Ask Slashdot: Someone Else Is Using My Email Address 565
periklisv writes:
I daily receive emails from adult dating sites, loan services, government agencies, online retailers etc, all of them either asking me to verify my account, or, even worse, having signed me up to their service (especially dating sites), which makes me really uncomfortable, my being a married man with children... I was one of the early lucky people that registered a gmail address using my lastname@gmail.com. This has proven pretty convenient over the years, as it's simple and short, which makes it easy to communicate over the phone, write down on applications etc. However, over the past six months, some dude in Australia (I live in the EU) who happens to have the same last name as myself is using it to sign up to all sorts of services...
I tried to locate the person on Facebook, Twitter etc and contacted a few that seemed to match, but I never got a response. So the question is, how do you cope with such a case, especially nowadays that sites seem to ignore the email verification for signups?
Leave your best answers in the comments. What would you do if someone else started giving out your email address?
I tried to locate the person on Facebook, Twitter etc and contacted a few that seemed to match, but I never got a response. So the question is, how do you cope with such a case, especially nowadays that sites seem to ignore the email verification for signups?
Leave your best answers in the comments. What would you do if someone else started giving out your email address?
Reverse the role (Score:5, Insightful)
When you find you have been signed up for a legit company site. Go to the site using your email and press the forgot password on the site. When you get the email back, log on and maybe you can get the information that you need to track him down.
Re:Reverse the role (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I've heard of people having this problem, but I still don't understand the issue.
If my e-mail address is johnsmith@gmail.com why would somebody else use that address, other than deliberately fucking with me (e.g., sign me up for a bunch of shit that I don't want)?
Are there people so completely brain dead that they don't know what their e-mail address is, so they just use name@gmail.com and think that it will actually work?
Re: (Score:3)
From the comments, I'd say that es, there really are people who are that brain-dead. They forget that they couldn't get their name because they signed up later, so used a letter or a number to differentiate it, and now just blithely give your email addy because they forget to include the extra symbol.
That's one of the advantages of being an early adopter - you get to use your name. If you forget your name, you're too far gone to be using email anyway.
Autocomplete compounds the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
People are that stupid.
I have a domain name that seems to be attractive enough that people want an address on it. And some start using the e-mail address before attempting to acquire the e-mail address. This is especially sad when I get e-mails from friends and relatives of a person.
However, I do not bounce e-mail the sender to tell them that the e-mail is wrong. Once I did that and was threatened with lawyers for "stealing" someone's e-mail...
In other words, there are few limits to how stupid people are
Re:Reverse the role (Score:4, Interesting)
Once I was nasty. I got a mail from the person's boss saying that I was a bad person for traumatizing their employee.
Once I was nice. I got a nice excuse and a follow-up question. After four or five exchanges, she apologized for being forward and asking a personal question, but was I married, 'cause she really liked talking to me?
After having proved to myself in this way that I really could take over the world if I wished, I now mostly ignore mis-addressed mails.
Re:Reverse the role (Score:4, Informative)
This does not go to court. It goes to ICANN arbitration. And unless it is a valid complaint, it will just get rejected directly.
Re: Reverse the role (Score:2)
I have a gmail account that, including the period between first and last name, exactly 10 characters long. Someone, somewhere, with what I presume to be a name similar to my pseudonym signed up for a True Value mailing service. Knowing my local branches of the hardware store chain, I suspect that they ignored whatever this person added to differentiate their account from mine. Why? Because small town hardware stores don't think the part before the @ needs to be more than 10 characters long.
In the last month
Re: Reverse the role (Score:4, Informative)
This is incorrect, Gmail does not allow and has never allowed two addresses to be registered that differ only by a dot. See https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you understood the GP.
From that very same link (https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10313?hl=en):
Receiving someone else's mail
If you're getting someone else's emails, check the reasons below to get help.
