Hi,
Although it is too late now, NEVER contact the spammer. You've confirmed to him that your email address is a REAL, live email address . . . and it is thus worth more money to him when he sells it to back to the distributors of spam and viruses that he's using to make his cut on the deal!!!
I found this out years ago at work when I got a piece of junk email on my work computer. Assuming that the "remove" feature worked, I contacted the spammer. In return, my inbox exploded with more and more junk mail . . . lots of it pretty nasty stuff too.
I scrambled and hit remove on all them and the junk multiplied exponentially. Soon I had a hundred a day. It got so bad that the company had to get me a new email address . . . and I learned from our tech guys that you NEVER reply back to spammers for this very reason!
BACK TO TODAY and your very real problem . . .
Yahoo mail has had some real problems lately, and you've gotten snared. You've gotten some bug in your email system now and some spammer now gets notified of each email you send . . . and WHO you send them to . . . and now your friends are at risk AND are also getting exploited too!!!
Three suggestions . . .
1. Write down all your email addresses you want to keep for future emails.
2. Close that current Yahoo mail account, PERIOD.
3. As mentioned, have your computer reformatted to start over completely clean. Some of those viruses you've now got will mutate within your operating system and will keep coming back . . . with the same sad results. You've GOT to reformat. Yes, you will lose data, but that's thanks to someone innocently forwarding something to you I suspect . . . and probably a good friend who doesn't understand how spammers work too.
Once you are completely clean again, do the following:
1. Create a new email address, even if it is on Yahoo. ONE of my email addresses is with Yahoo and it is "clean" and fine. You've got to work to keep your new one that way.
2. Only then, contact your friend's via that email list you wrote down and let them know about your new address. Also, ask them to delete any old emails they got from you from their old email address. Also, send them a long email telling them what I'm gonna tell you next . . .
ANOTHER VERY PROBABLE REASON FOR YOUR PROBLEM . . .
If this relates, don't get mad . . . get vigilant . . . and also EDUCATE YOUR FRIENDS!
A COMPUTER HACKER'S MEANS OF MAKING MILLIONS . . . the FORWARDING OF EMAILS
Lots of well-meaning people simply hit "forward" to emails that they receive that get their blood going . . . some "Urban Legend" email that was designed by someone, at some time in the past, to get people riled so they'd mindlessly FORWARD the email to their friends. We all get 'em all the time from well-meaning friends.
Look at some of the ones you get and you'll see a huge list at the top where a Mr. Joe Blow sent it to fifty of his friends a year ago, then that friend sent it to 25 others . . . one of which sent it to your best friend . . . who then forwarded it to you and a zillion others. LOOK AT ALL THOSE EXPOSED EMAIL ADDRESSES of all these innocent people on the next one you get!
Some spammers have ways to encode those emails so they get ALL the email addresses each time someone mindlessly hits "forward" and sends it out to a new bunch of folks!
If you are guilty of forwarding emails as such, and I once did this too . . . STOP SCREWING OVER YOUR FRIENDS! We put ourselves, and all our friends' email accounts at risk when we do this!
THE SOLUTION . . .
IF you want to send an Urban Legend to your friends:
1. First, verify it is true! Two websites I use are: truthorfiction.com and/or snopes.com Some rumors ARE true . . . but I don't want to spread something that's not. Heck, I hate it when a friend would nail me for spreading untruth and now I check . . . ESPECIALLY the emails that begin: "I've checked this out on Snopes and it is true." Half of these are lies.
2. Second, and MOST IMPORTANT . . .
Stop hitting the "forward" button and then clicking on to the names of friends to forward it to!
If it is important enough to send to your friends, start a brand new email, rather than forward the email, AND only copy the original text and photos of the email you wish to send out, then paste this into the new email.
Doing this "strips" out all the poor, innocent 582 people's email addresses who once received this email back in 2002 or whatever . . . and ONLY leaves YOUR email address, and the addresses of all YOU send it to on the new email . . . to be exploited in the future by the mindless masses who get lazy and hit THEIR "forward" button!
NAW . . . even this technique can be fixed!
INSTEAD of sending emails to a bunch of friends by listing them on the "To:" line, start listing them in the "BCC:" line instead!!!
Yep, Bcc stands for "Blind Cc" . . . meaning that their email address cannot be seen by others!
NOW IF EVERYONE WOULD SEND NEW EMAILS OUT LIKE THIS . . . the spammers could not steal VERIFIED, working email addresses anymore of you, me and our friends!
HOW THE SPAM MILLIONAIRES MAKE THEIR MILLIONS:
Verified email addresses are valuable to distributors of spam. Some distributors can tell a Viagra seller that they can guarantee distribution to ___ million VERIFIED accounts for a fee of only $_____.
How do these distributors send it to so many millions of people instantly? They use the "hacked" computers of thousands of Aunt Tillies and Uncle Bobs to secretly (to Aunt Tillie) send these emails out. All Aunt Tillie knows is that her computer runs REAL slow.
If you, me and Aunt Tillie don't zealously protect ourselves and our friends, we become part of the problem.
Yep, get your computer fixed . . . put up a good firewall to protect you . . . stop forwarding entire messages . . . verify the messages were initially designed as a trick . . . and TELL your friends what they can do to protect themselves and their friends.
Sorry for the long read . . . but I hope you and many others will read it.