Gmail rant!

jamief said:
No - I think you're misunderstanding.

[email protected]
[email protected]

And any possible combination of dots will all go to the same email inbox. Any other perceived behaviour is a misunderstanding of how it works.
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I just tested this and the above is correct, both of the above scenarios and also any combination of dots seems to come to my inbox (great for spammers trying to guess an email address from a name).

When I signed up I registered as [email protected], any email I send always comes from [email protected], not [email protected] or anything else.

I presume that's how it's supposed to work?
 
kibblerok said:
that's intentional, all those addresses are meant to go to you:

It looks like you have a similar issue to me and the OP.
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Thats what I thought at first but how have these 2 people managed to activate their facebook accounts? You need to log into the gmail account and click the link in the email. They shouldn't have been allowed to create the gmail accounts at all if I own all variations of the email address?
I dunno I just don't trust gmail security anymore
 
ChrisJSY said:
What? He never even mentioned how anything works, just said how bad an idea it is. I agree with him, you're remembering incorrectly! :P
Edit: Unless we don't understand what you meant by back up emails, which generally is another way to get your password should you have no access to the original account and don't know your secret answer.

Which she'll do in a heartbeat when things go south. ;)
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My primary backup address is my hotmail one, my gf's address is only the second one. Sure, if we ever broke up in bad terms I'd immediately change it, but there's little chance of that happening.

It's actually a very good idea having someone else's email as a backup, assuming you trust them. Since she very rarely uses my PC to access her account, there's no login information that a keylogger, rootkit, or similar could harvest, whereas if I were the target of a concerted attack, all of my email addresses might well be compromised. (As well as my phone number, which is the other way GMail uses to send password reminders, since I enter it on online forms all the time and a keylogger could grab it.)


m0rte said:
Thats what I thought at first but how have these 2 people managed to activate their facebook accounts?
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Presumably they used a different email address to activate them after they never got the confirmation email that went to you.

I wouldn't worry about other people getting your mail, I'm just worried of some vengeful guy who thinks I hacked his address somehow managing to steal it off me.
 
Monstrous thread resurrect ("I should never have played God!"):

It's been quiet for the last few months, but ol' Mary has started giving out my email address out to people as her own again... And what's worse she's using it to sign up to things - she signed up to MSN with MY GMail address (I also have an MSN account, but I used my hotmail address to sign up to that), potentially talking carp online to people who might think she's me (not a major concern, but still), and worst of all she signed up an account with Microsoft and bought Office 2010 off them - I just got an order confirmation from them, WITH THE CD KEY IN IT! :eek:

It would serve her right if I just nicked it and used it myself, I could use an update, but that's just not me. I need to somehow get this to her so that she doesn't start maniacally trying to reset "her" password and steal my account again, and I have no way of contacting her (THE ONLY CONTACT INFORMATION SHE EVER GIVES OUT, IT SEEMS, IS *MY* FREAKING EMAIL ADDRESS!). Plus, this is something worth hundreds of bucks that just got delivered to my inbox and I really DON'T want to be liable for it, or for anyone thinking I tried to defraud her or something.

I'm not massively worried that she'll succeed in stealing my Gmail account (it would be a catastrophe for me, but it's a very remote chance that she'll succeed), but I would rather not get lots of text messages in the middle of the night every night for the next week again, as she was trying to use GMail's text message password reset last time...

I contacted Microsoft's customer support through the email I got for the Office order, but whether they can sort it depends on whether she's provided some alternative method of communication for them to use. I really don't know what else to do!
 
'Mary' is either totally thick or a massive pain in the arse.

What's the email address in question by the way? :D

Do you not have Mary's home address from one of the many emails you received? Maybe trying writing her a letter?
 
Can't you just e-mail one of her real-life friends and explain to them that they need to inform Mary of her mistake. Probably explain as well that you're grateful for the free copy of Office 2010 (just for shock factor :p).
 
I was going to suggest you use gmail's rather powerful filtering system to bounce everything she sends back to her but if you've got no legit address that's not going to work.

But Antar gave me an idea. Every time one of her friends sends you something just add them to the recipients "bounce list". Fight annoyance with annoyance ;)
 
I don't understand why you think someone can 'steal' your email account. You registered it, it's yours. It's not your fault if someone else is giving out your address. Just because she's telling people it's hers doesn't mean she can 'steal' it.
 
I'm glad I can create an alias, if needed.

[email protected] will forward to me, so I can use it for online shopping.

Now, if that gets clogged with spam / unwanted mail, I just create another alias in seconds and don't have to panic about losing the email :)
 
This made me laugh, some bint has given out her email address as the one that I made for my dog

bellagmail.jpg
 
i got some from a design company talking about orders when i set up a new Gmail acct. They stopped after a while though.
 
edscdk said:
why not jsut block the senders address.. how many emails can you be getting 1 or 2 a week?
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Antar Bolaeisk said:
Can't you just e-mail one of her real-life friends and explain to them that they need to inform Mary of her mistake. Probably explain as well that you're grateful for the free copy of Office 2010 (just for shock factor :p).
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It's always different people unfortunately. I always email them back to tell them politely they've got the wrong address and asking them to tell Maria to stop giving out my address, but they never, ever respond. And it keeps happening. So either they ignore me, thinking I'm a Nigerian phishing scammer or something, or Maria is completely thick and either refuses to believe this isn't her email address or just forgets after a few days and makes the same mistake again!

Hate said:
If she's signed up to MSN, how about you add her and speak to her that way?
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That would probably have been the best idea - unfortunately I clicked on the "delete account" link in the confirmation email, cause I didn't want her to get any ideas...

Feek said:
I don't understand why you think someone can 'steal' your email account. You registered it, it's yours. It's not your fault if someone else is giving out your address. Just because she's telling people it's hers doesn't mean she can 'steal' it.
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I dunno man, it's more paranoia due to the repeated attempts than anything else. I have my backup email address, I have my mobile number set in there for text password reminders, but if someone's determined they can definitely do it. I doubt she has the know-how, but I'm sure she could hire some neighbourhood teenage hacker to stick a keylogger onto my PC or something if she was REALLY determined...
 
manveruppd said:
I dunno man, it's more paranoia due to the repeated attempts than anything else. I have my backup email address, I have my mobile number set in there for text password reminders, but if someone's determined they can definitely do it. I doubt she has the know-how, but I'm sure she could hire some neighbourhood teenage hacker to stick a keylogger onto my PC or something if she was REALLY determined...
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I'd move house. Given enough effort she'll be able to steal your identity :(
 
If Gmail tells you that adding dots or whatever will still mean the email goes to the same address, why do they allow people to sign up using them (if let's say, firstandlastname@ is already taken)?
 
Trifid said:
This - best thing I've ever done for email. I have a catch all for *@firstnamelastname.co.uk, I then sign up to websites using the middle section of the domain. If I get spammed on that one, it will then be forwarded to their support email address. All that and it is very easy for people to remember.
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I have always wanted to do this... but then when i want to reply to an email adrress doesnt it cause issues when they sent it to, for example [email protected] and you reply from [email protected]? Or is there an easy way to reply from [email protected]?

I would love to know where my spam comes from (:

G-MAN2004 said:
If Gmail tells you that adding dots or whatever will still mean the email goes to the same address, why do they allow people to sign up using them (if let's say, firstandlastname@ is already taken)?
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Just tried this i can't sign up to my current gmail address with any number of dots in it so this either never could happen or they have fixed it.
 
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