Some nefarious person is abusing her email address to send out emails. Not funny. I know because it has also happened to me. When those randomly made emails are a bogus email address, the email is returned by a failure notice from the the server of the email address that 'sent' the email. This is probably the first you get to know that someone is messing around sending emails pretending to be you. In the majority of cases, your email account has not been hacked. Never respond to any of these emails. Delete them and then compact the folder to ensure they really have been removed. Often the nefarious person has got the email address from a public forum or even guessed it. If they do not get much response they eventually give up and stop sending out emails using your email address. So never post your email address in a public forum. Also, many people forward funny emails to friends. If that email has been forwarded alot, you do not know who is really going to It is more common than desirable. '''In the short term what can you do?''' First ensure they have not managed to put some keylogger software on the computer...... * start the computer in 'Safe Mode' * Run full scans using anti-virus software. Then when all is good restart computer and log on to the webmail account and update the password. Check you can login to webmail using new password. In Thunderbird, update the stored password to the new password for both incoming and smtp. * Menu app icon > Options > Options > Security > 'Passwords' tab * click on 'Saved Passwords' * click on 'Show Passwords' * right click on the account line and select 'Edit Password' * retype new password and be careful as it is case sensitive. * Do the same for accounts smtp line. * click on 'Close' Exit Thunderbird and restart to ensure it is using up to date password. When sending out emails make sure you use a signature, so that anyone you send an email knows it's you. If email address contains your name, a nefarious person could guess your name and put it as a signature. So make the signature look more genuine that only you would use it. Inform your contacts that someone has been abusing your email address, advise they do not repond, just delete if they get suspicious email and that you will always use this signature in email so recipient know it is from you.