Keep getting unreadable emails that say theyr'e sent from my email address sometimes every minute

Question

I keep getting undelivered mail with attachments which say they have come from me, its all rubbish with the words all messed about, the last one came from America, Is it because I don't have a spam folder so that they are sitting in my in box, and what do I need to do, as soon as I hover over them they open. how on earth do all these people have my email address. Any help please would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Yes, you've guessed it.
Someone is abusing and using your email address.
They are randomly sending to a load of email address which they hope will get a response. If any email address is not valid or blocking, then you will receive the Mailor daemon message that it is undelivered.
This at least tells you that someone has used your email address.
Do not respond to anything.
Do not open any attachement.
Delete those emails.
Just in case any of your contacts have received one of these emails, you should alert them to the fact.
Send them an email stating that someone is abusing your email address.
Suggest you add a specific signature to your emails and tell your contacts that anything genuinely from you will have your signature. Tell them not to open an attachment and delete those emails. Usually, they do not even look like they came from the alledged sender.
What you need to assess is whether this is just someone spoofing your email address (more common) or whether your computer or account have been compromised.
Reboot computer in safe mode and run your anti-virus software.
change passwords after checking no malware on computer - key logging etc.
You cannot stop this kind of abuse.
You can help to try to avoid this by never disclosing your email address in any forum etc.
Sometimes people forward emails they think are amusing etc, but they do not remove the email addresses before forwarding, so after the email has been forward a zillion times, who knows how many people may end up knowing your email address.
Good advise here:
http://askleo.com/someones-sendin/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253305/minimize_your_exposure_to_email_spoofing.html