WWYD- Getting someone elses emails? (LIGHTHEARTED!!!!)

That’s because you own the email address without the dot too or any number of dots, but the sender got the email address wrong, they will have missed out a letter or got the names the wrong way around.

I wish I could screenshot the To field of the email to prove my point but I don't want to give my identity away. But the email address the sender has used is my first name surname without the dot separating it.
Sorry I can't quote a quote apparently.

@Thamantha try sending emails to yourself with dots, without dots, dots in different places. You will get them unless you also change the string of letters. No-one else will.

What? This hasn't happened in your case. As far as I can tell from your post, you're getting emails addressed to the same string of letters, sometimes with dots and sometimes without. They are all your email address.

The fact that one wasn't intended for you does not change the fact that someone typed your string of letters (and didn't put dots in, or did but in different places - dots are ignored by gmail).

Nobody else owns that string of letters - only you. The other intended address will have at least one character different, that the sender is typing incorrectly.

Twenty years though 🤣🤣

I'd reply to each email:

i am not your intended recipient. please triple check the email address and send again (but not to this email, or I'm marking you as spam)

I have a name that can be spelt two ways (think Sara/Sarah) and get a lot of emails for someone who clearly spells it the other way. They're responsible for taking bookings for a venue but not sure what I can do as the venue has the right email address (i.e. not mine) on their contact page.

Think about it like this. I could get a bunch of parcels from someone who has put my address at checkout. But that doesn’t prove someone’s living at my house. Just that they’ve entered their address wrong. It doesn’t matter if they’ve done it 1 time or 100, they’re still the one who messed up, not the shipping company, delivery person or online shop.

But it hasn’t happened. It can’t have. The other person is simply giving out their address wrongly.

In fact Gmail says it doesn't let two people register with email addresses which are the same, apart from one address having dots - which has clearly happened.

Sounds like a promising plot for a novel.

I have exactly the same thing but it's even worse than just getting wrong emails. The lady is an artist and paints pictures of naked women to empower them. They send her photos of themselves naked with long stories of their life tragedies....but they sometimes send them to me by mistake. These are usually vulnerable older women with not perfect figures. I nearly spit my coffee out first time I got one.
I am in touch with the lady. I used to forward emails on to her. I don't now as I've told her to get a business email so this doesn't happen but she hasn't, so I'm not going out of my way for her now. I just delete all emails for her.
I keep getting payments sent to my PayPal as well. It's a good job I'm honest and return them. I don't reply to the naked women as I wouldn't want them to worry about it.
I have a couple of other people that keep using my email as well...I suspect it is similar. I just ignore unless it looks like something important. I was getting communication about a house purchase once from a solicitor so I replied to them

Invite the whole family to your place (hers) for a slap up dinner this weekend!!

I have this as well with one other women and have replied to tell people to update their records especially when they are sharing confidential stuff about kids but still happens every now and then. I have given up and just delete now - I have given plenty of chances

You’re talking to deaf ears I’m afraid. I explain this every time one of these threads come up (and just get accused of being rude 😂) but it never seems to sink in.

The simple explanation is the correct one - the sender typed in the wrong address. There’s no other reason.

No, Google specifically says this DOES happen.

Here is the same link again explaining it
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en-GB

There will not be two people separately registered with the same gmail address (string of letters when you ignore any dots).

People are typing in the wrong address to the one they meant to.

Google doesn't decide to send some to you and some to the other kylie!

Your email address lets any of the following go to you, and to you only:
kylieminogue
kylie.minogue
kyl.ie.m.ino.gue
k.y.l.i.e.m.inogue

It will not send the following to you:
kylieeminogue
kyliemminogue
kylimeinogue
kylieminugoe

Because they are different strings of letters.

They typed the correct address for you, but not correct for the other person, because that address belongs to you and no-one else could have registered it.

When your email address is surname.firstname, it is also surnamefirstname without the dot. It is also s.u.r.n.a.m.e.f.i.r.s.tname and any other variation of dots. As long as the same letters are in the same order, adding or removing dots is irrelevant for gmail. (Not for other email providers).

In all these cases it's people either giving out the wrong address or people typing it in incorrectly.
There would not be a case where gmail let them register an email address without dots but then sent any with dots to someone else.

This is exactly my situation.
For example (obvs false name)
Mine is [email protected]
Yet I get emails for [email protected]
There are also two [email protected]
One in the UK and one in the states.

well if you wanted to do something about it you could set that account to forward to her email address and then change your email address. Or you could block the old email address if you don't want her seeing your emails.

Alternatively I would do nothing about her emails that you receive. Eventually the carnage that would cause in her life would hopefully cause her to do something about it.

The same thing happened with me when I moved and someone refused to redirect their post. Forwarding it to them was just enabling their laziness or dis-incentivising them to actually do something.

Yes, they’ve been sent to that address, because that is also your address.

The sender has typed the wrong email address.

I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall here.

There is a problem with gmail dots though (not OP's issue here).

I have an address that is in the format [email protected], and frequently get emails that have been sent (and i have checked address) to someone else at [email protected].

Gmail says this shouldn't happen, but it definitely does.

if you have [email protected] you also have n.am.e.s.mith name.smith na.m.e.smith and any other dot combo. The senders just have completely the wrong email address, as emma.smith doesn't exist as a separate email if you have emmasmith