Someone is using my email address

Question

There have been several occasions recently when people on my address list have received emails appearing to be from my BT email account. These mails have no subject and contain just a link to some unknown site. They appear to be sent to a block of about 12 or so addresses and the addresses vary each time but are all from my contact list. I have contacted BT and been advised to change my password and security question and to check that there were no spurious and unrecognised entries in my account details. I have done all this plus I have removed my signature detail from my account details. The problem is still happening and the emails still being sent still include my signature name even though I have deleted from my account detail. I have two other email accounts (aol and Yahoo) which I have had for years and never had this problem. I have had my BT account for six months! The irony is that I have never used my BT email and don't intend to! How can I stop this as it is annoying a lot of friends and business contacts?

Answer 1

janmcolley wrote:
My email address has been used by somebody else four times in the last few weeks - the last time half an hour ago. The first time BT noticed and sent me the standard message saying change your password, which I did. The second time they didn't seem to notice but I changed my password again anyway. The third time I changed it once more, emailed BT to draw attention to the fact this was happening and pointed out that a friend had received several 'spoof' emails that day, all from BT addresses. This suggested to me it was a BT problem, if not uniquely then most commonly. Despite the promise of a prompt reply to my message, I received nothing at all, other than a week or so later in the form of yet another standard email advising me to change my password. I thought this ironic given it was me who'd told BT about the problem in the first place! This morning a friend with a BT email address has found that she has again been the victim of an email address thief, the third time in three weeks. And now me for a fourth time. So rather than give out the stock advice about changing passwords, can somebody at BT please say why this problem is occurring so regularly; whether there is anything customers can do to prevent it and more importantly, whether there is anything BT is doing to prevent it. It would be nice to be able to speak to somebody at BT about this but needless to say, if there is a telephone number, it's well hidden - unless of course you want to buy a BT product. Time to change provider and email address perhaps? 
If you are still got a BT Yahoo email account then a worthwhile check is to login with your BTInternet email address using this Yahoo login to check your Login History
http://api.login.yahoo.com/login/history
If you have any logins that were not performed by you then it indicates that someone is using your account illegally.
Note that the converse is not necessarily true.
For security reasons do NOT tick the "Keep me Logged In" box.