* The email address has different periods or dots than mine
If the sender added or removed dots from your email address, the message will still go to your inbox. Your email address is unique; people can't set up an identical account even with a different number or placement of dots.
For example, messages sent to these addresses will go to the same Gmail account:
johnsmith@gmail.com
jo.hn.smith@gmail.com
john.smith@gmail.com
If you still think the message was meant for someone else, contact the sender to let them know they mistyped the email address.
Note: If you use Gmail through work, school, or other organization (like yourdomain.com or yourschool.edu), adding dots to your username changes your email address. To change the dots in your username, contact your admin.
Just to check, I tried to create a new gmail account. I used my existing username, and added a period/dot in a random position in the name. It then prints an error:
Someone already has that username. Note that we ignore periods and capitalization in usernames. Try another?
That's a server-specific feature. The standard is that the domain is case insensitive, but the local part (before the @) is ca
Re: Reverse the role (Score:3)
RFC 821 and 2821 both specify that while the host name in an email address must be case-insensitive, the "local" part (before the @ sign) must be treated case-sensitively by other systems. The receiving system may treat it case-insensitively, but anyone sending mail to that address must preserve the case of the local part as originally given.
Re:Reverse the role (Score:5, Insightful)
That may make you look pretty stupid when they file a criminal complaint against you. The proxy does not help, or have you forgotten that they have your email address?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Similar case but with a twist - I have been using a first-name.last-name@domain (not google) address for around 20 years now. Someone else wanted it, saw it was already in use and settled for first-name_last-name@domain instead.
Two years ago I was trying to register for a service using another email address which I did not otherwise use, it turned out that the address had been deleted because I had not used it for too long.
While I was sorting this mess out, he registered for the same service but accidental
nothing unusual (Score:2)
Re:nothing unusual (Score:4, Insightful)
Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
I have a similar problem (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Paraguay. I got into Gmail back when it was invite-only and I was able to select the precise handle I wanted. Some years later I began to receive mail from a dude who apparently lives in Spain. Seems like the dude registered as his handle the exact word I used, only that he inserted a period. Looks like a period (.) is approved as a different handle but is treated as the same. Thankfully I have no lost incoming emails (apparently), but I also get all kinds of mail directed to such person. Baffling, indeed. Hope Google can solve this.
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I very naively registered "cdr" on twitter, and I am constantly getting @tted by people who think that CDR stands for some organization. Most of these come from LATAM for some reason, but I have no idea why. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Just to clarify the how gmail ignores dots and does not let people set up accounts where only the dots differ:
"If the sender added or removed dots from your email address, the message will still go to your inbox. Your email address is unique; people can't set up an identical account even with a different number or placement of dots." Gmail help [google.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, I thought exactly that, but then this dude's address is supposedly the same as mine but with a dot inserted. Looks like something is not working according to specification == bug.
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re: I have a similar problem (Score:3)
Re:I have a similar problem (Score:5, Insightful)
GMail treats embedded dots in the name portion as identical to the name without the embedded dot. my.name@example.org is the same as myname@example.org. Check (1) that the tld is identical - gmail.es (spain) isn't the same as gmail.py. (paraguay). Also check that the characters in the name portion really are identical, and not just appearing so in your browser because of font substitution. One way to do this is reply to it and see if the reply goes to you as well. If not, then the local parts are not in fact the same, even if they look the same on your system.
Also, standard fonts allow lots of substitutions that look the same but aren't. For example, BankOfArnerica is NOT the same as BankOfAmerica. The first one is spam bait (if you can't see the difference, cut-n-paste it into an editor and select fixed-width font).
Re:I have a similar problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you'll find this turns out *not* to be true. What is significant in the "local part" of the email address is *up to the local system* as long as it is in the set of characters that are permitted. Of course, Google (and anyone else for that matter) is perfectly allowed to ignore dots in the local part. But everyone is also perfectly allowed to treat them as significant.
