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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why people can't understand e-mail addresses?

78 replies

wasonthelist · 13/12/2015 12:05

I have an Australian namesake and one in the USA. They keep on registering for stuff using my email address. I was the first to get our name - [email protected] - but they seem utterly unable to understand that they don't have it - and they have [email protected] and something else.

I have tried asking nicely - but they seem to not get it.

Today I've had a confirmation from a website that I've been signed up for an account using my address - by my namesake's wife in Australia.

OP posts:
Jux · 13/12/2015 13:16

I have several gmail accounts (kept forgetting them, or the password, and setting up a new one). They are all things like theentirelyfictitiousJux, or mysmilewillcauseyoupain etc. Not too good for serious business addresses, but I have a non-gmail acct for that.

jamhot · 13/12/2015 13:22

My namesake in Oregon used accidentally give out my email for new car quotes. Nowadays, I get emails about jobs. I think times have changed for her!

I use non gmail email, for info.

MaidOfStars · 13/12/2015 13:34

Data Protection Breech
If I'm being smart with someone, I'd try to spell 'breach' correctly though Wink

ItsAll I have [email protected]. Are you saying that anything sent to [email protected] would also reach me?

latebreakfast · 13/12/2015 13:39

You could buy your own domain. They're very cheap these days. A quick look on www.names.co.uk shows that you could be the proud owner of one of these great domains...

YouShouldLTB.com
NaiceHam.com
YourDhIsADick.com
OnlyPomBears.com
PenisBeaker.org

at which you could have any name you wanted Xmas Smile

WorraLiberty · 13/12/2015 13:41

I have tried asking nicely - but they seem to not get it.

Asking who? How?

Surely if you ask them by email, it'll just go straight to your own inbox?

nattyknitter · 13/12/2015 13:55

Reminds me of when my brother set up a hotmail email account and spelt his name wrong in it. Mum kept emailing the correctly spelt version.

She's elderly and generally just emails complete and utter crap, a running commentary of her day or whatever. She started getting some really irate emails back that he wasn't her son, but she couldn't get her head round it and carried on sending them anyway. In the end he gave up.

chillycurtains · 13/12/2015 14:00

Yeah just change their passwords and delete their phone no from the account info or click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email when a new one appears. Once the password has been changed they can't reset it without access to your email so presumably would stop.

It is an inconvenience for you but I would imagine that after a while they would get the message as they won't be able to log in.

MargaretCabbage · 13/12/2015 14:01

There is one person who kept using my email address. I wasn't that bothered until I saw her Instagram which had some pretty vile stuff on it. I started to worry that one day potential employers might search for me and think it was me! So I kept cancelling all her online orders and changed all of her passwords and funnily enough it stopped.

MrsHathaway · 13/12/2015 14:18

I've had DBS check stuff for my namesake. When it's important things (school DBS, Brownies volunteer list, work roster) I reply to them politely pointing out their error.

I cancelled her free Netflix trial.

So frustrating.

Fwiw I use the mailbox but don't use that address to receive mail - I use an equivalent of @MrsHathaway.me.uk for aliases.

DriveInSaturday · 14/12/2015 20:30

I have the gmail problem. I am first [email protected]. Someone else is [email protected]. Every time she parks her car in San Francisco I get 3 emails. She parks there frequently. The parking company say it's gmail's problem. I have had various other emails for her too.

I have only had this issue recently. I don't know if she has only made the email address recently or if gmail has only started doing this recently.

Trills · 14/12/2015 20:33

Because.

To wonder why people can't understand e-mail addresses?
byzeus · 14/12/2015 20:40

This happens to me - I get emails for a namesake realtor in Northern California and a women who works for a bra recycling charity in Australia all the time! I often reply to let them know they are sending to the wrong person and usually get a nice reply!

poorbuthappy · 14/12/2015 20:46

Christ I've just had the oddest deja vu with this thread.

BrianButterfield · 14/12/2015 20:56

I was an early adopter of Gmail just so I could get [email protected]. I have a name-a-like who lives in America who kept getting her email address wrong. The fun part is that I googled her (not very common name) and she worked for Google in SF - in fact was quite a big deal there! But couldn't even sign up for her own name on Gmail in time. Sucks to be you.

