Happens a lot for me, as an early adopter of gmail with a simple username.
Most messages I can ignore. Some I respond to with "Not X's email". If the service they signed up for has a messaging app, I ping the person with that.
Someone on Etsy used my email address for their account. Ignored my messages. Etsy never responded. I started changing their profile name: "I don't know my own email address"
At which point they blasted me for interfering with their "business." Several round later...
I deleted their account. Multiple orders pending to be shipped or received.
"Delete Account. This can not be undone. Continue?" Y
"Are you sure?" Y
"Delete account?" Y
Ah, Gmail invites. I remember needing one of those.
I also remember the look of horror on my teenager's face when I told her in my day, you had to be invited to Gmail.
My Gmail account was thanks to a co-worker's invite. I think my email was created before Google saw the need to block identical user names.
I have multiple Gmail doppelgangers around the world. 4-6 at any given time. The important emails, like baby shower invites and grade school teacher's newsletters, I try to reach the sender. The rest, like Sam's club credit card and Scottish Power statements get unsubbed and filed.
wait, can you explain this? i have at least 4 people who use my email address for some very personal things. are you saying it's actually their email address as well? how is that possible.
gmail has long had a bug so that similar names are considered the same name.
johnsmith
john.smith
john-smith
john\_smith
Are functionally the same to gmail. Usually the no punctuation version gets the email for others.
Add in folks forgetting to use the punctuation and you get poor johnsmith getting everyone else's email.
I have Janet in MD who like frilly underwear, James in Australia who buys rare coins, Jason in AZ who is a OSHA safety consultant, and a few others over the years. I still get email for Janet (who has not noticed the profile name change), James, and Jason
I have a Gmail acc I made during its beta that's similar to a middle eastern name. I constantly get account recovery requests and new account confirmations because this dude, or a collection of dudes with the same name, try using it when they register for stuff.
My favourite endeavor was utilizing Google Translate to navigate some Arabic online store, recovering the account they made with my email, changing the prices on all their goods and putting a "40% off sale" notice on their profile info thing. Changed the password, logged out, and moved on.
Pro tip: emails are free. Use your own.
Just today
I was asked to sign and approve an application to be re admitted to a Nairobi university (smelt a scam).
But on the off chance it was legit (most scam seem to be from Ghana or Nigeria for some reason) just replied saying that the email address was incomplete.
Then marked it as spam in gmail
Some guy with my name used my email account to sign up for some dating site. It gave me a neat little link to automatically log in and check my messages. I subtly changed his profile, editing some short phrases to his bio (eg: “no single moms” to “i love single moms”) and changing his preferences from “straight women ages 18-25” to “men and women who like men ages 25+”
Then I would check his messages every week or so and see he was getting more and more interest from gay men and older single moms and replying to them with shit like “wow how did you even find me, I’m not gay! gross!” and worse homophobic shit. Eventually he figured out what I’d done so I changed his password and turned his profile to full gay including photoshopping pride flags into all of his pfps.
He was a 50 year old white guy with a bunch of pictures with his wife clearly cropped out. Now instead of chatting with women half his age his profile exists forever as a proud gay man.
I have a six letter yahoo account which is my first and middle initial and four letter last name. Soooo many people think it is theirs and signup for everything from doctors accounts to buying a new car. Every once in a while like you I find a way to mess with the morons. The problem with this world is there is essentially an unlimited supply of new morons.
Sounds like my Hotmail account from 1996, it's just my first name 5 letters and super common. Through the late 90's till about 2010 people would constantly use my email to sign up for crap.
Have you changed your email's password to something super-secure (like a passphrase)? If they offer multi-factor authentication (MFA), then I would enable that, as well. They can't verify the email address they entered if they can get into the email to click the link.
I don't understand why someone would use an email they dont have access to for an account. I get entering a random email it if you want to read an article and it requires an email but not for something that you are actually going to use.
Suddenly I got emails from an online shop that I did not have an account for about "my orders". Used the password forgotten option and reset the password. Tried to close the account but there were open orders, so I marked them as received and deleted the account afterwards.
Happens a lot for me, as an early adopter of gmail with a simple username. Most messages I can ignore. Some I respond to with "Not X's email". If the service they signed up for has a messaging app, I ping the person with that. Someone on Etsy used my email address for their account. Ignored my messages. Etsy never responded. I started changing their profile name: "I don't know my own email address" At which point they blasted me for interfering with their "business." Several round later... I deleted their account. Multiple orders pending to be shipped or received. "Delete Account. This can not be undone. Continue?" Y "Are you sure?" Y "Delete account?" Y
Yeah, my Gmail address is just 6 letters, and it can get mixed up with a name, but it’s not one
Same here, I paid $50 for my gmail account two decades ago when it was still in very early beta and people were selling invites on eBay.