Also, your wiki link does not back up your assertion that "A.BC" and "ABC" must be the same mailbox. It only gives rules on where a dot can appear unquoted in the local part. It does not say that it is to be ignored when routing.
Additionally, decades of operational practice on the Internet also directly violates your assertion. Dots have *always* been potentially significant for a local part. They were required for compuserve addresses back in the beginning, for instance.
NOTE: I am NOT saying that Google is doing things wrong. What they are doing is allowed. They are free to interpret the local part however they want. However, they are NOT required to ignore dots.
It's probably not one person. (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that there are so many people that just a typo will do it. This is why big email aggregators are a bad idea (there are reasons why they are a good idea, of course, or they wouldn't exist, but this is one of the reasons why they aren't).
Unfortunately there is no way to prevent these--there's no test that will reveal them as errors.
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand. They don't succeed, but you get the mail anyway. Later, they realize they fucked up and correct the typo (or don't) but that doesn't do you any good. Trust me, I know whereof I speak--I have a name with no number on gmail because I got an early invite.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
https://www.xkcd.com/1279/
Take over! (Score:5, Insightful)
If this person has used your e-mail for his sign-ups, it should be possible for you to take over their accounts by doing password reset.
Do so.
Change the passwords and lock them out.
Shut off any functionality that annoys you, or that costs them money, but try to leave the account intact so they can't re-acquire it.
They'll be forced to re-acquire the account with an e-mail they actually control, at which point perhaps they'll stop accidentally hassling you.
Of course, have a talk with your spouse before doing this, you don't want to create drama at home.
Re:Take over! (Score:4, Insightful)
If this person has used your e-mail for his sign-ups, it should be possible for you to take over their accounts by doing password reset.
He's not. He's clearly giving out this email for things he doesn't care about or wants to use as a burner. Otherwise he'd never get the activation emails in the first place.
Re:Take over! Only if you are lawyer (Score:2)
Legal advice is suspect. Do not do this. Especially if you do not know country of owner.
Cash in (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly by using your email address they intended for you to have the account.
Yes officer that nice person clearly wanted me to use his bank account because he emailed me the details.
Yeah, right.
I use President@whitehouse.gov (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is that you Hillary?
Re: I use President@whitehouse.gov (Score:2, Funny)
Nyet. Is Putin. I have idiot assistant send me emails now, using the twitter.
Obvious answer (Score:2)
It's gmail. Just report it as spam. Problem solved.
Re: (Score:2)
He's getting emails for new account signups. How is Gmail's spam filter supposed to distinguish between new accounts that he himself created, and those that the other person in Australia created?
Re: (Score:2)
Simple - he puts the first on in spam, and when the person wonders why he never got it and tries to sign up to the same account using the same email, it disappears.
A more aggressive (I don't like the word "proactive" - it's kind of contrived in most situations) approach is to set up filters for all emails that have variants of his user name. For example, if his user name is john.doe he can set up filters to block anything with jdoe, johndoe1, and any other user names that have ended up going to him, becaus
proactive (Score:2)
Babs, are you a schoolteacher perchance?
Re: (Score:2)
Relax. The algorithm uses weighting. One person marking something from a particular sender as spam isn't going to impact anyone else - not even the sender. Just that the recipient who marked it as spam. Even then, the algorithm usually requires more than one such email to be declared spam, to avoid user error, before it will automatically send it to your spam folder.
Even that is reversible, if you find you've made a mistake and move it back to your inbox.
Of course, if 100 different people mark the same em
Happened to me, too (Score:5, Interesting)
I had this guy who thought my ancient [first initial][lastname] email address was his own. He was using it for various things, including signing up for his new credit card. Apparently, his credit card company did not valid an email address before it started sending reward statements, which included a partial card number. The credit card company did NOT provide an unsubscribe feature (unless I logged into the other customer's account which, of course, was not possible). Actually, there was no mechanism for me NOT to get his reward statements!
