3.47 but was reduced to £2.  My sister-in-law bought it and has just given it to me - for free.     It doesn't have a simcard but I can buy one from Amazon for 1p.  Trouble is there are two sizes of sim cards and I'm not certain which type it uses.  It's quite a neat little phone - really small.  Have I been robbed?  I don't think it's a smart phone.   

Why not be reckless and get BOTH sizes of SIM card so you can try each?  You can always send one of them back. 

In all seriousness, though, take a bit of care with these cheap SIM cards, as you could find all your calls being routed via Timbuktoo.  I'm not suggesting they're all dodgy, but they must be making money somewhere, otherwise why bother selling them for 1p, when it costs them more to post it!

[Clive]

Buy both??  Do you think I'm made of money??    The phone is a Samsung e1080i which I assume is state of the art. 

[Simon]

State of the ark, maybe. 

[Clive]

    But I may as well use it.   

[Clive]

You will all be delighted to hear I've given up my Luddite ways and bought a Sim card for my brand new Samsung e1080i mobile phone.  I had to pay 99p for it but tesco refunded that when I purchased a £10 PAYG voucher.     It seems easy enough to operate and the only difficulty I had was resetting the date which had been factory set to January 1 1899.  Thankfully Mrs Clive came to my rescue and it now shows the correct time and date.  It's soooo small!  Nothing like those brick-size phones everyone walks around with these days.   

[nowster]

...the only difficulty I had was resetting the date which had been factory set to January 1 1899.

Does it work on steam? 

[Clive]

Is there any other way?   

[Simon]

Welcome to the 20th Century, Clive!   

[Clive]

[Simon]