Q: Spammers Using MY Address to Send Me Spam

Have you tried creating a rule with conditions to "ALL" and criteria set to "FROM" is "your address" & "TO" is "your address", then set the action to how you want it handled.

Put the rule 1st in the list.

Also, understand that rules are only applied to new messages coming into the Inbox on the device where the rules are created. If a message is opened on another device first, it is no longer new (for IMAP) and rules will not be applied.

I have a rule like that. My actions are to color the text red so I can identify them immediately. I get this type of spam on rare occasions and just wanted to identify them immediately.

It's very difficult to stop spam once the spammers get your address. I actually had to give up on one address and create a new one because I got tired of going through 20-60 spam messages a day. Nothing I did could stop them and I got tried of trying to create rules to stop them.

Good Luck on this

I had this problem when using 10.6.8. Upgraded to El Capitan in order to be able to get malware protection software. So far I'm happy with the malware protections program, but very unhappy with El Capitan. May try to go to backwards just enough (10.7) to be compatible with malware protection software.

Do you have a backup of your 10.7 installation to restore?

What protection are you specifically talking about? Many posts here with users running some form of "protection" or "cleaning" software that have been traced back to the root cause of system performance issues and disruption of system functionality.

Malware Protection software has nothing to do with spammers spoofing your email address.

Unless you downloaded the OS from the app store, they are not available for download. Only the latest OS will be listed. Only if previously downloaded 10.7 will it be available to you for redownload.

I understand. You might want to not set it to delete at first so you can make sure it works properly. Once you see that it is working properly, then change the action to delete.

That's just a precaution.

if you posted your email publicly, used it to sign up for something or gave it to someone who's address book was hacked that is the most likely explanation for why you are seeing what you're seeing. Spoofing email address are one of the most simple intrusions that can be done from a computer user with the most limited of skill sets.

Thank you. Never had 10.7. Went straight from 10.6.8 to El Capitan. I've been using Time Machine for backups (made a backup right before making changes), but haven't figured out how to use it to restore the OS. For the moment I'm gonna live with El Capitan. Annoying as it is.

Then restore to 10.6.8.

I believe that some malware protection programs include password encryption. That could help. If you're new to this (as I still am), the idea is that when you log in to a site with your password you will be sending the password and the site will receive the password. But the malware software changes (encrypts) it so that it can't be "seen" in between by spammers (and other baddies).  I don't understand how that works. But apparently it does. There are, of course ways to de-encrypt things. But that takes a fair level of sophistication. A lot more than your garden variety spammer has. So a program that encrypts your password could help with this problem.