After escalating to the credit card company's executive customer service (the customer service of last resort when you write to the company's CEO) , they evidently got ahold of the guy to inform him that this email address is bad, and to get his real one.
My recent problems with someone else trying to use my email address have since stopped.
Get a new address. (Score:2)
Get a new one.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, but they won't be able to use the address-- you still own it and have the password.
You can't do much, really (Score:2)
There's not much you can do to stop it really.
Sorry, that's the way email works.
Tips. (Score:4, Informative)
I've had similar problems. One thing you can do is to create filters to send emails from those sites you don't use directly to trash. Or unsubscribe if you get repeated emails from a mailing list. With a little work, you should be able to clean up your inbox.
I'd also take measures to make sure he can't log into your Gmail account. Change your password to something very strong and turn on two-factor authentication.
I punked a snapchat user who did this (Score:3, Funny)
I live in Australia and have a name common in the U.K. Some English teenager set his snapchat recovery email to my email address. (Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com).
When I received a password reset I got into his account and I fired up conversations with all the girls on there telling them how I've always desired them and want to have hot steamy sex with them.
One responded with "hey I'm your sister!!" I replied "Game of Thrones. Let's do this"
Fun times.
I forward them on to my family for kicks... (Score:3)
I have a common first.last@gmail.com. Mostly they are typos; several of my dim-witted namesakes forgot either a number or middle initial when sharing their email address. The one really peculiar one though comes from Nigeria... this being odd since I have a very Irish name... and he doesn't.
But, I do get a kick hearing about the old rugby team meeting up, other people's family news, my gay namesake's dating issues, and other such joys. So, unless you are in Nigeria trying to use an Irish name, please keep it up; it makes for interesting entertainment, especially when in Gaelic.
Been there, done that (Score:2)
Like the submitter, I got into gmail pretty early - and while it's not my main address anymore, I still have it forwarding. My gmail address is my first initial plus my somewhat uncommon last name (which - and I hate to break it to you - is not "Wagon").
Anyway, there seems to be two different people who think it's their address... both of whom share my first initial and last name. One is a kid who kept signing up for Facebook with it, which was annoying (since Facebook actually lets you operate an account e
Ditto. There's nothing you can do (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in '97 I registered a personal domain [firstname][lastname].com and I have a very common Anglo name.
Email address is [firstname]@[firstname][lastname].com
There's a real estate agent in Florida who's been happily giving out my email address to clients, lawyers, banks etc for a decade now.
I've had very personal information emailed to me, bank loan applications etc.
I even had one person start an email fight with me, refusing to believe I wasn't who they thought I was, which I ended by point them at the "whois" ownership record of my domain.
There's nothing I can do about it, nor can you. Just delete the emails that come in and filter. Or create a new email account.
The year before I registered my email address I had been using [lastname].freeserve.co.uk which was the UK's first large scale ISP.
I had some idiot email me a plan to rob their local supermarket which I passed on to the authorities...
Re: (Score:2)
There's a real estate agent in Florida who's been happily giving out my email address to clients, lawyers, banks etc for a decade now.
I've had very personal information emailed to me, bank loan applications etc.
I would have fun with that...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My son had this happen to him. A house for sale in San Francisco was listed with his number. I told him to just tell callers that the house was already sold.
Re: (Score:2)
I've had very personal information emailed to me, bank loan applications etc.
You can have a lot of fun with that, by replying to those things truthfully. Like, "Sorry, I can't sell you this house", or "sorry, I never received your payment", and then when they send you the bank receipt to prove they made payment, reply "well, that's not my account you sent it to". They will be totally confused and so, but can't fail you for lying about anything.
Not It! (Score:2)
Wasn't me. Now, if your email address had been noway@inhell.com, then I would be apologizing profusely. :D
It's not someone else. (Score:2)
Snail mail (Score:4, Interesting)
This happened to me many years back. I had managed to get commonnickname.middleinitial.lastname@gmail.com, intending to use it for "professional" purposes. My name, however, is highly common (even including the middle initial), and after having it for about a year I started getting sign-ups and order confirmations that were obviously not for me.
