3 ms·

I have a fairly uncommon name and predominately use Gmail. Still, I receive a surprising amount of other people's mail in error. Apparently lots of people gue

I have a fairly uncommon name and predominately use Gmail. Still, I receive a surprising amount of other people's mail in error. Apparently lots of people guess at email addys. I do often wonder at both the lack of privacy this engenders and what the Goog machine must make of it all.

blawson 10y ago
I definitely worry about my life being affected by situations like this. I receive a ridiculous amount of other people's email - for serious things like email account reset, to banking info. When the Ashley Madison hack happened, my email address was there multiple times! Imagine if my then-partner had bothered to look, what a mess that would be.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Lay down a trail of public comments for plausible deniability. Smart!
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Your current or next partner might not like that you've signed up either :)
- jsymolon 10y ago
  > for serious things like email account reset, to banking info. I've called American Express a couple of times to report errant emails with account info ending up in my email. THEY didn't care that one of their customers had an issue, they thought it was a great time to have me fork over MY info "to check".
gvurrdon 10y ago
My partner received a few emails which a government representative had tried to forward from their work account to their private Gmail account whilst getting the address wrong. These contained personal information relating to correspondence with constituents. From time to time I have had messages relating to a government planning committee as one of the members got the domain of someone's departmental email account wrong and the messages come instead to the domain I administer.
jsmthrowaway 10y ago
I know someone who has his (common) first name @gmail.com as he was an early employee on Gmail, and he regularly gets grandparents guessing their grandson's name as the correct e-mail address. He told me this happens several times a day.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
I just got a funny email last week... welcoming me to the NRA. I was like... but I didn't join the NRA. I sent them an email about it, but I'm probably going to have to CALL the NRA to tell them to remove my address from their database.
- funkymike 10y ago
  Getting these things corrected can actually be quite difficult. I regularly get emails from an optician in another state. I have replied multiple times that they are sending information to the wrong person, but they continue to do so. Fortunately this has never included detailed health information, but merely revealing a patient relationship with a specific medical provider can be a breach. In another instance I was getting emails about an account someone created with American Express using my email address. I sent multiple emails to their customer support to get them to stop sending financial information to the wrong person with no results. In this I also found it difficult to even figure out what agency to report them to for failing to take action when notified. Eventually I took the time to call them. It took around 20 minutes (not counting time on hold) of talking to multiple people to get them to remove the email address from the account. This included them asking me several times for my social security number - which I flatly refused to provide since I had zero business relationship with them. This refusal actually seemed to confuse them.
meej 10y ago
The thing that gets me is when people seem to be guessing at their own emails when filling out forms and such. How do you not know your own email address? Many of the people I know who have very common gmail addresses have set up canned replies to let senders know they've reached the wrong person.

blawson 10y ago

I definitely worry about my life being affected by situations like this. I receive a ridiculous amount of other people's email - for serious things like email account reset, to banking info. When the Ashley Madison hack happened, my email address was there multiple times! Imagine if my then-partner had bothered to look, what a mess that would be.

solipsism 10y ago
Lay down a trail of public comments for plausible deniability. Smart!
jasonkostempski 10y ago
Your current or next partner might not like that you've signed up either :)
jsymolon 10y ago
> for serious things like email account reset, to banking info. I've called American Express a couple of times to report errant emails with account info ending up in my email. THEY didn't care that one of their customers had an issue, they thought it was a great time to have me fork over MY info "to check".

gvurrdon 10y ago

My partner received a few emails which a government representative had tried to forward from their work account to their private Gmail account whilst getting the address wrong. These contained personal information relating to correspondence with constituents. From time to time I have had messages relating to a government planning committee as one of the members got the domain of someone's departmental email account wrong and the messages come instead to the domain I administer.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

I know someone who has his (common) first name @gmail.com as he was an early employee on Gmail, and he regularly gets grandparents guessing their grandson's name as the correct e-mail address. He told me this happens several times a day.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

I just got a funny email last week... welcoming me to the NRA. I was like... but I didn't join the NRA. I sent them an email about it, but I'm probably going to have to CALL the NRA to tell them to remove my address from their database.

funkymike 10y ago
Getting these things corrected can actually be quite difficult. I regularly get emails from an optician in another state. I have replied multiple times that they are sending information to the wrong person, but they continue to do so. Fortunately this has never included detailed health information, but merely revealing a patient relationship with a specific medical provider can be a breach. In another instance I was getting emails about an account someone created with American Express using my email address. I sent multiple emails to their customer support to get them to stop sending financial information to the wrong person with no results. In this I also found it difficult to even figure out what agency to report them to for failing to take action when notified. Eventually I took the time to call them. It took around 20 minutes (not counting time on hold) of talking to multiple people to get them to remove the email address from the account. This included them asking me several times for my social security number - which I flatly refused to provide since I had zero business relationship with them. This refusal actually seemed to confuse them.

meej 10y ago

The thing that gets me is when people seem to be guessing at their own emails when filling out forms and such. How do you not know your own email address? Many of the people I know who have very common gmail addresses have set up canned replies to let senders know they've reached the wrong person.