How Have I Received Spam When The Email Is Not Even Addressed To Me?

[ladybirder]

The first three letters are correct, the next six aren't, then gmail is correct. How the heck has it arrived in my Spam box? Any idea chaps and chapesses?

I'm on a Mac and don't get Spam as a rule.

[factor-fiction]

Your email address may be in the cc or bcc box. Look at the headers

[jno]

you might find their spambots have sent it to several (possibly imaginary) addresses at once: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] etc.

[ladybirder]

Thanks that sounds plausible jno I suppose. But looking at it again it's addressed to a female by name with the same first name initial and the same surname initial but the rest of the name is nothing like mine. So it's a different name but same initial and a different email addy (in part) but still found its way into my mail box.
FF thank you but don't understand what you mean. It's addressed only to me.

[jno]

I was thinking along the same lines as ff, because I sometimes get emails that have several other recipients' addresses listed, with only a letter or two different from mine. But if there's only one on yours - and it isn't your address - then that is odd.

[Old_Geezer]

You're just lucky I guess.

[factor-fiction]

If you look at the header it may list all the recipients. Often these will be sent to a lot of very similar names (extracted from an alphabetical list). I don't know why it lists just one person and not you (I am not sure what the bcc option does), but the headers may help. How you see the header depends on the email service you use.

[ladybirder]

Perhaps I'll query it with gmail then. This has really puzzled me. It's a request for payment of an invoice in USDs and it asks me to click on the link to make payment via WebMoney. Yea - right!
Thanks to all of you for taking the trouble to answer.

[ladybirder]

Grrrrr, got another one in the spam box this morning. Still not addressed to me, just first 3 letters correct. From a different email addy than the 1st one but asking for payment in USD again. Suppose I'll spend half the morning trying to find out how to contact gmail now. I got up in a good mood but ...

[factor-fiction]

Sometimes I find it's best just to delete and ignore them.
I'm getting loads of those silly ones telling me I have a voice message/text message- as if anyone would send a text message by email

[ladybirder]

But are yours actually addressed to you FF?

[Tuvok]

If your address has been included in a BCC then you won't see it.

When you send a mail you use the TO part, then if you sent it to others you can also add them in the TO part as well or in the CC part. All recipients will see who else the message has been sent to.

Using the BCC means recipient 1 will not see that the message has been sent to Recipient 2 and vice versa.

CC stands for carbon copy - from the days of carbon paper being used.

BCC stands for blind carbon copy - effectively meaning a copy will be sent but nobody knows who else got the copy.

[ladybirder]

Tuvok thank you for your reply. However I understand perfectly what cc and bcc mean. I can see when I've been cc'd on an email and also bcc'd. What I don't understand and what I am asking is how can an email that hasn't got my email addy on it be delivered to me.

[Tuvok]

Because your address was in the bcc and bcc'd addresses are not visible even though you receive it - you will receive it with whoever's name was in the TO

eg.
To [email protected]
Bcc [email protected]

will arrive in both recipients only as

To [email protected]

[ladybirder]

Ah, I thought if you were bcc'd then your name came to the top when you received it. Shugar, this could be never ending then.
Thanks Tuvok.