At first, I ignored it. I figure there was a letter difference, or the other guy wanted meant to use @yahoo.com. After a few confirmation e-mails went unanswered, surely he would realize the problem? But he didn't. And then I started getting personal correspondence, as if he was giving it to acquaintances. I replied to two or three, and those did seem to stop, but the sign-ups and orders didn't. I started reporting them to the respective sites, hoping that if stuff stopped showing up he might get the hint, but it never did.
Finally, I got fed up with it, and after yet another order confirmation I used my e-mail address to reset the password for his account, log into it, and get his physical address. Then I typed up a stern-yet-polite message to him to stop using my @)*(*$%&*)@*( e-mail address! One stamp and off it went.
I think that must have done the trick, because the rate started to decrease, but not long after I just got my own domain name and use that now, instead. The gmail account has probably lapsed since. In hindsight, I probably could have gotten in trouble if he was the vengeful type, but I suspected him to be an older guy with only a passing understanding of the internet in general.
Obviously the charge for postage from EU to AUS will be quite a bit higher than my 30 cents I spent at the time. In the meantime, you might make use of the modifier: gmail allows you to use username+modifier@gmail.com (e.g. tukaro+slashdot@), and with various websites you can use a common modifier and set up a filter to deem it "legitimate". Everything else can be shunted to a quasi-spam folder, which will be easier to sort through.
You may also report the sign-ups as being invalid. Most websites I contacted said they would close the account in question (one music site misinterpreted my notice as a claim of fraud), and if a physical letter doesn't work (or you want to use that as a last resort) this may correct the habit.
fuck with them (Score:2)
1. reply to their business emails telling the sender to fuck off.
2. password reset on any accounts, then either fuck with them or cancel them.
I cancelled some guys holiday once. Hope he learnt his lesson.
Read your Email better? (Score:2)
I was also one of the lucky ones all the way down to the space that was shortly removed. Each time someone tries to come in as me in any way I'm asked if it's ok, which I refuse, Be it XXX897@gmail or any similar form of my email address
Re: (Score:2)
I was also one of the lucky ones all the way down to the space that was shortly removed. Each time someone tries to come in as me in any way I'm asked if it's ok, which I refuse, Be it XXX897@gmail or any similar form of my email address
Google promised at the time your email would be unique and yours alone. While they took away my space (anything but a space) giving me an unlimited amount of Email addresses at the time, that has been fixed and it's one promise Google has kept and I've been keeping score.
This is gmail's period issue (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is it a period issue? Someone, somewhere, is putting in the wrong email address, periods notwithstanding, surely?
Re: (Score:2)
Has been happening to me for years. Google refuses to do anything. I once got a copy of a girl's college application that included her social security number. Even then they refused to even acknowledge my complaint. Perhaps it is time for a class action suit against Google.
Of course Google refused to do anything. It's in the damn RFC. It's literally working as designed. The fact that the designer did not think like the vast majority of the population isn't Google's fault. The RFC predates the existence of Google.
I have this same problem... (Score:2)
Some guy in America keeps resetting my password and I can't get to my adult dating sites anymore!
Actually, I have experienced this same scenario with two different individuals - one in Europe and one in Australia. The former is a result of them signing up for the european version of gmail (google.com). I don't think they get my email. But, I get mail intended for them. I've closed quite a few shopping accounts that she opened up. Heck, if I were in London, I could have picked up packages she had waitin
Also never open an email addressed from you (Score:2)
It's an old ploy and many open it to view the "fluke", opening it verifies it as being real and anything can happen after that.
Close the other person's account if possible (Score:2)
I.... (Score:2)
Have my own domain, so I don't have to borrow an email address off someone else.
