Someone is using my email address

Dear @Bob Rowles,

Good day, and I appreciate the clear explanation of your concern. From my research, this is a very common situation called email spoofing. Spammers are forging (faking) the "From" address to make it look like the email came from you. They do this because it can help the message bypass some spam filters or trick recipients into opening it.

Important: In most cases like yours (messages landing in your own Junk folder), your actual email account has NOT been hacked. The spammer is not logging into your account or sending through your real servers, they are simply putting your address in the "From" field when sending from somewhere else. To confirm this:

• Check your Sent folder (in Outlook web, app, or wherever you read email). If the suspicious messages are not in your Sent Items, then your account was not used to send them, it's spoofing.
• Check recent sign-in activity: Go to account.microsoft.com/security > Review recent activity or sign-ins.
• Do NOT reply to these messages or click any links/attachments.
• Mark them as Junk/Spam every time (this helps train your email filters to catch similar ones better).
• Delete them after marking as spam.

Please also follow these steps to reduce it and protect yourself:

1.Strengthen your account security (do this anyway):

• Change your password to a strong, unique one (use a password manager if possible).
• Enable two-factor / multi-factor authentication (2FA/MFA) immediately.
• Review and remove any suspicious "connected apps" or forwarding rules.

2.Improve spam filtering:

• Keep marking the messages as Junk or Spam.
• Check your email junk settings and make sure aggressive filtering is on.

3.If it's a custom domain (e.g., ******@yourcompany.com):

Set up or improve SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your domain's DNS. This helps receiving servers verify legitimate emails from your domain and reject some spoofs.

If it gets much worse (e.g., your contacts start complaining they received spam from you, or you get many bounce-back errors):

• Contact Microsoft Support and report the spoofing, you can do this in Outlook by going to Help > Feedback > Report a problem.
• You can also report to authorities like the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) if it feels like a targeted scam, but for general spoofing this rarely leads to action.

Most people in your exact situation (spoofed emails landing in their own Junk folder) find that consistently marking them as spam gradually reduces how many get through, and the issue stays manageable.

I hope this information helps clarify the situation and provides you with workable solutions. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm always here to help. Have a wonderful day!

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".  

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.