Genealogy Chat

Brian ....Brenda's probelm isn't related to what you are talking about. She received a message stating mail she sent could not be delivered when in fact she had sent no mail. More than likely a worm type virus is sending out mail using her e-mail address. Someone who received one of these virus sent e-mails had a good ISP anti virus that picked up the fact that there was a virus and sent it back to the sender....being Brenda even though she hadn't sent it....the worm used her e-mail address. In your case, the "new and improved" AOL (I use new and improved loosely) has new safe guards in place to protect members from Spam. One would happen to be that a mail recipient can now choose to delete or report a piece of mail as spam. If a recipient hits the "report spam" when deleting a piece of mail, opposed to deleting, your e-mail address is then "marked" as being a spammer. Mail being marked as spam is often accidental (by people you know) as AOL has placed the delete and report spam button right next to each other....I've often accidentally done it myself in a hurry to delete all the spam mail in my box. The worm virus would also contribute to people, a lot of people, marking a person as spam, as the virus is mass mailing the virus using valid e-mail addresses that it steals. Many people who are receiving the virus tainted mail don't know the sender and are hitting mail to the spam box....as they should. The only way to be taken off the AOL spammers list is to call them (AOL)and straighen it out. As for your work related mail being rejected....does your company send out bulletins or marketing e-mails? If so, AOL receipient may have sent the e-mail to "report spam" which would block any mail from your company from sending to AOL members. You might want to check your own AOL mail blocking settings, if you have AOL , as it might be the way that it is set up that would prevent mail from being received. Judy Judy

What ISP are you on and what was the message with the rejection? I find that if I try to send a message to an AOL account from my Virgin address it gets rejected by AOL with an error message saying it can't accept it because the ISP has been used to send spam. I've had messages to AOL rejected from work too, using a commercial ISP service. It seems that AOL reject first and ask questions later.

Hi this is why it pays to put a false address in you address book, at the top something like afa aaaaaa.. Joan

Brenda: The e-mail being returned is a worm related virus but more than likely, you're not the one with the virus. A worm uses an infected persons computer to gather address book data. It then can disguise itself to look like any one of the persons in the address book and then mail out e-mails with it's vurus attached, in hopes that someone will think they are getting e-mail from someone they know....most of us open e-mail if we know the sender....and that is what the virus is counting on to spread itself. Once it gains access to another computer is gathers address book data and the cycles continues. Besides stealing address book data and sending out e-mails, there are a number of things different worms do to reak havoc on your computer.....often destroying data among other things. Best thing to do is make sure you update virus definitions and scan for viruses regularly. You can do a Google search for "worms" for more information. Judy

Is anyone having problems with A O L? I have received a message from postmaster returning an e-mail which I sent to an Aol recipient at 13-00hrs today because it contained a virus I haven't sent any e-mails today and all my incoming & outgoing e-mails are screened by Norton anti virus Has anyone any idea as to what's going on? Bren