For the past few days I have gotten about 70 new messages in my inbox from the Mail Delivery Subsystem with the subject as "Returned mail: User unknown."

Here's a sample:

Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:02:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem [add to address book] [protect or block sender]
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
To:



from rly-ya03.mail.aol.com [172.18.141.35]


*** ATTENTION ***

Your e-mail is being returned to you because there was a problem with its
delivery. The address which was undeliverable is listed in the section
labeled: "----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----".

The reason your mail is being returned to you is listed in the section
labeled: "----- Transcript of Session Follows -----".

The line beginning with "<<<" describes the specific reason your e-mail could
not be delivered. The next line contains a second error message which is a
general translation for other e-mail servers.

Please direct further questions regarding this message to your e-mail
administrator.

--AOL Postmaster



----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----




----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to airmail-03.mail.aol.com.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND
550 ... User unknown
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND
550 ... User unknown



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Received: from rly-ya03.mx.aol.com (rly-ya03.mail.aol.com [172.18.141.35])
by str-m08.mail.aol.com (v92.16) with ESMTP id RELAYIN2-33ff6f57647;
Sat, 03 Jan 2004 12:01:42 -0500
Received: from lycos.com (as1-m119.net.hinet.hr [195.29.96.119])
by rly-ya03.mx.aol.com (v97.10) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINYA32-14c3ff6f5622de;
Sat, 03 Jan 2004 12:01:28 -0500
Received: from [59.197.158.163] by relay-x.misswldrs.com with SMTP;
Fri, 02 Jan 2004 23:51:30 -1000
Received: from [27.30.141.226] by m1.gns.snv.thisdomainl.com with
QMQP; 02 Jan 2004 13:50:53 +0700
Received: from unknown (169.217.26.229)
by mtu67.syds.piswix.net with SMTP; 02 Jan 2004 20:50:16 -0200
Received: from [7.185.164.18] by smtp.mixedthings.net with esmtp; 02 Jan 2004 18:49:39 +1100
Received: from unknown (50.153.93.241)
by qnx.mdrost.com with local; Sat, 03 Jan 2004 05:49:02 +1000
Message-ID: <3dff01c3d1fa$e033dbb0$675f8b4c@uqprn>
From:
To:
Subject: A US licensed physician will review the information you
have submitted and either approve or decline your request Id
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:09:53 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_D7B_CDB0_4CC23FDA.074BEE60"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
X-AOL-IP: 195.29.96.119
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 1:XXX:XX
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 2



I definitely didn't try to send anything to these people, and I'm wondering if a spammer is using my email address to cover the identity of their own account? If so what do I do?!?!?! ACK!

That's what it sounds like to me!

The only things I can think of would be to either change your email address, or contact whomever you get your email through and see if they can help you (probably not for one of the freebies).

Good luck with this--what a pain!!

Change your password. If the problem continues, you may have to close the account.

Thanks for the replies.

Mx2- the email I use is lycos, it's free so I can't really do anything.

TomGL2- I don't really think it's about them using my password and sending email from my account. I poked around my email settings and apparently you can add a different email address for someone to reply to. For example, I could send a message to my friend from sugarfairy713@lycos.com, but adjust it so when she hit reply, it would send the reply to my yahoo account. I decided to test this, and I just added a bogus email address to my list. So I think the spammer just put my email address on their reply to list without even hacking my account. See what I mean? But I did change my password in case.

THanks again for hte replies.

Those are the lines along which I was also thinking. Changing the password is a reasonable precaution, though.