BrianButterfield · 14/12/2015 20:59

Drivein, she's getting her email wrong. You can put full stops in anywhere and it's still the same address so she couldn't have signed up as that. I could sign in as [email protected] and it would be the same as [email protected].

Melawen · 14/12/2015 21:24

Oh it's a complete pain!! I have [email protected] and regularly get email meant for someone else. Sometimes I flag it up especially when it's house viewings!! But usually manage it ignore it.

ScrambledSmegs · 14/12/2015 21:24

Oh, this brings back memories. I was an early adopter of gmail too, and even though I didn't have too many issues with people accidentally getting personal stuff sent to me instead of them, there are a couple that stuck in my head.

I kept getting a round-robin email from a family in the US. The first few times I politely responded that they had the wrong email address, but they didn't seem to believe me judging from their (slightly rude actually) responses, so I set their emails to go to a junk folder.

The other one was a long email from a guy who just made my skin crawl. He started by apologising for contacting my namesake by email, but as she wouldn't give him her number what could he do Hmm. He then went on to say that he'd been watching her at the gym for a while, and that he knew that she was in a relationship but he just had to tell her how he felt because he thought they could really have a chance. There was some other stuff about her physical appearance and the way she was 'teasing' him by, I'm not sure, wearing clothes or something? I'm rather glad that he got the address wrong because he sounded creepy.

CassieBearRawr · 14/12/2015 21:39

My real name email address is swamped by several daft bitches and their annoying offspring who don't know their own email addresses too.

At one point I got 47 emails in a day about one of them. I could happily throttle them.

MamaLazarou · 14/12/2015 21:44

This happens to me: I have [email protected] and some woman in the USA has [email protected]. I get loads of emails meant for her, it drives me bonkers. Unsubscribe and delete.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 14/12/2015 21:55

Mama they are the same email address. Whoever is emailing her has the wrong email address.

If someone phones you looking for someone else, you assume they have the wrong number, not that you have the same phone number as someone else. It is the same with email addresses. There has never been a case of two people having the same email address.

Hassled · 14/12/2015 22:11

It's made more complicated by the fact that there's a ymail.com. DS1 is (say) [email protected] and got a load of emails for [email protected]. The latter was a US college student with a fascinating social life and some dubious friends, who DS1 started engaging with; he'd accept or decline invites on US Fred's behalf, he'd start arguing the toss with US Fred's mates, he'd sign petitions etc etc. He had a lot of fun until I told him it was bound to end in tears.

lougle · 14/12/2015 22:20

This thread is so funny! Is anyone reading the posts?

  1. Gmail doesn't recognise full stops.
  2. Two people can't have the same email address.
  3. So you don't have a namesake in any country using the same email address as you. They are just getting their email address wrong.
Jux · 14/12/2015 23:22

Let me get this absolutely straight in my mind, in the light of lougle's post.

1 gmail doesn't recognise full stops in email addresses, so if your address is [email protected] it will be treated the same as [email protected], and any emails sent to either of those addresses will end up in the same inbox.

2 two people can't have the same email address, so any emails sent to [email protected] or [email protected] will not only arrive in my inbox but will actually be for me.

3 so another person called Jux MN, anywhere in the world, will have neither of those addresses. Hence, if they fill in forms with either of those addresses it is not that they think that one of them is actually theirs, because it isn't. They have entered the wrong email address and theirs is completely different - [email protected], for instance - and they have merely entered their own actual address wrong.

There is no answer as yet as to why they do this, though.

May I ask, does gmail recognise capital letters? Perhaps the mistake they make is simply that they should be entering [email protected], or [email protected]? That's easier to understand, than someone simply forgetting that their email address isn't their name, with or without full stops.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 14/12/2015 23:30

1 . Correct

  1. Correct, although they may not be for you if someone has entered the wrong address, see wrong phone number analogy.
  2. Correct.

Gmail also ignores capital letters.

CassieBearRawr · 14/12/2015 23:32

Yes I know lougle. That's why I called them daft bitches who don't know their own email addresses Grin