To anyone here who has Yahoo email or has contacts who do: This has been going on quite a few years, Yahoo didn't respond to long-ago inquiries: Some person/persons somewhere have been engaging in hacking- they somehow get ahold of Yahoo email addresses and send phony emails to people on the actual email address owner's contacts list. Nobody seems to know who is doing this, much less how to stop it. The fake emails even have the true email address owner's name in the 'from' section. My most recent experience really creeped me out- I received an email allegedly 'from' a longtime online friend, and weirder yet it was addressed to me by the nickname only this one friend ever called me. The catch: my friend died around 5 years ago.
Whoa! I don't think I would like that happening to me @Janice Martin Something kind of like that happened to me on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. I got a friend request from one of my sisters asking me to friend her...but she was already friended by me so I deleted the request (or whatever you do to get rid of it). Then I found out in a post from my sister that she had been "hacked" and somebody was posing as her trying to get her friends list to friend them too. If I wouldn't have known my sister would PM me if she had started a new FB page...I might have friended that hacker.
I've heard of people being hacked on Facebook a few times but I've never had any problems on yahoo mail and Ive had it a long time.
I periodically check my Spam folder, and I see emails purportedly from my own email address in there. I tend to ignore emails from people I haven't talked to in a long time with Yahoo email addresses, assuming they're Spam/Scammers. I also get the friend requests on Facebook from people already on my list. They're usually from one or two people who are very active on there, who click a lot of things that I consider spammy, and suspicious, so I've learned to message them before accepting anything new from them.
I also had one friend on Facebook who had been hacked. It was someone we know; but not really well, and when he had a new page, and sent a friend request, I was puzzled, but accepted the request. Then I received a private message from him asking "if I had received my money yet" and saying that he had already gotten his, and that my name was "on the list". That seemed totally unlikely to me, and I asked what he was talking about. He sent me a legitimate webapge about some government program which gives out grants to people. Since our friend runs a ministry, I could see why he himself might be getting some kind of a grant; but no reason why my name would be on a list for such a thing. The scammer finally sent me a phone number to call, and by then, I had messaged my friend on his real Facebook account and asked if he had startd a new page, and what was the deal about the free money . He had no clue what it was about either; so I was then sure that it was fake, and wrote to Facebook to let them know about the scammer.
I regularly get emails from "yahoo" but obviously from a different source. Until now, I still don't know the objective of the sender but the subject and the body of the email refers to my email account in Yahoo that it has expired or has reached maximum storage capacity, and some other reasons with the latest saying my email account is currently suspended. There is always a link in the email that I should click as per the instruction. But hovering the mouse on the link would show the address which is hidden by "tinyurl" a sort of app-like method where you can hide your address. But using your email address to communicate with people you know is overstepping already. That is plain hacking that should be stopped.
I had trouble with someone else logging into my accounts when I checked security pages at yahoo mail...go to account info...click recent activity check if it's all you. Then go t locations and do all your security checks there too. Soon the infiltrator stopped for I check all the time these safety checks yahoo mail has. I also report this type of account take over to ic3.gov too with a url I give them of the infected page of other's logging into my yahoo mail. Now I have only my logins and I'm happier and safer too for my account is once again all mine. They even hacked into my google gmail account when I did my safety check I found other locations logins and I reported it to ic3.gov and google too as I gave feedback to yahoo people too that it is happening and I reported it to ic3.gov.
This happened to my account and they used my facebook to get in touch with others claiming to be me and saying very bad things to others...well i put a stop to it when i did my security checks and found that others were logging into my account. I told people that it wasn't me contacting them, placed messages on my home page of the situation and kept checking the security pages and made sure only I was logging in. It took a while but I got my account back. I reported the different location logins to facebook feedback and something isn't working report too as well as reporting to ic3.gov about it. I gave facebook a screenshot of the problem for sometimes the crafty bad ones would find a way to get around delete activity...I get the url of the infected security page for the screenshot for facebook to see for all you have to do is put the url into their screenshot area when reporting problems or feedback to facebook so they can see what you're talking about. Just got to be consistent and vigil to solve the problems that crop up. Having microsoft's security essential which is free to install and use is a good idea too, so we'd be protected from spyware as well as virus and trojan hourse.
I really don't like yahoo mail at all. I have had nothing but problems with it. I only use it as a secondary email address, as it seems I am always getting locked out of my account or something. They seem to have some major problems over there that exist with a number of issues. I think most people would be better of with another email provider to tell you the truth. It just would be safer and make more sense.
I agree, it seems there are a lot of problems with Yahoo mail. I have had my account for ages, though, which is why I keep it. I also have a hotmail account I use occasionally, because it is tied to one of my eBay accounts, as well as a Gmail account. I don't usually bother to set up an account with my internet provider, because I've switched so much over the years that it would have created even more of a headache, so I stick with Yahoo. For the most part, I don't have problems with my account, or I might be in more of a hurry to close the account.
I did not know this about yahoo. Like others, i have heard it about Facebook. I am sorry you had this experience. I would be creeped out as well.