SOmeone Using my Email Address

DampCat

DampCat

DampCat

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Im pretty confused about this.

Someone is using my email address to make purchases online. It started with Pizza, and now it's electronic goods. They havent logged in to the account (according to google dashboard) and none of my money is being used... but they're just using my email address and it shows up on invoices. As such, i know exactly who this person is. Their name is nothing like mine so it should seem suspicious to the business he's dealing with.

Is there anything i should be worried about? What could be the reason he's doing it? What benefit would he be getting?
 
Don't under estimate the possibility of stupidity rather than malice. I get this on one of my accounts quite often due to some dumb American who doesn't seem to remember that her address is first-initialmiddle-initialsurname rather than first-initialsurname.

I have exchanged emails with various vendors, airlines, educational/medical/insurance providers in the past to let them know that they need to contact the person by phone and get a corrected email address and to remove mine.
 
I've had this too. Was an older guy, when he ordered some business cards with my email on I cancelled and called the number.

He's forgotten a few more times since. Best one was signing up to ASDA, they refused to cancel the account as I wasn't him and would not change the email address.
 
My mum had this with her Hotmail account, the other person puts a dot inbetween her first and last name but my does not. We got various emails from Apple with purchases she had bought.
 
Yeah, I've had this a couple of times myself.

Certainly when someone signs up for online banking (actually legitimate).

As has been said, they can't cancel it for that as I'm not the account holder but they refused to even pass on the message to the guy.

Just set up a filter to delete them and forget.
 
Get this all the time with my Hotmail account.

The last time was a chap in Australia I managed to get his phone number from whatever site he had signed up to with my email address and gave him a call, he was a really nice guy and we had a nice chat! :)
 
Had it too, some Yank was using my email for Amazon purchases. Finally managed to get her to stop when one of her friends sent out an email to her and I was able to let them know she had given out the wrong email address.
 
I had one from M&S - I got a mail saying thank you for signing on to M&S and for my first purchase - This was on my main BT email address - I was the first person to have john.smith@ -btinternet (not real name) and someone else with same name but john.smith1 was person I was getting mails for - seems M&S missed off the 1 after name. - Just emailed M&S and said check address.

Another was mail from job finder darn sowf - in end I logged in and changed his password and email address - didn't get any more. :cool:

Dave
 
could just be spoofed address..

DampCat said:
Their name is nothing like mine so it should seem suspicious to the business he's dealing with.
Click to expand...

seriously, who checks emails match the persons name? especially as a lot of people have some really daft email addresses.
 
I've had people use my name for Argos, car insurance quotes, channel 4 web player, twitter and car dealerships. There were a few more obscure companies as well, the problem is I have a very short email address so people either forget to put numbers at the end of it or just press a few random letters if they don't care to use their own email.
 
Yup, I appear to share a name/email address with a single, devout christian gentleman from Florida who is a couple of months behind on his mobile bill... (probably because I'm the one who keeps getting the reminders! :p)
 
I have a pretty good gmail address (first initial, surname). Not the most common surname, but I still get tons of mail for people sharing the same. Everything from mortgage quotes, school reports, tons of invoices, account signups for everything. Funniest was a worried mum mailing a friend in horror because their daughters had posted bikini clad selfies on facebook, and attached the pictures.

If it's something important I will respond and let people know they have the wrong address (once had some funeral arrangements), but otherwise it just goes in spam.
 
I get emails for an Indian person and almost nightly facetime calls from their mother - i've freaked her out a few times by answering but she doesn't seem to be able to change the associated e-mail. Her son/daughter must be a real disappointment, the never answer or return her calls!
 
I have this with Hotmail ([email protected]) I used to get emails a lot for a girl in Australia sharing the same name as me (she just put her middle initial in her Hotmail address). I used to reply to senders suggesting the correct email address. She actually found out about this and wrote to me thanking me. I never replied, I felt it too weird to be emailing someone with the same name as me!
 
I have [email protected] which, of course, has that weird system where it basically ignores any full stops in the name. Pizza from Florida, mobile bills for someone in Glasgow and a university Professor from South Africa who has a VERY healthy stock portfolio!
 
I received an email a year or two ago informing me that the offer I'd put in on a million pound barn conversion had been accepted.

Unfortunately, it wasn't for me, but someone with the same name who used a full stop in their email address where I don't.
 
happened to me too last year, i could easily have logged onto their electricity suppliers website and cut off their electricity lol
 
I had some American woman keep emailing me instead of her husband. I tried a few times to tell her its the wrong address but she persisted in emailing me.I then started receiving emails from her to her husband to the same email address (mine) asking why someone is saying this is the wrong email address... errr... She didnt seem the sharpest tool in the box.
 
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