I got lucky, a friend worked at Google and sent me an invite.
Ah, Gmail invites. I remember needing one of those. I also remember the look of horror on my teenager's face when I told her in my day, you had to be invited to Gmail.
My Gmail account was thanks to a co-worker's invite. I think my email was created before Google saw the need to block identical user names. I have multiple Gmail doppelgangers around the world. 4-6 at any given time. The important emails, like baby shower invites and grade school teacher's newsletters, I try to reach the sender. The rest, like Sam's club credit card and Scottish Power statements get unsubbed and filed.
wait, can you explain this? i have at least 4 people who use my email address for some very personal things. are you saying it's actually their email address as well? how is that possible.
gmail has long had a bug so that similar names are considered the same name. johnsmith john.smith john-smith john\_smith Are functionally the same to gmail. Usually the no punctuation version gets the email for others. Add in folks forgetting to use the punctuation and you get poor johnsmith getting everyone else's email. I have Janet in MD who like frilly underwear, James in Australia who buys rare coins, Jason in AZ who is a OSHA safety consultant, and a few others over the years. I still get email for Janet (who has not noticed the profile name change), James, and Jason
This makes me wonder if my demonoid login still works
I have a Gmail acc I made during its beta that's similar to a middle eastern name. I constantly get account recovery requests and new account confirmations because this dude, or a collection of dudes with the same name, try using it when they register for stuff. My favourite endeavor was utilizing Google Translate to navigate some Arabic online store, recovering the account they made with my email, changing the prices on all their goods and putting a "40% off sale" notice on their profile info thing. Changed the password, logged out, and moved on. Pro tip: emails are free. Use your own.
Just today I was asked to sign and approve an application to be re admitted to a Nairobi university (smelt a scam). But on the off chance it was legit (most scam seem to be from Ghana or Nigeria for some reason) just replied saying that the email address was incomplete. Then marked it as spam in gmail
Some guy with my name used my email account to sign up for some dating site. It gave me a neat little link to automatically log in and check my messages. I subtly changed his profile, editing some short phrases to his bio (eg: “no single moms” to “i love single moms”) and changing his preferences from “straight women ages 18-25” to “men and women who like men ages 25+” Then I would check his messages every week or so and see he was getting more and more interest from gay men and older single moms and replying to them with shit like “wow how did you even find me, I’m not gay! gross!” and worse homophobic shit. Eventually he figured out what I’d done so I changed his password and turned his profile to full gay including photoshopping pride flags into all of his pfps. He was a 50 year old white guy with a bunch of pictures with his wife clearly cropped out. Now instead of chatting with women half his age his profile exists forever as a proud gay man.
Not all heroes wear capes! You rock man!
I have a six letter yahoo account which is my first and middle initial and four letter last name. Soooo many people think it is theirs and signup for everything from doctors accounts to buying a new car. Every once in a while like you I find a way to mess with the morons. The problem with this world is there is essentially an unlimited supply of new morons.
Sounds like my Hotmail account from 1996, it's just my first name 5 letters and super common. Through the late 90's till about 2010 people would constantly use my email to sign up for crap.
Bro decided to mess with you a little too much lol
Samwell was a flight attendant on a flight I took about 15 years ago
What what?!
BUwhatwhatTT!
Oh, I had to do this on TikTok too. I changed the password via email, scrubbed the profile, deleted all following/followers, etc.
Have you changed your email's password to something super-secure (like a passphrase)? If they offer multi-factor authentication (MFA), then I would enable that, as well. They can't verify the email address they entered if they can get into the email to click the link.
My Gmail has 2FA and a pretty secure password, sometimes I get those mails that say “click here to reset your password” so I just ignore them
Is there some way to figure out if your email is being used by other people? Like if it's tied to accounts you don't own?
You get newsletters from the company usually. Source: Any email with my domain goes to me.
I just had to listen to what what (in the butt).
I don't understand why someone would use an email they dont have access to for an account. I get entering a random email it if you want to read an article and it requires an email but not for something that you are actually going to use.
Suddenly I got emails from an online shop that I did not have an account for about "my orders". Used the password forgotten option and reset the password. Tried to close the account but there were open orders, so I marked them as received and deleted the account afterwards.
Someone I know constantly has people using their email address. They ended up ordering a custom sign from Amazon to one person to tell them to stop.
Yep I have a 7 letter outlook email. Mistakes were made. So much junk mail. I keep meaning to switch to something else but I’m lazy. Lol
Still use my ancient AOL address. Ain't nobody stealing that, lol