Re: (Score:3)
Happens to me occasionally. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have [firstname]@[myslashdotusername].com. My domain name is now 18 years old and, outside of certain administrative addresses like postmaster@, abuse@, etc. (all of which forward to my address), mine is the only email address that has ever existed on the domain.
Even so, I occasionally get seemingly-legitimate people entering my address for things like an appointment at an Apple Store to get their iDevice repaired and for other purposes. Fortunately not as much as the original poster, but it does happen on occasion. I usually end up canceling the appointments and whatnot just so they stop. Very odd, as they have very different names than I.
Also annoying: somehow my email address has gotten around as someone in Dubai who is a position to offer employment, so I get tons of unsolicited CVs and cookie-cutter job applications from people living in Dubai. When asked, they say they received my email address at a job fair, trade show, etc. I've not yet had the pleasure of visiting the UAE, so I have no idea how my email has gotten around in those circles. Somehow it's also been picked up by those offering real estate and other services in the UAE, so I get a bunch of spam relating to that. Very odd.
I also have [myslashdotusername]@ and [myslashdotusername1]@gmail.com, and have had them since Gmail first started (both were invite accounts). I mostly got them to reserve the name and, later, for other Google services like YouTube and Google Voice. I occasionally get some guy in Australia, oddly enough, who has [myslashdotusername01]@gmail.com, but either he or the people he correspond with omit the digit 0 and I get his mail. I contacted him through other means (one of the emails "he" received included his phone number) and he is more careful now, but there's occasional screw-ups. Since I don't use the email address for email, I have an auto-responder set saying "If you're trying to reach [guy] in Australia, you have the wrong address."
Re: (Score:2)
Also annoying: somehow my email address has gotten around as someone in Dubai who is a position to offer employment, so I get tons of unsolicited CVs and cookie-cutter job applications from people living in Dubai.
I see that as well, started a year or two ago. Usually from Dubai or thereabouts indeed. I have no idea why those folk are randomly sending around their resumes - I assume it's a scam and treat it a such. Could be legitimate (as in: real person really looking for a real job), but even if so I'm not interested.
No idea how they got my e-mail; I have multiple domains and it's mostly if not exclusively the oldest one, a domain that I stopped using (i.e. kept alive but not giving out e-mail addresses based on it
Dkim domain validation (Score:2)
Both office 365 and Google's gsuite support it and include DNS records you can add with a key identifer to verify the domain attached with the IP address is you. More information is here
http://www.dkim.org/ [dkim.org]
SPF also is pretty standard which helps but black hats have gotten work arounds.
If you own your exchange server you need to let your system administrator add the proper DNS records and turn it on in the Exchange Admin center
Re: (Score:3)
Report Spam (Score:2)
If enough people suffering from your problem do it, Gmail will learn to block e-mails from their senders outright. (If they don't want them blocked like that, they should have used e-mail verification). At the very least, reporting as spam should help Gmail learn how to block them from YOUR inbox. IIRC Gmail also unsubscribes for you if you click the appropriate option.
This is happening to me (Score:2)
So there are two people doing this, but primarily one. I've learn that he:
Is 48, single, looking "for a bad girl" in Oklahoma. (note: I'm Australian so I guess our countries are even now)
Looking for foreclosed properties to buy.
Is in trouble with the IRS.
Crashed his car, wrote it off off, and was done for DUI.
It was sad actually, started off with just hiring romantic comedies from a redbox, then dating sites, then a brothel news letter. Lastly he booked a hotel room for two, then cancelled it a few hours la
Filter and forget (Score:2)
So, everything that makes it into your inbox from AdultFriendFinder or HotKangaroo dot com, create a gmail filter for. Have it automatically load into a label/folder called "Dumbo" and forget it. I wouldn't go to these sites and do anything with your email because it gives them an IP and validates your email as real.
