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Spoof emails even though account deleted

Helen611
Just joined

on ‎13-02-2023 11:47

Hi,

My virgin media email account ceased to exist due to me no longer having broadband. My friends and family received spoof emails so I had the account deleted.  The spoof emails continue to arrive!  How do I stop them and do I need to advise the Information Commissioner that Virgin have not managed my personal information correctly in accordance with GDPR?

Any thoughts?

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用心棒
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

on ‎13-02-2023 13:37

As these spoofed email are not being sent from Virgin Media's email server are they delivered to recipient's Spam folder?

GDPR is unlikely to apply because Virgin Media are not processing the sending of these emails.

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coenoby
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

‎13-02-2023 13:53 - edited ‎13-02-2023 13:55

@Helen611 wrote:

Any thoughts?

As @用心棒 has said if those emails are being  "spoofed" it means that they are not actually coming from your Virgin Media email account.

There has always been  a basic weakness with all email in general in that the email address in the From: and Sender: fields in an email header does not have to be the email address that the email actually comes from.

A spammer can send simply forge the From: and Sender: details in an  email to make it appear that it is coming from your VM email account, (or anyone-else's account come to that) and they do not need access to your VM email account or the VM email servers to do that.

Therefore, once a spammer knows your email address they can continue to spoof emails so they appear to come from your address even though the email account itself no longer exists.

Scammers spoof email addresses to make the recipient think the email is coming from a trusted source, (your bank for example).

Spammers do it to simply hide their own email address and ensure that any rejection or non delivery messages that get generated by their spoofed emails are sent to your email address not theirs!

Here's a good overview of what spoofing is and how it's done https://www.proofpoint.com/uk/threat-reference/email-spoofing 

Sadly, there is nothing that can be done by VM to stop them continuing to send these spoofed emails.

Coenoby

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media.

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