Random Gmail account creation

div0 · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:35

Affliction said:
Just don't understand why Google let you create the account in the first place though...

They don't.

Google store the account in the format without any dots. Every possible combination of dots belongs to that account and can be used to log in with and to send emails to.

The problem is simply that people intend to send to a SIMILAR account eg [email protected], but forget the 123 for example.

dowie · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:41

davido_labido said:
yup, i get the same.

i have [email protected]

someone has created [email protected]

i get his mail all the time.

no you don't

you get mails where someone has entered the incorrect address as both of those email addresses are exactly the same

davido_labido · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:42

so why do i see mail quoted sent from it?
why have i had a thank you for activating this email address from ardberg?

i have already gone through all the gmail help things, and have seen all this said before but it doesnt seem to sit right at all with what im getting.

div0 · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:42

davido_labido said:
nope, something is wrong here. definitely. i have seen his email address after it has been forwarded.

i.e hes sent an email to someone (and it comes from [email protected]) that contains minutes to a meeting, someone else has had a reply to it, so he forwarded the reply back to him, to the same email address that sent it ([email protected]) my address is just [email protected]

He's just set his account up stupidly.

Under Settings - Accounts in Gmail, he's put 'Send Mail As' and entered your email instead of his own (probably a typo).

/edit - or he sometimes uses a different mail client, has tried to set it up so it looks like it's sent from his gmail, but has entered the wrong email address.

Then people get emails that look like they've come from you, but haven't. When they reply, they go to you because that was what the 'senders' address showed as.

div0 · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:43

davido_labido said:
so why do i see mail quoted sent from it?

See above.

dowie · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:45

Liquid_Entity said:
I have been receiving a dudes email from the US for almost a year. Most things are irrelevant but some I could have had a good play with.

Notably: car purchases, poker games, restaurant bookings etc. I think it's stupid that they have this . rule as it must happen to lots of people.

its nothing to do with the dot rule... if anything without the dot rule it would be even more frequent as there would be even more people with a similar address to yours... its just people mistyping e-mails addresses

mine is [email protected]

another guy has mistyped his firstname while registering and missed the first letter off

[email protected]

I think initially he gave out his address too to people without realising he'd made a typo when creating it... so I started getting all his mail

I still get the occasional mail from him where, bizarrely, someone has clicked reply and noticed it didn't look right then added the first letter to his first name... or worse... replied to his address and added my address too just in case

dowie · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:48

davido_labido said:
so why do i see mail quoted sent from it?
why have i had a thank you for activating this email address from ardberg?

i have already gone through all the gmail help things, and have seen all this said before but it doesnt seem to sit right at all with what im getting.

don't know about the activation stuff.. why people are sending you stuff but I can tell you that no one else has your e-mail address regardless of the dots... sender addresses can be anything if say sending from outlook

you'd likely have a heck of a lot more mail if they did... everything you send to any combination of dots will arrive in your inbox

Liquid_Entity · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:48

dowie said:
its nothing to do with the dot rule... if anything without the dot rule it would be even more frequent as there would be even more people with a similar address to yours... its just people mistyping e-mails addresses

mine is [email protected]

another guy has mistyped his firstname while registering and missed the first letter off

[email protected]

I think initially he gave out his address too to people without realising he'd made a typo when creating it... so I started getting all his mail

I still get the occasional mail from him where, bizarrely, someone has clicked reply and noticed it didn't look right then added the first letter to his first name... or worse... replied to his address and added my address too just in case

Well I did say later on that it's usually replies I get, where they've mistyped the email address to be mine

davido_labido · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:53

div0 said:
He's just set his account up stupidly.

Under Settings - Accounts in Gmail, he's put 'Send Mail As' and entered your email instead of his own (probably a typo).

/edit - or he sometimes uses a different mail client, has tried to set it up so it looks like it's sent from his gmail, but has entered the wrong email address.

Then people get emails that look like they've come from you, but haven't. When they reply, they go to you because that was what the 'senders' address showed as.

completely plausable, before now, ive emailed a guy that sends mail to him on occasion. i told him that he has used the incorrect email address etc etc.

his reply "oh, im sorry, il check my mail addresses" then sent me 2 screenshots of mails hes sent to the same address and received from the same address, saying "this is the address i have in my contacts" etc.

i dont receive all of them, in fact, i receive about 1 or 2 a month, which he said he has sent. but he seems to use email a lot. surely id receive all or none? i asked him to ask the other me to check all email addresses he puts on things, but i never got a reply, however i do get less mail now.

div0 · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:59

He's NOT received them from the same address. It just looks like he's received them from you. They could have been sent by anyone, from any address.

The ones he sent back to your email address (irrespective of dots) WILL have gone to you. If you didn't receive them, the most likely suspect is they went to your spam box and you just didn't notice.

He's probably figured it out by now, fixed the problem and you'll only get the odd email from an old contact who's not updated their address book.

davido_labido · 11 Jun 2013 at 12:03

but he sends to the same email address all the time, even when not using his reply button because its so easy to type. so id get them all the time, or not at all, and he wouldnt ever reply to them (Which he does usually)

and nope, i get a monthly spam mail that tells me what goes into it.

ive been trying to get this sorted out for around 3 years, google has said the same thing as you, showed them the email with the screenshots and they said "change your passwords on your account" thats as far as their support went.

i change my password often anyway (i have to change my password for work login every 4 weeks, i just keep it in line with that) so i know my accounts not compromised.

*edit* il try and go through all my mail to find the screenshots, it explains things better, and shows you what i mean.

div0 · 11 Jun 2013 at 12:08

Must be a glitch in the matrix then.

davido_labido · 11 Jun 2013 at 12:09

haha thats what ive left it down to tbh, because of the way it is i just think everything combined has broke gmail. (regerstering in a different country, with a similar email address, his is @gmail i use @googlemail etc. I know it shouldnt make a difference at all, but it must do somewhere.

he probably googled google -.-

stumpy187 · 11 Jun 2013 at 16:17

Interesting read. I've been getting weekly staff rotation emails, PayPal and Match.com emails but luckily it's not on an account I use for important things so assumed they where spam appears not though now

Richie · 12 Jun 2013 at 06:57

If you try and sign up with a similar address e.g.

[email protected] exists then attempting to sign up with [email protected] results in this error

Someone already has that username. Note that we ignore periods and capitalization in usernames. Try another?

Try it yourself with your own addresses.....

uvarvu · 12 Jun 2013 at 09:10

Wasn't there some sort of hoo-hah a few years with the Gmail trademark being owned by someone else resulting in Google handing out googlemail addresses in some regions? The UK was affected by this. Google eventually acquired the trademark and then asked all of the googlemail users to migrate to gmail. Maybe in this case you missed your chance allowing someone to sign up with your gmail equivalent ahead of you.

AJK · 12 Jun 2013 at 09:31

uvarvu said:
Wasn't there some sort of hoo-hah a few years with the Gmail trademark being owned by someone else resulting in Google handing out googlemail addresses in some regions? The UK was affected by this. Google eventually acquired the trademark and then asked all of the googlemail users to migrate to gmail. Maybe in this case you missed your chance allowing someone to sign up with your gmail equivalent ahead of you.

Yes, there was, but gmail and googlemail accounts have always been the same. Even when Google went through the faff of making UK users signup to "googlemail" addresses, you could still just give people the "gmail" variant and it worked fine.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the system, just people assuming they own an account which they actually don't (because they've mistyped, miscopied it, or otherwise forgotten an extra letter or number, that kind of thing...)