Is Outlook Replying To Spammers/Scammers For Me?

[Bob Flemming]

I've been a bit worried about an email I got in my GMail inbox. It was a delivery failure, unusual enough, but it was to an address I didnt recognise : mailto:[email protected].

A quick search suggested it was the address used by a 419 scammer. But I wouldn't every respond to such a message. In fact I rarely see them as GMail's spam filtering is so good. Here's the message I got back:

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 <mailto:[email protected]>... No such mailbox (state 14).

----- Original message -----

Received: by 10.67.119.8 with SMTP id w8mr2835766ugm.20.1215223944665;
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:12:24 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <mailto:[email protected]> <---sanitized
Received: from bobs-laptop( [123.123.123.123]) <---sanitized
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 30sm1789115ugf.63.2008.07.04.19.12.24
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5);
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:12:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Bob Flemming" <mailto:[email protected]> <---sanitized
To: "'FONDAZIONE DI VITTORIO'" <mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Not read: Number:A-222-6747,N-900-56
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 03:12:22 +0100
Message-ID: <000001c8de44$9013fab0$b03bf010$@com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: application/ms-tnef;
name="winmail.dat"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="winmail.dat"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 12.0
Thread-Index: Aci/ncERkNnF+J6OR42/GylQAHdPMQeprfNC
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: 0000000005CF0FDF466CB64687442210AB4DDF4C842B4A00

eJ8+IhcCAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAEIgAcA FwAAAFJFUE9SVC5J
UE0uTm90ZS5JUE5OUk4AtwYBCoABACEAAAA0MEVCNzcwMzNDNEFDQTQ4QjM4 NTdDQTkyM0U4NDVD
RAA/BwEDkAYAgAIAABgAAAALACkAAAAAAEAAMgCwCeB4RN7IAR4ASQABAAAA GwAAAE51bWJlcjpB
LTIyMi02NzQ3LE4tOTAwLTU2AAACAUwAAQAAAIQAAAAAAAAAgSsfpL6jEBmd bgDdAQ9UAgAAAYBG
AE8ATgBEAEEAWgBJAE8ATgBFACAARABJACAAVgBJAFQAVABPAFIASQBPAAAA UwBNAFQAUAAAAGEA
agBzAGMAbwBwAGUAbABAAGMAbwBuAHMAbwBsAGkAZABhAHQAZQBkAC4AbgBl AHQAAAAeAE0AAQAA
ABcAAABGT05EQVpJT05FIERJIFZJVFRPUklPAABAAE4AAKMAypm/yAFAAFUA gNARwZ2/yAEeAHAA
AQAAABsAAABOdW1iZXI6QS0yMjItNjc0NyxOLTkwMC01NgAAAgFxAAEAAAAb AAAAAci/ncERkNnF
+J6OR42/GylQAHdPMQeprfNCAB4AcgABAAAAAQAAAAAAAAAeAHMAAQAAAAEA AAAAAAAAHgB0AAEA
AAABAAAAAAAAAAsACAwAAAAACwABDgEAAAADABQOAQAAAB4AARABAAAAGQAA AE1lc3NhZ2Ugd2Fz

----- Message truncated -----


Now, I occasionally use GMail via IMAP and Outlook 2007. Judging from the message, it looks like Outlook has sent this message. It's my home IP and laptop's name in the headers. But I have up-to-date AV software on the machine (Vista) and it is scanned everyday.

I think my question is this: if a message with a read-request is received, but is either marked as spam or otherwise not read, will outlook respond on my behalf, telling the sender it's not been read??

BF

 

[Brian Tillman]

I've been a bit worried about an email I got in my GMail inbox. It
was a delivery failure, unusual enough, but it was to an address I
didnt recognise : mailto:[email protected].

A quick search suggested it was the address used by a 419 scammer.
But I wouldn't every respond to such a message. In fact I rarely see
them as GMail's spam filtering is so good. Here's the message I got
back:

Do you have any antispam add-ins? The subject's "Not read" looks like a
rejection notice to me.

 

[N. Miller]

I've been a bit worried about an email I got in my GMail inbox. It was a delivery failure, unusual enough, but it was to an address I didnt recognise : mailto:[email protected].

I think my question is this: if a message with a read-request is received, but is either marked as spam or otherwise not read, will outlook respond on my behalf, telling the sender it's not been read??

I am with Brian Tillman. If you are running any anti spam software
configured to "bounce" spam, this is probably what happened: Spammer forged,
or otherwise used a faulty "MAIL FROM:" email address. Your anti spam
application "bounced" the spam to that faulty "MAIL FROM:" email address.
The server for the domain of that faulty "MAIL FROM:" email address rejected
it. Gmail handed it back to you.

Turn off your anti spam application's "bounce" feature; what you have is a
perfect example of why phony "bounces" don't work.