Strange Spam Email Addresses

[Jack Knave]

I've noticed that some spam email addresses have used my address by bracketing it in this, "< my email address  >". In colour just to make it clear what it includes. Has anyone else noticed this with their addresses? I'm surprised it even works like this.

Any comments anyone?

[jeremyp]

That is standard SMTP. An email address can consist of almost anything as long as the actual email address is enclosed in < and >. Your email client will know this and will not normally show you the bit in < and >. So if you get a mail from

    crunchy Frog<jeremyp@foo.bar.com>

it will display it as From "Crunchy Frog" but it will use the bit between the < and > if you reply to it.

[Jack Knave]

That is standard SMTP. An email address can consist of almost anything as long as the actual email address is enclosed in < and >. Your email client will know this and will not normally show you the bit in < and >. So if you get a mail from

    crunchy Frog<jeremyp@foo.bar.com>

it will display it as From "Crunchy Frog" but it will use the bit between the < and > if you reply to it.

I kind of not understand all that. What I mean is if you put the cursor on an email in the list of emails in your inbox, before you open it, there's a drop down that gives the name of the people/firm who has sent it and below that their email address. That is where all this stuff is. No need to open it or reply to it etc. Other incoming emails don't have  all this "<>" garbage round it. But they have used my email address with this garbage as their email address.