Someone is using my email address

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dowie said:
Because that isn't how gmail works, your suggestion of "Maybe he's forgotten to put a full stop between his names" wrong as gmail ignores dots, ergo that isn't what has happened.
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Did I say it was Gmail?
Stop being so desperate to get one up on someone
 
maklabouhlel said:
Yesterday I received an email from Best Buy Canada and today from Walmart Canada thanking me for creating an account. I received further emails from both retailers confirming orders I hadn't made. I have been using my email address for over 20 years. This other guy using my email has the same first and last name as me according to the invoices I was sent.

If this happened once then it could have been a simple error but to happen twice has got me a little concerned. I chatted online to a Walmart agent who confirmed the email address they have on file is the same as mine but all he said he could do is forward it to the relevant team and wouldn't give me anymore info.

Should I be concerned?
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Concerned about what?

All your doing is receiving mail.

Much like if someone gave the wrong street address. You would receive letters in the post.

My only concern is that he could start ordering gift vouchers / codes which technically you could then use. He wouldn't then get a refund then he would realise his mistake also.

The decent thing to do would be to add his phone number on WhatsApp and WhatsApp call him or send him a message.
 
mattyg said:
Did I say it was Gmail?
Stop being so desperate to get one up on someone
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He's absolutely spot on, and you did mention Gmail.

Anyway, this is 99.9% caused by an accidental typo so the risk is on the other person because they can't access the account they set up. They can't access the real email address so there's nothing to worry about.

It happens to me a lot with Gmail, so I've bought the dot-com of my surname and now my main account is [email protected]. With Google soon to be charging for Gmail storage it was a no brainer as I get 1TB of OneDrive storage with the O365 account.
 
Yas786 said:
I was about to post the same question. How do I stop these emails coming to me on my gmail account.
My email is my first initial with my last name @gmail.com.
It’s annoying that I get my first initial with a dot then last name emails coming through on my gmail app on my iPhone etc.

Any idea how I stop this, fed up of having to mark them spam or block them etc.
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You can use tag to put them into a separate folder? It's been a while since I've done it so not sure what filtering criteria you can use.
 
I got an email from Halfords Old Kent Road last week (I live over 100 miles away from there) - with a receipt for a battery charger and a steering wheel clamp - complete with partial credit card details - so I could see it wasnt my card.
The following day I got an email - using my christian name - again from Halfords asking me to rate my visit to their branch.

I used online chat with them and got told "sorry its an error" - i pointed out they had used my name - but got the same reply.

Havent had anything since and my email address does not use my name at all.

Very weird.
 
paradigm said:
Yeah, nothing better on say a CV than [email protected]
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james.miller said:
somebody used my email address on a bunch of different websites. As a result i know where he lives, what he drives, where he goes to university... I don't understand how he managed to sign up to that many sites and not realise he had no access to my email address to verify emails etc. very strange.
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wouldn't these sites be like "confirm your email" to proceed though?

Mint8 said:
The following day I got an email - using my christian name - again from Halfords asking me to rate my visit to their branch.
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Could be they are supplying "their" email in store though when prompted and it's just an emailed receipt
 
paradigm said:
Yeah, nothing better on say a CV than [email protected]

I’ll stick with my name and put up with the one idiot in the US that thinks they own my email address.
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I once had an (allocated) uni e-mail address with "69" in it... sort of thing you'd choose for a hotmail or yahoo e-mail as a dumb kid.

I guess at universities where students are assigned one using two digits for the year then in 49 years time a bunch of male students can be like:

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I wouldn't worry about it. Anyone can use your email address to register/sign up for things. In quite a few cases the company requires email validation before proceeding with whatever, at this point the person using your email address would trip up and no longer be able to place an order etc.
 
I always put this down to a similar email being typo'd, but not after tonight.

So, I've had periodic sign up emails and regular update emails from accounts I've never created, in particular I've had emails from Australian companies. Recently, I've been getting a spate of emails and it's got a little bit annoying so I decided to try a password reset and boom, I'm in!

The reset process was basically enter your email to change your password. I thought, ok let's give this a go and sure enough I got the email with the link. I changed the password and tried to log in, and in I logged. I've now got all my namesake's details; full address, phone number, DOB - even credit card details minus the CVV.

This fella is now in a bit of a panic as he must've got a text message to confirm the password reset and now I'm getting emails with reset confirm codes. Additionally, I just got an email with a support chat transcript and as part of the chat he's been asked to confirm his details including his email address... He's entered my email address! He's actually entered it twice during the chat, so it can't be a typo.

Now I'm wondering how he can possibly think that's his email address if he hasn't actually logged into it?
 
Dirk Diggler said:
<snip>He's entered my email address! He's actually entered it twice during the chat, so it can't be a typo.

Now I'm wondering how he can possibly think that's his email address if he hasn't actually logged into it?
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Is it a name? I’ve had this where the other person used firstname.lastname versus my firstnamelastname and he kept forgetting the full stop in the middle.
 
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Stu999 said:
Is it a name? I’ve had this where the other person used firstname.lastname versus my firstnamelastname and he kept forgetting the full stop in the middle.
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The full stop doesn't make any difference, it would be the same email.

I've received a second chat transcript and now he's saying he signed up with the wrong email and he's asked for it to be changed to the same email with an additional 3 digits.

That's just mental. How could he have typo'd it incorrectly on sign up, then he's logged in and topped up the account and placed some bets, so he's used my email to log in and do that, so basically the only explanation is that he was content to continue using an email he doesn't even have access to... It makes no sense.

Oh, and he's been told he can't change the email unless he has access to the original email.
 
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Dirk Diggler said:
The full stop doesn't make any difference, it would be the same email.

I've received a second chat transcript and now he's saying he signed up with the wrong email and he's asked for it to be changed to the same email with an additional 3 digits.

That's just mental. How could he have typo'd it incorrectly on sign up, then he's logged in and topped up the account and placed some bets, so he's used my email to log in and do that, so basically the only explanation is that he was content to continue using an email he doesn't even have access to... It makes no sense.

Oh, and he's been told he can't change the email unless he has access to the original email.
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Reset password
Use credit
Profit?
 
Azza said:
Reset password
Use credit
Profit?
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I've already reset it, but they've got no credit although they do have a card linked. I could always have a go at guessing the CVV :p

A bigger concern for the guy is that I've got his personal details now, some people have no clue what they're opening themselves up to online.
 
I get this so much, some guy in America uses mine, I know his name, address, his job (he's looking for a new one), his golfing reservations and I've also had his online pharmacy order for some Viagra....
I had someone with on of those Klarna type things use it, so I could see his entire profile, again had to chase the company to delete my email as I (on 2 occasions) had to point out the GDPR issues.
Also someone called Michelle (check my userrname to see how far off that is) uses it for her Nike account, so I loggd in, reset the password to something random and logged out, now I get the OTP emails as she's clearly trying to get back in!
 
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