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AIBU?

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Original poster

To contact the person using my email address?

121 replies

ChristmasStocckings · 06/10/2020 07:57

For a while now some lady with the same name as me seems to have been accidentally using my email address. Its normally just her signing up for junk like marketing emails from clothing stores. However in the last month I have gotten some more personal ones like shopping and holiday booking invoices and today a medical invoice for an upcoming procedure.

We don't have a common name and with the amount of info I have about her I think I have found her on facebook. Would I be unreasonable to contact her and let her know? Or would that be too creepy or potentially backfire on me somehow?

OP posts:
HowFastIsTooFast · 06/10/2020 07:59

Personally I'd leave it. She'll realise sooner or later that she's using the wrong address.

CatFaceCats · 06/10/2020 07:59

I’ve done similar before - I received copies of company statements, scan of a passport and baby pics. I replied to the sender and asked them to check the email and told them I’d delete everything.

Randompersonisme · 06/10/2020 08:04

I would. This happened to me. Everytime I give my email over the phone, even when they spell it back to me, it gets sent to someone else.

I had no idea until they contacted me.

Veterinari · 06/10/2020 08:05

Contact her and let her know

olderthanyouthink · 06/10/2020 08:14

I have an yoonique spelling of my name but there's at least two women in the US who have managed to use my @icloud.com address

One I had just got married and maybe got a new email with her new name (i found her on Facebook to message her) so was was just not used to it. The other must have been a typo but I got loads of Lift receipts so after a short time I know where she'd be and when (back and forth to work I think), I contacted Lift and told them off for sending data like that to unverified email addresses

Original poster
ChristmasStocckings · 06/10/2020 08:16

@HowFastIsTooFast

Personally I'd leave it. She'll realise sooner or later that she's using the wrong address.
It's been a couple of years now! It was just the odd thing back then (I actually thought it was spam/dodgy attachments originally) but is getting more frequent.
OP posts:
MrsMonkeyBear · 06/10/2020 08:20

My sister has this problem. She contacted the lady in question and she was mortified. Apparently her email was First dot last name @ gmail dot com. And Google omit the dot between the first and last name.

A couple of years later she had another lady email her and ask if she would sell her email address as it was about to be her new married name

Mummyoflittledragon · 06/10/2020 08:21

Definitely contact her. She must have no idea.

LaBellina · 06/10/2020 08:24

I would. It might not be her fault.

Perhaps some companies have done some mistyping when registering her details and registred your e-mailadress by accident.
Some payroll agency did this to me in the past, mistyping my email adress and sending the login that gave access to my personal work details including salary slips to one that was similar but didn't belong to me. I only found out after complaining to them that I'd never received my login.
They didn't apologize and just shrugged it off even after I pointed out they just gave a stranger the perfect possibility to commit identity theft with my personsl data. Happened years ago and I still get angry when I think of her.

Please contact her. I would be very grateful if I were in her shoes.

LaBellina · 06/10/2020 08:25

Think of it, not her.

contrmary · 06/10/2020 08:26

I have this happen quite regularly. It's strange because my email is quite unusual. Sometimes I log into the account by resetting the password and change the contact details to "[email protected]" or similar.

The other week I started getting salary reviews and budget proposals from some charity in America. I emailed the sender and they basically threatened me with legal action for receiving confidential information!? So I think the safest thing is to just mark incorrectly received emails as junk and leave it at that.

BobBobBobbing · 06/10/2020 08:29

I did this- I was getting stuff from an American mobile company who point blank refused to stop sending me daily shit. Tracked down the likely owner and made contact. Turns out it was a partner who was giving out his girlfriends email address and not realising hers was surname.first name@gmail and mine was first name.last name@gmail

kizkiz · 06/10/2020 08:31

I have a very short and simple email address. Often get emails from people signing up to stuff. I regularly get bank notifications for a woman in Trinidad though. Nothing confidential, but I know when she's had a payment refused. Lol

daisym00n · 06/10/2020 08:36

I once rang the woman who was using my email address because she was obviously applying for a new job and all the info was coming to me so being kind I didn't want her to miss out.

When I spoke to her she asked me to tell her what her email address was! So I got her to send me an email and then told her what her own email address was! Turns out I was Daisymoon@ and she was Daisymoon2

She started using my email address again a few years later!

TwoBlueFish · 06/10/2020 08:37

I had the same thing recently and was just deleting the emails. Then I started getting receipts for her so found her on Facebook and contacted her. She was grateful and the emails have now stopped.

