Please help - Sent Email Messages

[HelenJ58]

Good afternoon, I wondered if you could help as I'm rather stressed.  I have been sending my husband emails which contain important documents and signatures.  It appears recently, my emails to him may have been going to another email address and not to him.  Please see info from the source details.  Can anybody shed any light on what has happened and whether they will have in fact been sent to this other email address?  When addressing to my husband I just start typing his address then click to select.  I have only noticed today the other email address which is [REMOVED]@ntlworld.com.  I have now deleted this from my address book for going forward.  Neither myself or my husband have ever sent an email to this person.  I'm so stressed!!!!!

Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2024 11:59:39 +0100 (BST)
From: [REMOVED] <[REMOVED]@blueyonder.co.uk>
To: "[REMOVED]@blueyonder.co.uk" <[REMOVED]@ntlworld.com>
Message-ID: <1697556875.4837724.1721559579083@mail.virginmedia.com>
In-Reply-To: <01020190cff942cd-971dd360-cce6-4cf8-b65e-3326da4950e2-000000@eu-west-1.amazonses.com>
References: <01020190cff942cd-971dd360-cce6-4cf8-b65e-3326da4950e2-000000@eu-west-1.amazonses.com>
Subject: Fwd: Confirmation of your order: A18525001777

[MOD EDIT: Personal information has been removed from this post.]

[coenoby]

@HelenJ58 

If you do not recognise that ntlworld email address you are right to be worried.

The line in the source that says:

To: "[REMOVED]@blueyonder.co.uk" <[REMOVED]@ntlworld.com>

confirms that the email was sent to the ntlworld.com address not the Blueyonder address.

The first part in quotation marks, containiing the Blueyonder email address, is simply the Display Name. The Display Name is (as the name suggests) the text displayed by email apps, clients and webmail services to help the recipient identify the sender of the email. The person who uses that Ntlworld email address is free to set whatever display name they wish. That's the same for all email services, it's not specific to VM emails account.

So for example, if I had an email address beginning "coenoby@...."  I could set my actual real world name in the Display Name field.

You say that your emails to your husband "may have been going to another email address and not to him." but have you actually  checked that he has not received them?

Coenoby

[用心棒]

Are you using webmail or an email? If the former then confirm email addresses are not being automatically collected selecting ⚙ > E-Mail and deselecting:

• Automatically collect contacts in the folder "Collected addresses" while sending
• Automatically collect contacts in the folder "Collected addresses" while reading

as highlighted below:

If email addresses were being automatically collected then this may explain how it came to exist, i.e. miscreant sent email with husband's email address as display name of email address, for example husband@blueyonder.co.uk  <miscreant@example.com>; modern email client will flag such usage as suspicious to user.

Should you still have concerns then consider following the advice here, My Virgin media email has been hacked | Virgin Media Help

Regrettable the data exposed by the mis-addressed emails cannot be re-secured.

-- 
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[HelenJ58]

Thank you so much for your reply.  I will get my husband to look into this.  So grateful.

Kindest regards

Helen

[HelenJ58]

Hi, thank you for your reply.  Yes I checked that he hadn't received them and have also checked his inbox personally.  They weren't received unfortunately.

Kind regards

Helen

[coenoby]

---

@HelenJ58 wrote:

 Yes I checked that he hadn't received them and have also checked his inbox personally.  They weren't received unfortunately.

---

I'm sorry to hear that.

Clearly, whoever, has access to that ntlworld account now has all the information in those emails. So, obviously you now have to consider the implications of that.

Going back to the line you posted form the email source;

"[REMOVED]@blueyonder.co.uk" <[REMOVED]@ntlworld.com>

The forum moderators quite rightly removed the personal information but I'm assuming that the "Removed@blueyonder.co.uk" is actually your husband's Blueyonder email address? (Do not post his address in your reply by the way)

If so, that looks like a deliberate attempt to deceive you, and perhaps other people. That Display name information (the part between the quotation marks) could only have been added by whoever controls the Ntlworld email account. Why else would they put your husband's address as the display name of their account?

Just to double check whther there is a genuine reason for this I would suggest that you:

1. Sign into your main My Virgin Media account (that's the one where you can view your VM bill and package details
2. Click on the Account settings box
3. Then click on the My Vigin Mediaaccount settings box
4. Then scroll down the page and click on the line that says Manage other My Virgin Media accounts

Is that Ntlworld address listed there?

If it is listed then it is an email account that you or your husband set up many years ago as a secondary email account and have forgotten about. If so, there is almost certainly nothing to worry about but you can delete the account if you wish.

However, if it's not listed in the main My Virgin Media account I would suggest:

that your husband needs to advise his email contacts about this rogue ntlworld  email account and ensure that they have not been tricked in to replying to it.

that you and your husband would be well advised to report this as an online scam. You can do that here https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ 

I have also escalated this to the Forum Team (VM staff who support this forum). They will contact you via this thread and take the details, particularly the ntlworld address that is simulating your husband's address.

Post back asap as to whether that  ntlworld email address is listed in your My Virgin Media account.

Coenoby

[jpeg1]

I'd also suggest that you both do a virus check on your devices, particularly if you have received emails apparently from him with attachments. 

[HelenJ58]

Hi, thank you for your message today.  We have checked my husbands account as you suggested and the ntl email account isn't listed there so thank you so much for escalating this for me.

My husband will message his contacts and ask them to check if when sending him emails whether the ntl email address is listed. Thank you for this suggestion.

I will also contact the fraud team as you suggested following the link above.

You have been extremely helpful and I am so grateful to you.

Kindest regards

Helen

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

@HelenJ58 

You're very welcome. I know that situations such as this can be very stressful.

I was hoping that the VM team would contact you today - they may still do that. However, if not it should be tomorrow morning.

Coenoby

[HelenJ58]

It is very rare my husband sends emails to me but thankfully, even from him, I would check first if it wasn't an attachment I was expecting.

Thank you, we will do thr virus checks  today. 

Kindest regards