Why is someone using my Gmail?

Status
Not open for further replies.
My alumni email address is my first initial followed by a period and my last name, it so happens that there is a professor at the university with a first name with the same first initial so I get a ton of email from students looking to turn in homework late or other excuses typically.

His email is actually X.Lastname2@school.edu, which cracks me up because of how bad it looks. It's funny because while I was a student it was just my student ID #, but they just changed it when I graduated. I'd be happy to give it to him, but nobody ever responded.

I generally reply to all emails pointing them in the right direction. Nobody ever thanks me for the assistance. :(
 
Mr_Appleby said:
No you misunderstand. You can't make that second email account because the name is already taken. But that doesn't stop people misspelling their own email account and the emails winding up in someone else's. So for example I have bobblah@gmail.com and somebody else has bob.blag@gmail.com. If they try to sign up for something and accidentally type bob.blah, the period gets stripped and rather than the emails going to an invalid address, they come to me.
Click to expand...

Ohhhhh okay gotcha. So this is just an issue of typos. The OP isn't actually sharing emails with the other person. Whew, okay I feel better lol.
 
I get this SO MUCH.

From what I can tell there are at least 8 people giving out my main and original gmail as their own occasionally, from all over the world. (at least 4 states in the US, Chile, UK, India, and Malaysia)
I've gotten an invitation to a wedding in India, someone's last-minute submission of an assignment for a college class, an email from an elementary school teacher to a parent about setting up a meeting, and pizza delivery orders with their full name, address, and phone number. Plus all the various mailing lists that these people get themselves signed up for. It gets annoying. I respond when it seems like something important (like the homework and the parent-teacher meeting), and if they sign up for an account with my email, I'll try to delete the account, otherwise I'll change the password.

I also somehow get someone's emails from Facebook, despite them not being addressed to me. It's like someone set up their email to auto-forwarded them to me.

My other gmail address (firstnamelastname), as far I can tell, has only been used by someone in New Zealand who set up a Dropbox account with it. I got zero emails about it (wtf, dropbox!), and never would have known had I not tried to sign in to mine with my alternate email. This person had a photo of their driver's license in their dropbox, too.


... This is a minor pet peeve of mine.
 
elrechazado said:
Weird situation - for like 2 years now, someone is very consciously using my Gmail. The weird thing is that it's not being used as a throwaway. Stuff they obviously need like fantasy football, Facebook, doctors offices, forums, even important mortgage docs recently. if anything looks important, I respond politely and say they have the wrong email. etc. We clearly have the same name, and it's clearly the same person because it's in a specific city well away from me. It keeps happening. Is this person just dumb or not caring, despite lots of this stuff being really important?

So what gives? Is he getting these emails? Is Gmail sending them to both of us? I know Gmail does some things with name.name@ or name1@, so is that what's happening?

I've changed pswd dozens of times because it seems odd. Anyone ever had that happen?
Click to expand...

Yes this exact same thing has been happening to me for at 3-4 years now. Some high school kid in the USA. It's just a part of my life now.
 
If there's anything I have learned as tech support for a job application system is that people have a hard time typing their email correctly. He probably has a yahoo account with the same username or forgot the # he had to add, forgot the middle initial...
 
My mom did this to someone for a while. She had an email address that was janedoe11@example, but she assumed she had just janedoe@example

Eventually the person figured out my mother's phone number, called her and asked for Jane Doe. When she figured out she had the right person, she gave her quite the ear full.

We laugh about it now, but my mom was feeling guilty over it for a while.
 
Syriel said:
If they won't stop spamming you, the solution is simple:

1) Go to PSN site.
2) Recover Password -> email.
3) Problem solved.



Yes, it's how gmail handles accounts and it's awesome because it gives you plenty of variations to use.

Not sure how/why you think it's an invasion of privacy when only one person can actually sign up for an account.

ARCANUM@gmail = arcanum@gmail = a.rcanum@gmail, and so on.

They're all the same account.
Click to expand...

Kind of a pain in the ass though. I registered my email as x.xxxx@gmail.com, not knowing Google doesn't care. But fact is people can just dump multiple iterations on some mail list and cluttering my inbox. I'm lucky my name is not that common
 
This has happened to me on two separate accounts. One is my first and last name separated by a period, and the other was a pretty generic gamer-type username.

Funny story, I actually got a Kickstarter account for the first time because some moron put my email in when they signed up, and then they launched a Kickstarter for a Portuguese gaming site. I recovered the password using my email, shut down the Kickstarter with a message in both Portuguese and English saying that the Kickstarter project had been set up improperly using my email, and then kept the account.

As far as solving the email problem, well, I tried. For a while I responded to every email with "You have the wrong email address." I managed to contact one of the guys, and he just said, "Huh. I was wondering who owned this email."

Eventually I gave up and came up with an email address that used my initials, my last name, and then a series of numbers. It's easy enough for people to remember, but unique enough that no one has tried to use it.
 
//ARCANUM said:
ummm.... so that means if you've got a . in your gmail address, it's quite easy for someone to spy on you.

how is that not a *huge* problem for people?
Click to expand...

The period is just a preference of the user. It's sort of technically not there -- someone couldn't take arcanum@gmail.com if you already had arca.num@gmail.com because it's the same account in google's eyes. What usually happens is someone makes arcanum1@gmail.com and when someone types in their email they forget to add the 1 or something (presumably). I get someone who added a 1 to the end of my name's email all the time.
 
Well how does last name first name work then? Because I have firstlast@ and still got an email for last first@. That has to bring a difference no?

It was lastnamefirstname @gmail.com and it was an uber. I've been getting his rental cars, family reunions, all that jazz.

