Is there any way to determine the location from which an email is sent?

Question

My father is in his late 60's and a widower. I suggested he try one of the online dating services and he liked it so well he he opened up three account altogether, one using a Google email address, a Yahoo email address and a Hotmail (MSN) email address. But here is the problem. I think that the same person is sending email to all three accounts, thinking it is three different people. There are three different names being used but the letters are so similar it is almost like they were copied and then pasted. I am afraid Dad is the target of a scam artist. Is there any way to tell the origin of an email, either the approximate location on a map or the ISPN? Do you use the same method for all three types of accounts?

Thanks

Answer 1

This shows how to find an IP address depending which email you are using

http://aruljohn.com/info/howtofindipaddress/



Basically your dad can only stay safe if

1 - he sticks with people who are local. If their profile shows they are in one city then when you email they are somewhere else, it's always a scam

2 - NEVER communicate through email or IM with anyone you have no met. Only communicate through the dating site. Only a scammer will ask you to start chattng off the dating site right away

3- NEVER give your full name, home addrss, birthdate or any other personal details

4 - If your dad is in his 60s, anyone under 50 contacting him is going to be a scam. The scammers usually don't post fake profiles of middle aged/senior women. Most scammers use pictures of models in their 20s/30s

5 - Get off the computer. While internet dating is a good way to make an introduction it's not a good way to build a relationship. Basically if the person can't meet for a coffee after exchaging 3-4 messages through the site, they are never going to meet. Move on



Unfortunately scammers target senior citizens/widowers because they are lonely and in many cases less aware of internet scams than younger people



A friend's dad has been conned out of almost $10k by some 30-something woman in Romania he truly believes is in love with him. His daughter and her brother are now filing for power of attorney over his finances so he can't send this scammer any more money

Answer 2

If you want to protect your dad, get an email account with a service that does spam reporting. Unfortunately, you have to buy this service, like the one at Spamcop.net ($30 a year). However, you can be sure 99% of all emails to that address will be filtered out, and in fact, spammers do not usually send emails to those sites, as they get reported immediately (automatically). In effect these email services are flagged by spammers themselves, they do not to send to them in the first place...

Answer 3

1. setup a new email address.

2. send a message to one of the three and tell them to contact you there and you will no longer be using the current address.

3. wait and see if the other two begin sending to the new address.

4. if they do, it's a scam.

Answer 4

E-mails have 'headers' on them, several lines that show what account and server the e-mail came from, and every stop along the way, and the time at the start and each stop. In the old days we used to see these headers, but modern e-mail programs strip them out.



But there's usually a way to turn them back on so you can see them. How you do that depends on the software. Somewhere in a pull-down menu is 'See Headers' or something like that.

Answer 5

like the other guy said, headers, but gmail doesn't give up the IP info, they're smarter than that, so if it came from gmail then you're out of luck there and have to move to alternative methods.



i'll just leave this here: http://www.willmaster.com/blog/statistics/logging-ip-addresses.php