3 ms·

I have firstname@{major email service that isn't google} and, even though my name's a relatively uncommon variant spelling, the account is still pretty much com

I have firstname@{major email service that isn't google} and, even though my name's a relatively uncommon variant spelling, the account is still pretty much completely unusable because of all the misdirected email and spam it receives-- I can't use the account even as a throwaway "sign up for crap" email address, much less for personal correspondence, because any mail directed at me would be buried in all the other junk it receives. Just signed into it for the first time in a while, and it looks like it's gotten some better than it was-- now it's mostly mailing list stuff and actual spam (of the "your paypal account is locked" variety); seems that most legitimate services are doing better about email verification these days. At one point a few years back, someone had managed to actually create working Apple ID, Facebook, and Paypal accounts against it without access to the email (was still receiving "verify your email"-type messages at the same time as transactional emails indicating real activity).

AnonHP 6y ago
If my guess that you’re referring to Yahoo Mail is correct, I’ve seen the same problem but with spam. With all the hacks and data leaks that happened over the years, one of my mailboxes there receives a lot (like a whole lot) of spam. Yahoo’s spam filters have also seemed terrible for not detecting spam and not learning from mail market as spam by me. I have similar anecdotes from a few other people I know. On this topic, I do get some mails intended for others, including bank statements with passwords that are trivial to crack, account signups for social media platforms, delivery services, etc. I’ve also seen that there’s no way to rectify this in many cases — the entity sending the email (or the appropriate group within the company) isn’t available to contact and resolve the situation. In other cases they just don’t care even after they receive the emails about the information leaks form their systems.

AnonHP 6y ago

If my guess that you’re referring to Yahoo Mail is correct, I’ve seen the same problem but with spam. With all the hacks and data leaks that happened over the years, one of my mailboxes there receives a lot (like a whole lot) of spam. Yahoo’s spam filters have also seemed terrible for not detecting spam and not learning from mail market as spam by me. I have similar anecdotes from a few other people I know. On this topic, I do get some mails intended for others, including bank statements with passwords that are trivial to crack, account signups for social media platforms, delivery services, etc. I’ve also seen that there’s no way to rectify this in many cases — the entity sending the email (or the appropriate group within the company) isn’t available to contact and resolve the situation. In other cases they just don’t care even after they receive the emails about the information leaks form their systems.