If your email address is [email protected] ...

[chocbelli]

... do you often get emails for other people with the same name as you?

I've had a firstname.surname gmail address for about 30 years, with no bother, but in the last 3-4 years I've been getting random but genuine emails for people with the same name - e.g. mailing list subscriptions, an EPC certificate, a building insurance email, emails from solicitors or accountants which include personal info. They are addressed to my firstname and surname, but include postal addresses in other parts of the UK or different countries. I assume these people must have similar emails e.g. firstname.surname1 or firstname.surnameWithDifferentSpelling but somehow mistyped them when filling out an online form.

Does this happen to you? My name is not a common one at all, but is clearly common enough for me to have doppelgangers around the world with poor recollection of their own email addresses.

I'm very curious as to why this just started happening in the last 3-4 years, when I've had this address for ever and ever! 🤷‍♀️

Another Gmail - first name (dot) last name. Therapist in Australia clients email me often.

Yes! I used to get two regularly - one a woman in South Africa and one in Australia. I expect they have extra numbers or letters usually but forget to add them when giving out their email address.

The worst was emails from Vodacom in South Africa they were giving me the statements with the poor woman's address along with the itemised numbers she was calling when I told Vodacom they said they couldn't discuss someone else's account with me! I told them they just needed to ask her what her real email address was and stop sending her private statements to me.

But they kept copy pasting the same response of not discussing someone else's details then proceeded to send me a statement over and over again for months. I managed to get them to stop when I said I was planning to report them for not complying with GDPR since I'd asked them to deleted my email and they hadn't.

The other lady I got mortgage application forms, nursing rotas etc, pictures from relatives, so she must have been very giving out the wrong email address for years.

When it was something important, I did reply to the email to let them know they've got the email address wrong. The thing I found really odd is that only one person ever replied to say sorry and thanks for letting them know. It was her boyfriend apologising for the fact they'd given my email address to the bank for their got the mortgage application. I only managed to reach out to him because he was CCed in on the email.

But everyone else - family sending me family photographs, her boss sending me nursing rotors etc just didn't respond to my email at all, and a couple carried on sending the emails to me!

It was such a regular occurrence that I've set up a 'canned' response template + filter on my Gmail so that if anyone emails [email protected] they'll get a response asking them to check and re-send. My email address is styled [email protected] but any variation before the @ will come to me ([email protected] or [email protected] would all come to me).

Someone, or rather someones in the US, South Africa, Canada, Australia possibly have email addresses like joXbrodie•@•gmail.com where X is some other letter. If their emailers miss that letter out it comes to me.

I've also received confidential stuff and a couple of hotel bookings (it took me a lot of effort to unhook myself from booking dot com, raspberries to them). The canned template response just alerts people that they may have been trying to reach someone else and their message has been deleted so if they definitely wanted me they need to add the dot back into my address in order to get their message past the filters and into my inbox.

That all happens automatically so, while people might still email me incorrectly, I no longer hear about it unless I check. If they've sent it from a no-reply address then it's lost in the ether.

If you want to do this yourself create a template email in Gmail. Then create a filter so that if the TO: field matches the 'wrong' version of the email address the action it's set to take is to reply automatically with the template.

Mine looks like this (in Settings > Filters & blocked addresses)

Matches: to:([email protected])
Do this: Send template 'Email likely received in error - [email protected]'

Jo

Someone else has my firstname.lastname@mailaccount. I went to another provider which has a slightly different name so I could get firstname.lastname@mymailaccount. I have people tell me they emailed me when they haven't. My namesake probably gets lots of emails for me for this reason. I have never emailed her, perhaps I should? 🤔

I got a couple of emails about 20 years ago for someone with the same name that obviously lived in Australia. Don’t think I’ve ever had anything since but I do have a pretty unusual surname

I emailed my almost husband’s name so often we became virtual friends.

@WellsAndThistles
You've reminded me, One day a elderly lady left a message called about her prescription, she sounded exhausted, and a little confused.

I didn't want to call her and confuse her further. So not sure what to do i did the 1471 thing got her number and phoned the police. Just to make sure she was ok.
They phoned me back later to say they'd checked her out got her prescription sorted and all was good.
I found out later the pharmacist had a similar number

I love my email address. It’s really short as I managed to get [email protected] (the precursor to iCloud.com). But even though my first name is fairly unusual, I get all sorts. My email has been used to sign up to dozens of accounts over the years (mainly retailers and social media) and a 2-3 times a year I get emails from strangers thinking I’m their friend or relative. One time I was sent 20-odd photos of a family holiday and inexplicably several pics of their toilet. It’s bizarre and sometimes annoying, but I’m used to it now!

