Virgin Media Community

[Rob34]

• I’m no longer a Virgin Media customer and I can no longer use my old ntlworld address. I have been advised, however, by some of my contacts that spam emails are being sent from my old address. Is there a way that the address being used with my name can be deleted?

[coenoby]

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@Rob34 wrote:
   I have been advised, however, by some of my contacts that spam emails are being sent from my old address. Is there a way that the address being used with my name can be deleted?

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The Forum Team (Virgin Media staff who support this forum) can arrange to get that old email address deleted for you.

However, bear in mind that those spam emails may only appear to be coming from your Ntlworld email account. Once spammers have your email address it is easy for them to "spoof" (fake) that address as the sender's address in an email. Spammers do that all the time for many reasons not least because it ensures that if any of their spam emails get blocked or rejected the resulting non delivery messages goes to the spoofed email account address not theirs!

Sadly, if these emails are being spoofed, the spammers can still continue to send out emails using your email address even though the account itself no longer exists.

One of the Forum Team will be contracting via this thread in the next day or so. They can get the account deleted for you but sadly that may not the be the silver bullet to end these spam emails.

Coenoby

[Rob34]

• Thanks for your help. I fear that you are correct re your point about the email address being used even though it might already have been deleted. I have a screenshot of the email which I can send to the person who will be contacting me in case that helps. Thanks again 

[coenoby]

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@Rob34 wrote:
I have a screenshot of the email which I can send to the person who will be contacting me in case that helps.

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Sadly, the screenshot would not necessarily provide any extra information.

If one of your contacts who has received these spam emails could provide a copy of the email headers (also known as "source") of one of these emails that would provide more information. That is because the email headers (source) show additional data not displayed when you simply view the email but which  helps to check whether the email has been spoofed.  For example:

• checking that the "From" email address in the header matches the "display name" that is shown when viewing the email
• and that the "Received" field matches the apparent sender.

However, to be honest, the most important thing for you is to make sure that your contacts are aware these emails are not coming from you and and that they should treat these emails as spam even if their email provider has not flagged them as such.

Then, make sure that VM confirm that your old Ntlworld email account has either already been, or will be, fully deleted.

If the emails are being spoofed there is nothing more you or VM can be do to stop them, so investigating any further is basically just an interesting academic exercise.

Coenoby

[Rob34]

Thanks very much. I will try to see if I can get one of my contacts to forward on, although I’m guessing they might have deleted them. Once I have been forwarded the email, which email address should I forward on to for further investigation?

[coenoby]

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@Rob34 wrote:

.................I forward on to for further investigation?

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As I intimated in my last post, personally I think that at this stage there is no real point in VM or yourself doing any investigation.

All VM can do is to get that email account deleted and that is what you need to focus on.

Like any other email provider, VM cannot stop anyone from spoofing one of their email addresses. 

If your contacts want to get this matter investigated further they should forward one or more of these spam/scam emails to the The National Cyber Security Centre. (See here https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/  for an overview of who they are.)

Then see here  https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/phishing-scams/report-scam-email   for specific details on the NCSC's work regarding phishing/scam emails. The email address your contacts should send these emails to is report@phishing.gov.uk

The NCSC are best placed to take the necessary action to investigate and take down any malicious websites involved with these emails and to identify and investigate who is actually sending these emails.

In reality, VM will only investigate spoof emails in cases where scammers are sending emails that appear to come from VM themselves. For example, cases such as these https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Latest-Phishing-News-16-03-2023 where scammers are trying to trick and scam VM customers by sending emails that purport to come from VM.

Coenoby

[Rob34]

Ok, understood. Thanks for your help 

[coenoby]

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@Rob34 wrote:

Ok, understood. Thanks for your help 

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Many posters on this forum have reported that after forwarding suspicious/spam emails to that report@phishing.gov.uk email address they do stop receiving them. So the process does work. 😉

Coenoby

[Natalie_L]

Hi Rob34, 

Welcome to the Community and thank you for posting.

Also thank you for coenoby for your help with this matter. 

We just wanted to swing by and see if you would like us to arrange to have the email address deactivated or if we can assist in anyway Rob34?

Do please let us know. 

Thanks, 

[Rob34]

Hi Nat,

Thanks. Yes, please deactivate