I receive spam emails from my own email address

You may be receiving emails that appear to be from your own email address. Most of the time, the content is inappropriate. You may be concerned that your AOL account has been compromised and someone else is using it.

Although it is possible that your account has been compromised, it's more likely that your email has been "spoofed." In other words, the email is most likely coming from a source outside AOL that is pretending to use your name as the email sender. Automated bots are often used by spammers to fill in the From address with the To address, making it look like you have sent the email to yourself.

Don't worry; we're here to help! Here's how to fix it.

Solutions

• Report the email as spam
• Change your password
• Delete your email address from your Address Book
• Scan your computer for viruses and spyware

Report the email as spam

When you receive an email that you consider spam, you should immediately click the Report Spam button. This helps ensure that future emails like the one you are reporting will go to your spam folder. This also automatically lets us know about spammy content that we missed when we delivered the mail to your inbox. We also use this information to train our global filters.

Please be assured that by reporting the email as spam, you are not blocking or reporting your address -- our technology is *smart* enough to distinguish between when you send an email and when another sender pretends to be you. We just need to know from you that you consider the email to be spam. (There are legitimate reasons for receiving email from your address, so we don't block it by default).

Reporting spam doesn't just move the junk to your spam folder and provide feedback to our global spam system, it also helps train your Personal Adaptive Spam filter. For more information, please see our help article Spam control settings on AOL. For more information on how to report spam using the AOL Desktop Software, please refer to the help article Report an email message as spam. If you are using AOL WebMail, please refer to the help article How do I report spam on AOL WebMail?

Change your password

If you suspect unauthorized use of your account, immediately check your Sent and Deleted folders for any emails that were sent without your consent. If you see any unexpected messages, immediately change your password. This will lock out the unauthorized user and re-secure your account.

Delete your email address from your Address Book

Deleting your email address from your Address Book will help resolve this issue.

Note: Please check your address book regularly to ensure that your email address is deleted from your address book. This will help reduce this problem. For more information on how to delete your email address from your Address Book using the AOL Desktop Software, please refer to our help article Delete an email address from your Address Book using AOL Desktop Software. If you are using AOL WebMail, please refer to the help article Delete an email address from your Address Book using AOL WebMail.

Scan your computer for viruses and spyware

Scanning your computer for viruses and spyware using McAfee Internet Security Suite may help resolve the issue. Please ensure that the AOL Desktop Software is closed before you scan the computer. For instructions on how to scan your computer, please refer to our help article Scan your computer using McAfee Internet Security Suite 2009 - Special edition from AOL.