Early on in my email history I had an email from someone saying they had been sent our airport parking confirmation by error. I had missed the number at the end of the name. Thank goodness he managed to find us.
More recently I sent my daughter details of a summer holiday for us and her family. I sent it to someone with the same name etc but my DD uses her nickname for her email. The wrong recipient replied to say the holiday sounded lovely.

Yes! This happens to me practically daily. I have a very common name - think Mary Smith. Almost 100% of these emails are for Dizzy in the US and mostly from companies - I've had my water bill for LA, car service appointments in Texas, a boarding pass for a flight from San Francisco to Vancouver etc. The annoying thing is the only way to let these companies know is to log onto 'my' account or phone them.

The best one was somebody set up a PlentyofFish account with my email address so I logged in and changed everything, which made me ROFL. I can't imagine what that particular Dizzy thought of my changes 🤣

I’ve been getting this for several years. My gmail address is [email protected], but I get emails addressed to [email protected]. When I hover over the address, it says “yes, this is you”. If I follow the link they provide, it explains that both addresses belong to me. I took this to mean that since I had the first address, no one would be given the second one, it would always be a secondary address on my account.

However, although most emails are for people in Australia or the US, one was in Ireland. It included an invoice for some curtains, including her phone number. So I called her. She said her email address was [email protected]. She had signed up to Gmail several years after me, so I don’t think she should have given that address.

I’ve tried sending an email from my work account to [email protected], and it’s delivered to my gmail account.

So I’ve no idea what’s going on. It’s worrying, because I don’t know if other people are getting my email.

Yes. A few times, always the same woman as we have a very unusual name combination.

She has the Hotmail and I have the Gmail. I've always replied to the sender letting them know.

She got married (I knew this because her wedding planner emailed me) a few years ago and I wonder if she changed her name because I've had nothing since.

I've never had this issue with gmail thank goodness as my name on that is the same as my username on a hobby forum, or my other one which is a mashup of my and DH's names.

But we did once get a spate of phone calls for a local takeaway. Some advert or other had our number on it instead of theirs, which was one digit different. Normally we would tell the caller they had the wrong number and give them the right one. We contacted the takeaway to ask them to sort it out, but they didn't. It went on for weeks. Weekday evenings weren't too bad but Saturdays? Constant phone calls. So one particularly busy Saturday evening we happily took about twenty people's complicated takeaway food orders. It must have caused chaos, but it worked, and the shop changed their advert pretty quick after that. 😂

I don't, but there is a lovely lady in Essex gets my emails. I have the less traditional spelling of our names, so those who choose not to spell my name correctly (and it is a choice because I don't misspell it when I make contact) send my emails to her. Thankfully she seems to have integrity or should could have committed some serious fraud with the details she's been sent.

It's happened to me twice. One in the US and one in Australia.

The US address has resulted in me having her social security details, financial info for buying a house, details of patients she was treating (not a doctor but even so a bit worrying) - all sorts! I forwarded it all on and deleted it but it kept happening.

The Australian one only had one thing for her and no forwarding address so nothing came of it

No.

I can't think why.

My email is firstname.surname5 but often when I'm not paying attention or typing too fast I forget to put the "5".

Poor first.surname gets all kinds of guff because of me.

Yes! I have had every school report and school newsletter from a school in New York for about 5 years. The girl's mum has the same name as me. I have responded to let them know a few times but they still send me stuff. Recently I started to get her taekwando newsletter too.

Yes, with Gmail. Received all sorts of emails from my US namesake's church groups, car insurance, holiday info etc

So I switched to outlook and no problems.

I once got a text from a woman telling "me" that she knew I had a wife but she really thought we had a future and was prepared to wait while he sorted himself out. And that she'd loved the time "we" had spent together and didn't want it to end.

I replied saying that's lovey but I'm a SAHM of 4 and she needed to grow a backbone and tell him to FO. It worked! After about 8 more texts, she did! 😂

Yes quite regularly. I get restaurant booking confirmations, dentist appointment reminders, etc.
I had a brief stint of being in the distribution list for the meeting minutes of a neighbourhood watch group in the US.
There is a very sweet old lady who sends me a round robin family update letter once a year. I have tried telling her I’m not actually part of her family but she remains undeterred.
I’ve had holiday snaps sent over (Cape Verde, very nice) and someone’s employment contract via docusign

My name isn’t that unusual though so I’m sure there are lots of us and I’m [email protected] so it doesn’t surprise me really!

As far as I know I'm the only person in the world that has my name as I have a very rare surname... so no hasn't been an issue!

If your email is first name.surname at one of the big providers, I strongly urge you to get a second, more anonymous handle at one of the providers who take privacy secrecy. There are a bunch of them.

I have someone with the same name as me but she is using Hotmail.co.uk while I have the Hotmail.com version. Very occasionally happened over past 10 years - usually uber eats or shift pattern emails from her employer (police!). I did email both her employer and what I think is her actual email - the employer emails stopped but I never heard back from her or them