Someone is signing you up for donkey porn. Just filter. Let the monster Gmail engine do its work.
Beef up your password strengths for your banks and billpay sites and such.
Some spammer did this to me. (Score:2)
Change it for them (Score:2)
I have [firstname][lastinitial]@[ancientwebmail].com that I check maybe once every 6 months out of curiosity. Someone else with that combo signed up for a Facebook account. I tried to tell them (via Facebook) that they made a mistake and they told me to fuck myself.
OK then. So I use Facebook's password reset, changed their email to `pwgen 32 1`@gmail.com, and their password to something similar.
(Note: I never would have done that if they hadn't been so nasty when I originally tried to help them.)
Google's Fault in my case (Score:2)
I'm an early adopter with a common name, too. People definitely use my address for junk, but Google somehow has figured it out and puts all the right stuff in the SPAM folder. I I've been reading this thread all afternoon but no-one seems to have had my experience though...
I started getting emails from somecompany.com that was clearly legit messages intended for a new employee. They even had the employee's @somecompany.com email address in the TO: line. Test emails confirmed that email sent there would wind
Karma (Score:2)
Unfortunately, (for you), there will be little sympathy from those who were forced to register countrybob200244@gmail.com because literally, everything is was taken.
Re: (Score:2)
is what it should have said.
My gmail is also popular (Score:2)
I think I was in the 2nd wave of gmail invites so I have a fairly simple address, too, and LOTS of people with the same last name somehow use it, from a PT therapist in Oklahoma, to a guy who just got rejected for FMLA and disability because they kept on sending his paperwork to MY gmail address (and since it was from a "do not reply as this is an unmonitored mailbox even a courtesy WTF? reply wouldn't work even if I was so inclined). The best is the lawyers who mis-send legal documents. They're the ones
Been there, did that (Score:2)
Been there, did that -- but the problem happened @me. I still use the @mac.com address (myname@) for iTunes only. I've ignored @me, @icloud, etc otherwise.
For those accounts auto created and/or you get the confirmation email -- take control of the account. Close it and delete it. Pay attention along the way. I know how much he made and where from H&R Block. Garnished his @gmail account as he set the recovery email to me. Closed it.
Eventually he set his recovery email on one of the accounts somewhere (ab
A couple of thoughts (Score:2)
On most sites, you'll can reset this person's password any time. Rather than lock them out immediately, wait a little while until they've been using the account for a while, then reset their password, log in, and figure out who it is. Then you can contact them and ask them to stop (or play pranks, if that's your thing).
Also if you're in Europe, and the other person is in Australia, the emails that the Australian person generates will be from basically the opposite timezone. You could try filtering signup em
I understand you (Score:2)
Here is what we did... (Score:2)
My partner had the same issue. She has <firstname>.<lastname>@gmail.com registered as an alias. Some lady in the US started giving that out as her own email address. At first, it was small things like fitness club registrations or store discount cards, but then it was rental agreements and loan applications. It became clear that this wasn't a one-off instance or simple misspelling. It was like reverse identity theft: this woman was effectively giving out everything (full name, birthdate, SS numb
Unsubscribe? (Score:2)
The quality of posts has been disturbing lately, and now I'm actually considering removing slash dot net from my RSS. I'm not a leader, I feel, but a reluctant follower.
Had this problem for years (Score:2)
I've had this problem for years - a prison building contractor in Africa uses my gmail address for many of his accounts payable. I get invoices all the time for toilets, timecard machines, tons of concrete, lumber, copper tubing, etc. It's actually quite interesting, and while he's gotten a few second/third notices on payments, it always seems to be get resolved.
I tried to fix the problem years ago but no one would respond, so I finally gave up trying.
Doesn't need to be a big email service (Score:2)
I have my own domain name. It's not even a .com/.net/.org, it's under my county's tld.
My personal email address at that domain is green1, which, while not unique, is rare enough I'd think, and there are a grand total of 4 people with accounts in that domain, none similar to mine.
