Internet Addresses

[sprayermick]

Is it possible to find out the location of senders of emails from the email address, I don't mean the exact living address just a rough location such as London, Manchester Etc.
or even just the country of origin, the reason I ask this is because my wife breeds small dogs and sometimes advertises them on recognised websites that deal in animal sales
normally these sites are OK and she has used them before quite successfully but this time we are getting scam emails trying to obtain banking details.
She never sells dogs to anybody unless they come to view in person where she can check if they are suitable or not and she never accepts cheques or bankers draughts etc. only cash but these emails always purport to be from somebody living at the other end of the country (an excuse for not coming in person) and say please let me have your banking details then I will deposit the asking price into your account and make arrangements to pick up the dog after the cash has cleared.
The reason I ask about the location is they all tell you they are from places in the UK
but the writing is always in very bad English which makes me think they originate from abroad, we would of course NEVER disclose any banking details regardless.
These emails all have either yahoo.com or gmail.com adresses.

[Buenchico]

You can possibly check the originating IP address by following the instructions here:
http://www.whatismyip...to-trace-an-email.asp
(An IP address is a 'dotted quad', such as 80.168.172.182).

Then you can enter that address here to find out where (theoretically) that address is located. However my own current address is being reported by one system as 'London' and by another as 'Portsmouth'. Since I'm in Suffolk, it's far from precise!
(Click here to find your own IP address and see where it suggests that you're located. I doubt that it will be very accurate!
http://whatismyipaddress.com/ )

In theory such checks will at least identify the correct country but that assumes that the person sending the mail isn't trying to trick the system. I sometimes post on forums where my IP address appears alongside my posts. If I don't want people to see that I'm in the UK I'll simply route my internet traffic via a proxy server. (My mail often shows that I'm in Slovakia or, occasionally, in Brazil). If someone in Nigeria routes their traffic through a UK-based anonymous proxy server, their IP address will show that they're in this country.

Chris

[Buenchico]

Opps!

Missing link! (I'm often described as that!)

This should have appeared after the first sentence of the second paragraph:
http://www.whatismyip...ip-address-lookup.asp

[sprayermick]

Thanks for the information Buenchico or should I call you "the missing link"