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Not looking for "what should I do about this" as I could just set the account to no longer bounce messages to my fastmail account and never think about it again, but about a month ago someone started using one of my gmail addies to register for an assortment of websites-- some are dating/sex sites, a lot are things like market research or giveaways. Still getting new ones in little flurries. They use various usernames that are a variation of their real name. This seems to be a real person in Alington TX . . . in most cases I can do a password reset if I want and 'take over' the account. I think I tried cyberstalking this person to see of I could find actual contact info but was unsuccessful.
Just wondering what people think about why this is happenening.... wouldn't someone get wise to the fact that they were not spelling their e-mail address properly after a short time? Is someone trying to prank or get back at this person but screwing up the addy? Is it possible there's some sort of glitch in gmail?
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Sorry about that, I'll use someone else in future.
Paul
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voodoopenguin wrote:
Sorry about that, I'll use someone else in future.
Paul
Should I forward you the responses to the sex/personal ads? That picture you put up where you're dressed like a Desert Storm soldier seems to strike a chord with the ladies.
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I'd guess it might be someone you really pissed off, and this is their non-confrontational way to get some revenge.
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My email address is very simple and has been around since 1987 (!). Every now and then someone signs up for stuff using it. I've even gone to the extent of using that to access their personal records and get a name and mailing address. Which then gets a cease and desist letter.
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I had something like this happen around 15 years ago, some guy tried signing up for an account/email with my ISP with the same name as mine, was told that it was taken, so he added a "1" to the end and got the account.
He then signed up for everything under the sun with the account name/email that he originally wanted (mine), including giving it to friends. I had emails from his mother, pictures of some lady friends of his, etc.
I finally got one from him to "himself" testing to see why he wasn't getting mail, and I could see his real return address, and sent him a huge email with all of the emails that I got intended for him.
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It doesn't seem unusual to me.
My only gmail account set up with a simple name/initial gets both spam, and oddly, legitimate email from around the world.
I'm sure some most of it is from spam, or data entry mistakes, but the legit messages that get through seem to me like glitches in gmail's system, or how it parses the possible variations in the address (on top of user ignorance about that feature).
From the research I've done, it's not uncommon, but I don't have the energy to pursue it further with Goo "what is customer service" gle.
Double demerits to Match.com and Groupon for either not providing unsubscribe links (the former), or ones that don't work (the latter).
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DeusxMac wrote:
I'd guess it might be someone you really pissed off, and this is their non-confrontational way to get some revenge.
Nope. It's an address that I created specifically for some forgotten webchat application I never used again, and that nobody could possibly associate with me. I didn't even recognize it until I looked at the headers of one of these messages and then found I could log into it.
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Bimwad wrote:
It doesn't seem unusual to me.
My only gmail account set up with a simple name/initial gets both spam, and oddly, legitimate email from around the world.
I'm sure some most of it is from spam, or data entry mistakes, but the legit messages that get through seem to me like glitches in gmail's system, or how it parses the possible variations in the address (on top of user ignorance about that feature).
From the research I've done, it's not uncommon, but I don't have the energy to pursue it further with Goo "what is customer service" gle.
Double demerits to Match.com and Groupon for either not providing unsubscribe links (the former), or ones that don't work (the latter).
Thanks. This was the kind of info I was hoping for. I also suspect there's some glitch that is causing the system to treat a slightly different addy as if it were this one. I don't know why someone would make the same mistake for weeks on end.
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GGD wrote:
I had something like this happen around 15 years ago, some guy tried signing up for an account/email with my ISP with the same name as mine, was told that it was taken, so he added a "1" to the end and got the account.
He then signed up for everything under the sun with the account name/email that he originally wanted (mine), including giving it to friends. I had emails from his mother, pictures of some lady friends of his, etc.
I finally got one from him to "himself" testing to see why he wasn't getting mail, and I could see his real return address, and sent him a huge email with all of the emails that I got intended for him.
I have been ignoring a lot of the messages but will take another look for something like this. I've also had situations of getting regular mail for someone else because of a slight variation in addy, but those weren't hard to figure out,
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