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Ask HN: Someone is signing my email up to dating and sex sites
I have a Gmail address with my first and last name @ gmail.com a name that is shared by at least 200+ men in the USA. I signed up for Gmail in 2005 doing a beta test and got my first and last name as my gmail account. If someone else of the same name signs up they have to use a letter or number combination at gmail.com. I get emails for the wrong person all of the time. Recently I have been signed up to several sex and dating websites that don't even require an email confirmation. I was able to unsubscribe from their lists, but I can't help feel scared that men are using my gmail address to look for women and it makes me look bad. What if the women try to contact them via email and it goes to me? I tried emailing abuse @ domain.com for each one but no response.
I'm too scared to log onto the website and reset the password for each account and then have the account deleted. I once had to do that before, only to have them recreate the account. I can't tell if this is an accident or if it is being done on purpose?
But none of these web sites confirm the email, and anyone can type any email they want and create an account. Then I start getting email from their websites that I don't want and I had to explain to my wife that I was not me signing up for these accounts.
- cyberpanther 12y agoSomeone did the same thing with my GMail to sign up for an Apple account. Of course I already own the account with my GMail; however, you can add periods anywhere in the address or add "+tag-name" and it all goes to the same place. So the following all route to the same address. firstnameLastname@gmail.com firstname.Lastname@gmail.com firstnameLastname+tagname@gmail.com So there are infinite permutations of your address that could be used even if you are successful in blocking your default address. Most systems including Apple don't recognize these as the same address.
- orionblastar 12y agoSo there is no way to stop people from using my gmail account to get on sex and dating sites? If I block one form of my address there are countless others they could use? I don't see how I can prevent this, and I don't want to lose my Gmail account because I have bank accounts and other stuff tied to it.
- cyberpanther 12y agoI guess you could use the reverse approach. Make up a tag or tags that are valid and delete everything else automatically. The hard part would be updating your email everywhere.
- theaccordance 12y agoWell they're not getting on if they can't acknowledge the confirmation email, so they're not technically using your email account.
- orionblastar 12y agoThe sites don't require a confirmation email. They just enter any email address and it never confirms it, it just starts sending dating suggestions, etc to the email entered.
- theaccordance 12y agoBest advice in this situation is "Out of sight, out of Mind." Set up a rule to automatically delete emails from said domains. Outside of that, if you're worried about how your wife will react, just get out in front of the situation and tell her; hopefully the worst that happens is that she makes fun of you
- orionblastar 12y agoProblem is they keep signing me up to different domains. Every time I block one domain, they signed me up to a few more. I explained it to my wife, she understands it is not me, but I don't know how to prevent it.
- theaccordance 12y agoThen just continue to block the domains, eventually they're gonna run out of services to sign you up for lol
- orionblastar 12y agoOk I'll keep blocking the domains. No way to reach these men to tell them they are using the wrong email address.
- cyberpanther 12y agoHave you tried Inbox yet? You could probably bundle these and maybe Gmail would learn better how to at least categorize them so you can squish them faster. If you need an Inbox invite let me know.