Someone (Italian) is using my primary email address for their FB account and I cant get FB to do anything about it. Help.

[SoggySummer]

I have FB but use a completely independent seperate email addy for it purely just for FB and absolutely nothing else.

However, my primary email address I use for pretty much everything else keeps having italian FB messages/updates come through.

Its really pissing me off as part the reason I kept my email addy seperate was for security reasons.

I use google translate to decipher these emails from FB to the italian woman. Its just the bog standard ones like - you have friends requests pending, you have not logged in for a few days etc etc.

I tried emailing/getting intouch with FB through their site being careful not to do it through my real FB account as I do not want to be linked to it through FB. Another words I contacted FB as if I did not have my own FB account (they dont need to know I do as this is about my private email address).

They sent me a vague reply along the lines of having to log in to report the abuse FFS!!! It was hard initially to find a category and a way to actually report it, but despite me filling in the box to say actually this person has set up a FB account unsing a false email address thats actually mine, they just told me to log in to report it.

I have looked into reporting it from my own FB account and its still unclear how I would actually do this.

I am on the verge of putting pen to paper ands writing to FB in California.

Any ideas???

That reads crap. Sorrym(am ill atm and brain not firing up properly).

Ask and I will try and explain if you are confused.

All help appreciated.

You could search for the Italian person using your primary email address. Then write her a message telling her that she has registered her account using the wrong email address (ie yours). Tell her that you have been getting her facebook updates and that she should change her profile to show her real email address.

Does that make sense? Worth a try?

Teardrop - thats a different approach I had not thought about. Would need to write in Italian though using dodgy google translate but its worth a go.

As you have the email address, can't you get into fb and delete the other person's account?

If this Italian person has actually used your email account to their FB, then FB already know that email address so it's not like you can keep that address secret from them, they already know it.

Go to FB login page - don't log in as yourself. Click "Forgotten your password?" and facebook will send your email address a link to reset the password. Reset it to something (not your normal password). Then log in, you now have control of the account.

You can then do one of two things

(a) the easy but less kind one (no shame in doing this though, they had no right to use your email in the first place) - simply delete the account completely.

(b) slightly more kind. Create a new email account using a free server like hotmail.com and reset the contact email to this email address, deleting all record of your actual email address. Then send a message out from the facebook account to either all this persons friends or a select few, saying "If Xxxx wants access to her FB account back, she can get it back via [email protected] - the password is leavemyaccountalone" - then you can log out and never be troubled again. They can get their FB account back via the email account you created for them.

I'd go for (a) myself. That would teach them a lesson.

I wouldn't do what Teardop says.

If you send someone a message using FB, they automatically get to see all your info (it's like "friending" them temporarily - the effect lasts for 30 days). She's already hijacking your email address, you shouldn't give her access to more personal info about you.

Ifelephantsworetrousers - that is a fab idea. Just wondering if I have the guts to actually do it. Feel bad going into someones FB account.

Im having a similar problem, I have changed the email addy, but I keep getting notifications on the old one, and it isnt anywhere on FB so I cant see the link.

I naively thought that it was a genuine mistake and that she had mistyped her email address when setting up her account. But, maybe Ifelephantworetrousers is right, it's not an accident and it's best to be cautious.

What I can't figure out is why she would do that. What would she gain from using your email address?

I must be naive too Teardrop. I also am assuming its a genuine mistake but then I think - how can she keep logging in using my email addy and knowing she has no FB emails at all.

I cant think what she has to gain by using my email addy at all but am very seriously considering logging in and deleting the account. Just feels bad and wrong to actually do it, but then the rest of me is peed off that trying to go through the proper offical fb route has got me nowhere.

If she has always been using your email address, she might not notice that she has never had any fb emails as she won't be expecting any.

Surely you have to have a good nose around her account before you delete it? Fascinating situation (for us, not you, obviously)

Possibilities:

1. she registered your account accidentally as they are very similar (e.g. .com rather than .co.uk variation)
2. she deliberately put in an address she knew to be not her own so that she wouldn't get the facebook spam emails all the time
3. she has hacked your email account. tbh this is more likely than the others, because when she first set up her FB account if she used your email address then she would have had to have access to the confirmation email that they send out where you have to click a link to activate an account.

Depends how you access your email - one email address I had, which I don't use any more, was set up so that my email would be downloaded onto my home PC with the Outlook email programme. I later enquired about how to access the email online when away from home, and was given the details of how to log in to a mail website - including that the person who set it all up (my then bf) had set a password on my behalf, that this password was not a secure one (easy to break, just the username with a 1 on the end) and that I had no way of changing it - there is literally no way anywhere of changing the password from one which a 3rd party chose for me! (hence why I don't use that account any more). If you only access your email through outlook your email may be set up in a similar way and your emails may not be secure.

I dont use outlook. Its a remote email addy tho. Quite a safe password as well which I change reguarlyish.

I wonder whether the FB account is actually active tbh because all the FB emails I get are prompting ones - I think. Everything is in Italian so I have to use google translate to work out what they say. Its things like you have friends requests pending, link up with friends using your email etc. So I do wonder if she set ut up using my email addy by mistake (very similar) and has never confirmed the account.

Really dont know why I am sitting on the fence re deleting the FB account to be honest as its really peeing me off. 3 FB emails in 24 hours. Not helped ofcourse that I have openeds up the emails to see what they say.

If you do the thing about resetting the password and logging you in yourself, you can look at the accounts own wall - if there haven't been any recent updates then do just go ahead and delete it as obvously it's inactive.

I've had a similar thing, but it's not actually someone who had created account with my email, it's friends of hers who have an incorrect email address for her in their address book. So lots of friend requests, etc, saying "join now to see your friends"but in Spanish. Tried clicking various links at the bottom of emails (unsubscribe etc) but to no avail. Thankfully it's an old email address.

I had that with a new email address hotmail gave me, I logged into it by resetting the password and then changed the a/c and password over hth.

You could:

1. set up a filter for anything from Facebook to go to trash or
2. set up a false FB account and then complain from that one.

Not false account but a dummy one using a new dummy hotmail address or something - then deactivate it later.

I set up a dummy FB and reported it as its still going on and getting on my nerves. I have reported twice to FB now using my new dummy email and had no response whatsoever other than the bog standard automated response that says something along the lines of "thank you for bringing this to our attention, We do not reply individually to all issues raised". FFS!

Back in the summer I tried logging into the FB account in order to change the password and then deactivate it but I never managed to get in or get the email from FB so I could do this.

Then in Sept I had an email from FB saying as the account was inactive or whatever (hard to know cos google translate is vague in its translation sometimes) if "I" didnt log in within x days the account would be closed. I didnt touch the account at all and it went quiet until a few weeks ago where now I get the usual prompting emails from FB saying stuff like Do you know X,Y and Z. etc etc. When I click on the emails and look at the list of "friends I might know" they are nearly all korean or of orientl origin and mostly in some kind of military uniform. All with foreign names.

Am so confused. What to do next.

BabsJansen - I have wondered recently if these emails are just spam but they look real enough and I am certain they are real.

Any ideas?