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Vanishing emails

Bures

ULTIMATE Member
During the past week I have noticed when I check my emails using Thunderbird I can see for example 3 messages downloading. Strange, only one message then appears in my IN box, so I am thinking where have the other two gone.
Vanished without trace. Very odd I thought but I continued with life as normal, not worrying too much.
(Junk mail filter is set to put rubbish in the Junk mailbox and not Delete)

Yesterday the problem got worse. Checking my mail I noticed possibly 20 emails being downloaded, my IN box filled up and they all came from PayPal and Ebay.
I noticed I had bought PS3 games and even a Bank transfer of funds which contained all by Bank details and the correct name/address etc
Within a few seconds possibly less than 15 they all DISAPPEARED and the IN box was empty.
Panic stricken, I checked my PayPal and Bank account to find no unauthorised transactions. Phew that was a relief, but as a precaution I deleted all my Bank and card details from my PayPal account.
My own (Smile) Bank tells me they thought it was an email scam to get me to click on a link to disclose my personal details, but I dont think that holds water because the transactions were not on the screen long enough to deal with.
I can only assume someone is using my details to purchase items through Ebay, but for the life of me why dont they show up in my Bank Accounts.
Impossible to raise a Dispute case with PayPal as they require the transaction details etc, I cannot supply that information unless I can read and digest emails at the speed of light !
How can a third party get these emails to disappear ???
Anybody come across this before ???
 
Is this emails going in to ur spam folder or a deleted emails ? check your setting u might have a setting to delete spam email immediately turned on
 
personally l think you are waaaaay too paranoid :p, granted one has to be careful but there are steps to take to make sure you are, which l will state before actually addressing the main topic:

my personal motto on security is simple "if it looks too good to be true it prolly is" so before taking any plunge with banking/paypal details l check the following; are they a reputable company? many unique user reviews on the net? do they use proper security for their payment system using one of the known certificate issuing companies (basically is there a little padlock icon on your browser stating its an encrypted connection)? and finally is your wireless secure (and l dont mean crappy wep secure since that can be bypassed in seconds)? in retrospect being wary is the key and always making sure that when you give your details that you know who you are giving them to.

as for the thunderbird issue, do you have a spam addon installed? sounds like a problem l had which was to do with a addon l had installed which messed up the database.
 
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Why not check on webmail before startting Thunderbird - then you can see which mails are disappearing.

It sounds to me like you are being spammed and Thuderpants is filtering the spam out. (I used to get a lot of spam to my unique ebay account, including rubbish about recent transactions / problems with accounts etc).

Is there a separate spam folder that is uses to temporarily store them?

-----------

If you are really concerned, keep an eye on your bank account, change your online passwords to ebay/Paypal and your bank, and you can even request a new card from the bank if you atre that concerned. You could also call your bank up and ask them what transcations are currently being processed (they won't appear on your statement yet, and if there is something dodgy going on maybe you flag them as fraudulent and stop them.

I still get emails purporting to be from my bank (and every other bank for that matter) trying to get me to click a link in the mail to enter my details. No bank will genuinely send an email with a link in it.

Andy
 
Following on from the above advice.

Most email clients will also offer a 'Preview Before Download' style function, I think it's called "Fetch Headers Only" with Thunderbird, under the account/server settings or something like that. This essentially leaves the email on the server but allows you to preview the header and subject title, this way you can selectively download the messages.

My worry would be how the messages are being deleted; the method you describe could occur if somebody had infiltrated your system using a TROJAN virus/worm. Or perhaps your JUNK filter isn’t working properly and erasing them instead of moving to a different folder. Certainly new emails shouldn’t automatically delete unless something or you are requesting that to happen.

As others have said, you could also try viewing your email via your ISPs webmail interface (almost all providers have one).
 
Phantom emails

Just to re-iterate the main points:-
(a) the Junk mail filter puts spam into the Junk Mailbox - nothing appears in that box,
I have now turned this off to see if any new emails stay

(b) the emails are from Ebay telling me I have purchased PS3 games and various other items
(c) other emails from Paypal informing me of the transfer of money from my Smile Bank to fund my PayPal account.
However no such transactions exist when I check these accounts.

(d) If these rogur emails are being filtered out how can you explain that genuine emails from Ebay such as those informing me of current bids etc are not affected. Only the ones I know are false, are being deleted.

Good idea about looking at my web mail before using Thunderbird, I will try that,
I have checked for Trojans etc using MalwareBytes Anti malware and nothing.

Perhaps, I should see a psychatrist ??
 
No, a bit of paranoia with computer security is a good thing :) .

Do these seemingly false emails from eBay actually contain your correct personal address/ebay account details? It sounded like they did from your original message. Basic SPAM would not include that, it might mention your name but it wouldn't write a personal postal address etc. Also if you hover over any links in the email then fake ones will always take you to a different URL and not ebay.co.uk or ebay.com .
 
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(b) the emails are from Ebay telling me I have purchased PS3 games and various other items

I've had plenty of these (different items, but the same idea). My email address was somehow harvested from ebay I think (I give every company a unique email address, and all of these mails were sent to my ebay email address - for example, my ebay address is "ebay(at)mydomaindotcodotuk", and my registered address on the site is "ispr(at)mydomaindotcodotuk")

That way if I start recieving lots of spam emails, I have some clue as to where they come from.

(c) other emails from Paypal informing me of the transfer of money from my Smile Bank to fund my PayPal account. However no such transactions exist when I check these accounts.

As long as you are not clicking on the links in the emails (if any do get through) then thats ok. For piece of mind I would still change the passwords on your accounts though.


(d) If these rogur emails are being filtered out how can you explain that genuine emails from Ebay such as those informing me of current bids etc are not affected. Only the ones I know are false, are being deleted.

The spammers are probably using some dodgy tecniques like address spoofing (or similar) to disguise the real source of the mail - a genuine Ebay email would have no need to do that. My genuine ebay emails also get through the filter that spam-ebay mails don't.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, the "phantom" bank transfer of funds certainly contained my full address and payment details and so did the purchases.
Good job I never clicked on any links such as "Pay Now" or anything similar.
Interesting reading Akbray`s comments, certainly makes sense to me.
For a newcomer to the world of Ebay, it was very unsettling to see your own details being posted around.
For security, I have now changed my PayPal password, set-up a different current account and payment card.
Man at Co-Op bank advised me not to use a Debit Card for online transactions, if my details fell into the wrong hands my account would rapidly run dry.
I have now substituted on PayPal a credit card with a very small limit.

Thanks to all for your re-assurring advice, very much appreciated.
 
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