4 ms·

On the Perils of Owning a Vanity Username

17 points by benjlang 13y ago

tjr 13y ago
I have my first-initial, last-name at Gmail, and I guess a lot of other people think they do too. I have been often mistaken for a guy who sells custom-made night lights, a woman applying for jobs in the airline industry, another woman in need of remedial driving education, and most comically, a member of local government in a foreign country, which has generated a seemingly endless stream of email for years. I have contacted the senders to let them know of their mistake, but the same people keep sending me mail intended for someone else. In some cases I've given up. I can only imagine what the intended recipient is going through, missing out on their job application notices, or council meeting updates.
- Goronmon 13y ago
  I'm in the same situation. It's starting to get pretty old, especially when I cancel a e-mail newsletter and then a few weeks later get the same one again because the person re-signed up with the wrong e-mail address.
  - pyre 13y ago
    At my last employer, we ran a newsletter, and got a constant stream of people that were angry because they couldn't type their email in correctly to unsubscribe.
- Cushman 13y ago
  Same here. The most disconcerting part for me is if I join a popular service that doesn't confirm email ownership, I'll sometimes find myself with access to somebody else's personal information/photos/social network. Which might technically be hacking under the law? It's a bit worrisome.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  I have a similar situation. I get: email intended for an Irish bookie, videos of bus accidents from some sort of investigator, some chick modelling underwear for a boyfriend, a spreadsheet with the VPN and passwords for someone's employer, and a guy who test drives luxury cars in Chicago and DC as a hobby. It's really annoying!
  - autodidakto 13y ago
    Get creative and combine this info somehow.
- Splendor 13y ago
  Same here. I get all sorts of order confirmation emails, family pictures, etc. I've tried to track down the other person to let them know, but haven't had any luck so far.
Casseres 13y ago
I have a firstlast@gmail address, and I occasionally get e-mails intended for people with the same name. Recently, a person with the same first and last name thought he owned my e-mail address. He signed up for several job searching e-mails from companies that did not verify e-mail address (which I promptly marked as spam). That person finally signed up for a FedEx.com account, and I was able to reset the password to access and get his phone number. I called him up to inform him of his error, and it sounded like the man was in his late 60s and thought I was an "IBM-er". A week after that, he stopped signing up for new services with my e-mail address. I can only guess a friend or family member told him how e-mail works. Side note: FedEx.com should know better than not forcing users to verify their e-mail addresses at sign up.
- Fuzzwah 13y ago
  Today I just paid $1.06 to facebook to finally allow me to send a message to someone that didn't get filtered into their "other" inbox. I did this because I'm sick to death of receiving their email. We share a name. I created the account first.last@gmail.com, he created the account firstlast@gmail.com. At some time in the past google decided that they would just ignore dots in email addresses. Luckily during the merge I got to keep the email address. So now first.last and firstlast come to me. My doppelganger uses the email address for their apple id. I can reset their password, but I don't get the password sent to me (as it sends the new pass to the recovery email address).
- r00fus 13y ago
  Innovative way of getting the number from fedex.com - but wouldn't that be construed as intrusion in some jurisdictions? Sillier things have put similar minded hackers into the prison-industrial grinder.
andrewflnr 13y ago
Before you use a bogus gmail, or your own email, for testing, consider mailinator.com . Anything@mailinator.com goes to a globally visible inbox. It's pretty convenient.

17 points by benjlang 13y ago

tjr 13y ago

I have my first-initial, last-name at Gmail, and I guess a lot of other people think they do too. I have been often mistaken for a guy who sells custom-made night lights, a woman applying for jobs in the airline industry, another woman in need of remedial driving education, and most comically, a member of local government in a foreign country, which has generated a seemingly endless stream of email for years. I have contacted the senders to let them know of their mistake, but the same people keep sending me mail intended for someone else. In some cases I've given up. I can only imagine what the intended recipient is going through, missing out on their job application notices, or council meeting updates.

Goronmon 13y ago
I'm in the same situation. It's starting to get pretty old, especially when I cancel a e-mail newsletter and then a few weeks later get the same one again because the person re-signed up with the wrong e-mail address.
- pyre 13y ago
  At my last employer, we ran a newsletter, and got a constant stream of people that were angry because they couldn't type their email in correctly to unsubscribe.
Cushman 13y ago
Same here. The most disconcerting part for me is if I join a popular service that doesn't confirm email ownership, I'll sometimes find myself with access to somebody else's personal information/photos/social network. Which might technically be hacking under the law? It's a bit worrisome.
Spooky23 13y ago
I have a similar situation. I get: email intended for an Irish bookie, videos of bus accidents from some sort of investigator, some chick modelling underwear for a boyfriend, a spreadsheet with the VPN and passwords for someone's employer, and a guy who test drives luxury cars in Chicago and DC as a hobby. It's really annoying!
- autodidakto 13y ago
  Get creative and combine this info somehow.
Splendor 13y ago
Same here. I get all sorts of order confirmation emails, family pictures, etc. I've tried to track down the other person to let them know, but haven't had any luck so far.

Casseres 13y ago

I have a firstlast@gmail address, and I occasionally get e-mails intended for people with the same name. Recently, a person with the same first and last name thought he owned my e-mail address. He signed up for several job searching e-mails from companies that did not verify e-mail address (which I promptly marked as spam). That person finally signed up for a FedEx.com account, and I was able to reset the password to access and get his phone number. I called him up to inform him of his error, and it sounded like the man was in his late 60s and thought I was an "IBM-er". A week after that, he stopped signing up for new services with my e-mail address. I can only guess a friend or family member told him how e-mail works. Side note: FedEx.com should know better than not forcing users to verify their e-mail addresses at sign up.

Fuzzwah 13y ago
Today I just paid $1.06 to facebook to finally allow me to send a message to someone that didn't get filtered into their "other" inbox. I did this because I'm sick to death of receiving their email. We share a name. I created the account first.last@gmail.com, he created the account firstlast@gmail.com. At some time in the past google decided that they would just ignore dots in email addresses. Luckily during the merge I got to keep the email address. So now first.last and firstlast come to me. My doppelganger uses the email address for their apple id. I can reset their password, but I don't get the password sent to me (as it sends the new pass to the recovery email address).
r00fus 13y ago
Innovative way of getting the number from fedex.com - but wouldn't that be construed as intrusion in some jurisdictions? Sillier things have put similar minded hackers into the prison-industrial grinder.

andrewflnr 13y ago

Before you use a bogus gmail, or your own email, for testing, consider mailinator.com . Anything@mailinator.com goes to a globally visible inbox. It's pretty convenient.