TwoBlueFish · 06/10/2020 08:39

I have had Facebook and TikTok accounts created previously with my email address, those accounts I got deleted.

Elephantscantfly · 06/10/2020 08:40

I have an unusual name and regularly get ticket bookings and receipts for online purchases, confirmation emails for someone with the same name in the highlands of Scotland, and also occasionally someone in Australia, most recently a copy of a very personal draft will from a solicitors in Edinburgh! I’ve stopped replying to most of the senders now, I used to tell them but don’t bother as much now, I did tell her solicitor and asked them to notify her directly of their mistake about the will though!

TweeBree · 06/10/2020 08:42

This happens to me weekly. There's an American and a Kiwi with the same name who don't seem to know their own emails.

I unsubscribe to the spam ones, but for any accounts, I go to 'forgot password' and input my email to get the password. I then log in and change the email to something nonsensical. They can then go to the hassle of sorting it out. Happens a lot less since then, funny enough.

Unsuremover · 06/10/2020 08:45

I have this with my mobile number. Mine ends 567 and the person who’s number ends 568 is always giving out my number. I’ve pieced it together over the years and was so pleased when he stopped getting messages from dodgey types late at night and started getting calls about booking haircuts.

rainkeepsfallingdown · 06/10/2020 08:45

@HowFastIsTooFast

Personally I'd leave it. She'll realise sooner or later that she's using the wrong address.
Not true. Someone has been using my email address for years.

I snapped one day and told her school that they were sending me updates of a stranger's kids because she kept using the wrong email address for everything, and could they please call her using the number they held to tell her as much? The school were very kind and I believe they did so.

But then it started up again.

I don't know why this woman keeps doing this - doesn't she wonder why no one ever contacts her?

WhichOneNowTheRedOrTheGreen · 06/10/2020 08:48

Oh definitely tell her!

My DH has an email address with a very common name. When I was forwarding him some school stuff I accidentally sent it to someone in another country with a com instead of a co.uk. He contacted me and I apologised.

Embarrassingly I then did it again twice in the space of two months Blush He contacted me again and we ended up having a couple of very interesting chats about a shared interest (mentioned in the second and third emails).

I always thought it would make a good plot for a book or a film if our chats developed and I then left my DH for him. To clarify I was nowhere near getting to that situation Grin but I thought it would be an interesting story. Perhaps more suited to Take a Break than a bestselling novel though Grin)

Hingeandbracket · 06/10/2020 08:50

@TweeBree

This happens to me weekly. There's an American and a Kiwi with the same name who don't seem to know their own emails.

I unsubscribe to the spam ones, but for any accounts, I go to 'forgot password' and input my email to get the password. I then log in and change the email to something nonsensical. They can then go to the hassle of sorting it out. Happens a lot less since then, funny enough.

I have this problem with more than one person. They are useless. I got copied in to some confidential company stuff by a woman in Canada. When I replied and pointed out it wasn't the first time she had a go at me and suggested how my response was unacceptable.

I really cannot work out what is so impossible for these twats.

One of them is the same as me at gmail - but with a 9 added, another with a 7. They can't just have firstname.lastname because I got there first - why is that apparently so impossible for them to figure out?

I gave up being polite and now just delete stuff on the whole, although I did sign up to help out at some State Fair Event in the USA one time cos I was so fed up of getting all this crap.

The Australian was a doctor who signed up to his local hospital using my email - they sent me his patient lists, full of confidential patient data.

WhichOneNowTheRedOrTheGreen · 06/10/2020 08:50

Also I used to have a telephone number with one different digit to the local library. I used to get (pre internet!) lots of calls from people wanting me to reserve books for them. I felt bad as a lot of them seemed to be elderly and couldn't hear me very well when I tried to explain that I wasn't in fact their library Sad

WhichOneNowTheRedOrTheGreen · 06/10/2020 08:51

"I really cannot work out what is so impossible for these twats."

Well that's an embarrassing cross post with my post before yours @Hingeandbracket Grin

Hingeandbracket · 06/10/2020 08:54

@daisym00n

I once rang the woman who was using my email address because she was obviously applying for a new job and all the info was coming to me so being kind I didn't want her to miss out.

When I spoke to her she asked me to tell her what her email address was! So I got her to send me an email and then told her what her own email address was! Turns out I was Daisymoon@ and she was Daisymoon2

She started using my email address again a few years later!

I don't get how people cannot get this - what is so difficult?