Keep getting dodgy emails from something@something.fathom-labs.io

[MilesP]

I get daily emails from this website (specific details changed, but always with fathom-labs.io as the source). This is on Outlook. They are clearly spam as they claim to be from John Lewis or Boots or some other firm saying I have won something.

I always send them to trash or delete. 

The strange thing is that when I go onto Virgin Media Webmail, I can never find them in the Inbox or any other folder. All other emails are on the Webmail server. Are they somehow being made invisible to Virgin Media Webmail yet still getting through to my Outlook account (and on the iPad). Or is Virgin Media detecting them as Spam and deleting - but they aren't in the Webmail folder either?

[Graham_A]

If you are permanently deleting them in Outlook then they won't appear in the VM webmail trash folder. 

[MilesP]

Thanks for the reply, but I checked the VM Webmail  Before I deleted it in Outlook. Also, my Outlook is set to use Pop3, which I don't think does delete them from the VM Webmail.

However, I also use an iPad, which is set to IMAP that does delete mail from the Server. But in this case, I did not log on to the iPad until after this message was received and it is still in the iPad inbox, undeleted!

So, how did it get deleted from the VM Server?

[Graham_A · Accepted solution]

@MilesP  Yes, you are correct about Pop3.  It is all a bit of a mystery because if VM Mail was identifying them as Spam they would be put in the Spam folder and would never be downloaded to Outlook when using POP3.

Are you absolutely sure that they are being sent to your VM email address and not to another email address that you have set up in Outlook (if any).

[MilesP]

Thanks for the reply. Yes they are going to an email address which is @ntlworld.com. The only other emails I have are gmail, but the message is not in there. Is it possible for someone to send messages to my @ntlworld.com email account though another provider that I don't know about and have not set up? I would have thought all emails to ntlworld accounts would have to come through Virgin Media?

Actually, they go to my wife's email address (also @ntlworld) which is not my main email account, but when I go onto VW Webmail, all messages from our VM mail addresses go to the same inbox - all the others are empty. Don't seem to be able to log on to the other email accounts directly - I think I could a few years ago.

I shall monitor this to see if the same thing happens next time.

[MilesP]

Just had a look at my email settings on Virgin Media Website. I have my main account and 4 others. They all have a warning by them saying "The entered credential or authentication information does not work or are no longer accepted by provider. Please change them." If I try to change them, the only option is IMAP. I use Pop3.

There does not seem to be any problem with these email addresses as I can still send and receive emails on them.

This probably has nothing at all to do with the issue in this thread, and I am not changing my email settings as they all work now. Maybe Virgin Media no longer allows POP3 to be used for new customers. I suspect VW may be trying to get out of the email business altogether!

[MilesP]

OK, Some light is beginning to dawn on this. I got another dodgy email just now purporting to be from John Lewis. It was not in the Webmail, so I tested sending an email to my Wife's account, which I received successfully in Outlook. However it was not on Webmail, so I guess at the moment I can't read any emails in my secondary accounts on Webmail. It must be to do with the warning message I mentioned above.

Looks like I might have to research exactly what new settings I need, but I can foresee everything going horribly wrong and be unable to access them at all - at least I get them in Outlook and on the iPad ok now.

[Graham_A]

I agree that you may be correct in your final comment.  Indeed VM email accounts have not been available for new VM customers since May 2022.

As regards viewing secondary email accounts in the primary VM webmail view IMAP has always been the only option.

Have you tried logging into the individual secondary accounts via webmail at https://mail.virginmedia.com/

You will need to log out of the primary account first or use a different browser.

[MilesP]

Finally got there and this has been a somewhat useful experience. I followed the instructions for editing all the secondary accounts and the default settings all seemed to work (although for some reason there was a warning about the passwords - may not have been quite long enough). Anyway, I can now see all messages from all my accounts in the VM Webmail sub-folders and the warning triangles have gone - phew. I can still received messages on Outlook and iPad.

Also, now I can see the dodgy emails in my wife's sub-folder. I blocked the domain, but every few days they change the domain name slightly. Maybe I can figure a way to block anything with fathom-labs in ti.

Progress though and thanks for your help.

[LINDABARKER]

Likewise I am getting daily emails from fathom-labs. Being non technical, I've got them automatically going into the Thunderbird junk folder - the slight change in domain name doesn't seem to affect it. I delete them en bloc from there, so don't even have to look at the wretched things. Not a very good solution, but for me, better than nothing, because I'm not going to click on the Unsubscribe button !