I recently signed up for an Uber account and found my email address already in use, by someone in a different country. Someone signed up as a driver. I thought about taking over the account, but there are many fields in the settings
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Why? I mean we get asked for contact details so often by companies who have no interest in contacting us for anything other than to send us spam. I often just enter the first two words words that come into my head. For a while there was a Bob Dylan record laying next to the computer. I really hope his email isn't bob@dylan.com because he would have been signed up for a shitload of stuff.
Just like every web form that verifies post codes in the state ultimately has a disproportionately high number of users fr
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There's always,
North Pole
Canada
HOH OHO
If you want an easy to remember real address and don't mind spamming Santa with snail mail.
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I hadn't heard of ProtonMail, but I just had a look and made an account for myself. Thank you for spreading the word - I'm very impressed so far. Pity about the 500 meg storage limit for free accounts - it's reasonable, but we're so spoilt by Google's "more than you will ever need" limit.
Re:Reset the password on the accounts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, exactly. I have the same problem with my Gmail account. Over the years many hundreds of people have mistaken it for their email address, distributed it far and wide, and entered it into all sorts of things. Sometimes I just let it go, especially if a site only sends one "thanks for registering" email. I hit delete and move on. But if the service is a particularly spammy one, I'll use the "forgot password" link, login, change the password, turn off all email-related options, etc.
I used to look for an option to delete the account entirely, but that invariably led to the same people signing back up for the same services again. Occasionally I'll try to do the other guy a favor and tell the sender that they have the wrong address. It usually isn't worth the effort. Someone has a Royal Bank of Scotland account registered to my email and no amount of emailing, filling out their contact form, or tweeting at them ever did any good so I just filtered that domain out.
Not much you can do about people sending random unsolicited communications, though. I've received some really interesting misdirected mail over the years, including some stuff from the European Space Agency, and being cc'd on an NFL player's contract negotiations with a new team.
Re: Reset the password on the accounts. (Score:4, Funny)
Dear needlessly promiscuous 47 year old monkey
My name is Barrister j.c.don a Legal practitioner and member of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Institute of International Affairs in my country.
I am forwarding this proposal to you out of the intuitive confidences I have about you and your ability to assist in the executtion of a certain straightforward transaction.
The transaction involves a cash investment of the sum of US$40,500,000.00 (Forty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in Estate business or buying of shares in a strong reliable company in your country. The investment will be under your supervision, control and on behalf of my client, a former Military Governor of a State in Nigeria during the immediate past Military Regime. As a result of a very personal and political reason, he has decided to maintain anonymity for now pending a confirmation of your willingness to assist and co-operate in execution of the project....
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Could be email@address.com
I use that one all the time.
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You're nicer than I am. I had a woman in Chicago who gave my email address as hers to her day care center. One day, they sent a survey and I gave them rotten marks. I then got a horrified email saying they had no idea she was so unhappy, and to please redo the survey using new link. I did the same thing. She asked to set up a conference which I gladly obliged to. Eventually, I guess, they figured it out after "I" didn't show up for the conference.
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XBOX is just the worst! They *know* you're not their customer (whom they're emailing) so they refuse to do anything for you *including* not emailing you any more! My theory is that since an email is required to have an account, if they remove your email, they'll have to cancel the account. This puts them in the position of possibly refunding membership fees. It's about the money. You have to receive spam emails because they want to keep someone else's money.
Those emails come with an "unsubscribe" link, but
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i did the same. i'm in Australia and my gmail account gets mail all the time from Americans signing up for things with my gmail address. Including bank accounts, car purchases, and travel itineraries (including boarding passes). Idiots.
i either flag them as spam, delete/ignore them, or sometimes (if the sender is a real person and I'm in a helpful mood - like when some kid was trying to contact her uncle...oddly enough she had a similar name to my own niece) I try telling them that they've got the wrong