someone created an email account impersonating my friend

[vexingv]

i got a message from whom i thought was my friend the other day. however, it was from a different domain than the address i knew about (@gmail instead of @yahoo). it was also sent to an older email account that i did not give my friend and the other recipient's on the email looked strange. i decided to respond to the email, but to the address i already had on file.

it turns out that my friend never sent that message to me at all. she doesnt even have that email account. we now want to find out who created this account and sent this message. my friend is worried that whoever's doing this might send out other false messages. i'm thinking about replying to the fake email address and seeing what kind of response i'll get. is there anyway i can somehow trace the message or response?

thanks

cliffs:
-get email from "friend"
-friend didnt actually send this email or have this account
-thinking of baiting this impersonator
-how can i do it?

 

[Adica]

Did you open an attachment labeled mypic.exe? 😉

 

[vexingv]

Originally posted by: Adica
Did you open an attachment labeled mypic.exe? 😉

lol. no...

seriously though, is there anyway i can trace the emails? aside from trying to ellicit some type of response i dont know how this person could be caught. unless someone knows of a good trojan/keylogger (this person will probably open the file, but i dont know if it'll go through gmail scanners or antivirus etc)...