However if firstname.lastname@ is the same as firstnamelastname@ does this guy even have an email/digital life.
 
I get emails from a woman in Florida. Just last week she had her daughter's photos taken at Picture People.

A few months ago she was buying a house and I got emails from her realtor. I contact the realtor and told them they were using the wrong email address yet I still get emails on occasion.
 
I have something similar happening and the guy doesn't even have the same name yet he will order food for delivery or book a car rental under my email. I actually reached out to him once since through these emails I had his full name, address, etc and yet the same guy still does it from time to time. It's like he used the wrong email somehow and now Chrome is auto filling my email in and he just goes with it. Super annoying and no real way to block or stop it.
 
commedieu said:
Well how does last name first name work then? Because I have firstlast@ and still got an email for last first@. That has to bring a difference no?

It was lastnamefirstname @gmail.com and it was an uber. I've been getting his rental cars, family reunions, all that jazz.

However if firstname.lastname@ is the same as firstnamelastname@ does this guy even have an email/digital life.
Click to expand...

Swapped name order should not work
 
I don't understand how it's so common. For mailing lists maybe, but people ordering stuff or registering accounts surely need access to the email for verification? And hey won't have access because it's coming to you?

I had this for ages with someone called Caleb downloading free stuff from google play store, and receipts coming to one of my kids email addresses. But why didn't google play make him validate his account? I tried emailing him to tell him to change it but it got very confusing. Eventually he seemed to stop
 
When people sign up for stuff on the internet, they often just put some random email address in the form. If you have a simple email address, or one made of common names, you may get a lot of these. This is actually very common (I know this because I work in email spam fighting, and this is the kind of stuff we have to deal with...).
 
it has yet to happen to me for my name, but someone who has... a different combination of my "firstnamelastname" signed up for some random account.

their name was firstnamela stname

very strange. i dont know why someone bothers signing up and cant log in anymore. i just went into the account and changed the password. couldnt figure out a way to delete it
 
I've got an email that is just a random jumble of letters and people have been using it as backup email, sign-up throwaway and other shit.

I don't mind it, since the only one who's got access to it is me.
 
Same boat as you op. Happens to me so much with some guy in Texas. I've tried to be nice about it, I've even tried to reach him directly and still can't stop. I'm way past the being nice thing too.
 
i have the same problem.

I have a firstname.lastname@gmail.com account and i get lots of email from complete morons who give out the wrong email.

After years of this i've occasionally decided have fun with it if i get too bored. Like replying to stuff that is obviously not meant for me. Last month I got an invitation to a wedding and I told them I wouldn't be coming because I was attending a furry convention and went into great detail about the suit I constructed and stuff to mess with them. I do sometimes get serious stuff like medical documents and i try to inform them that I am the wrong person. I almost never get a reply or a sorry. it's maddening.

it's so bad that i have written out a long form response that i paste as a reply to people to get them to remove my e-mail address from their listings and to persuade them to contact the person who is wrongfully giving this info out and make them cut it out. It's bad for both them AND me.
 
Someone kept setting up accts with my account. Ended up doing a password reset for their Ovoo account and chatting with their friends to tell them to tell their friend to change her email address for Ovoo or I was going to lock out her Ovoo account. And to learn what her own email address was.

Ended up signing up for Ovoo, friending myself using their account, and chatting. Some younger person in the U.K.

I was just trying to be polite while getting them to stop, but I got a bunch of hateful messages and a "I'll just make a new Ovoo account".

Fine. Fuck it, I locked her out. People.

My wife gets a ton too, some dummy kept signing her up for stuff and now she gets a ton of spam.
 
I've been getting car insurance for someone. The worst part is how hard they were to talk to. Had to get on Twitter and moan about it publicly to be listened to. A month later after they claim to have fixed it I get more e.mails. Maybe it's time to ditch GMail for something less common.
 
It happens every so often with my gmail. I think she just gives them the correct one and they screw it up and use mine. We have the exact same name.
 
This has happened with my gmail for a couple years. Same person with apparently the same name or close enough that they typo it all the time. It's always Target receipts or red box etc.
 
My gmail alter ego is an employee at Google. Our addressees are ever so slightly different and this happens now and again. We forward stuff to reach other though we have never met. I think it has to do with people misspelling the address as my name is very common, but hard to spell.
 
DoctorWho said:
It happens every so often with my gmail. I think she just gives them the correct one and they screw it up and use mine. We have the exact same name.
Click to expand...

Come on now. Clara only called herself the Doctor for one episode.

It can't be THAT confusing. ;)
 
Syriel said:
If they won't stop spamming you, the solution is simple:

1) Go to PSN site.
2) Recover Password -> email.
3) Problem solved.
Click to expand...
That actually doesn't work, as there is another level of authentication. I tried that almost immediately, as that worked when some other people pulled the same shit with eBay and Uber accounts with my email address if India.

But since the PSN accounts actually are separate, it doesn't really bother me much. EBay and Uber were obviously much worse.
 
They likely have the same address, with a small difference.

My wife has this problem. She has received plane tickets, bills, personal messages. All because the person(s) leave a letter out.

I think she even somehow found the person and let them know. And it still keeps happening. She deletes them all now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Someone Stole My Dog
33
2K
The Cockatrice replied
is there a way to tell if someone possibly used a stolen card to pay me through paypal?
4
280
AJUMP23 replied
Why the f is Reddit so rigid?
2 3
112
815
Unknown? replied
Looking for laptop recommendations for my daughter. College use
46
932
Ocean Dweller replied
Today is my birthday
42
2K
Heimdall_Xtreme replied
Top Bottom