To contact the person using my email address?

[ChristmasStocckings]

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?

It often isn’t the fault of the doppelgänger. I had a lot of emails go to another woman because when I’d given my email address people often would type it in the the spelling they expected, not the actual spelling of my name.

Think “[email protected]” when it was “[email protected]

It was very frustrating, so I changed my email address to something completely unrelated to my name.

I had a pen friendship for a couple of years with a teenager in Hawaii who had a very similar email address to mine. I still occasionally get emails from a shoe shop or for a school fundraiser. She must be well into her 20s now!

It often isn’t the fault of the doppelgänger.
It often is though.
I have an uncommon name - but I am appalled at my namesakes density. One is on twitter and is currently retweeting Trump and Trump-backing stuff all the time.

I used to get TfL daily alerts at work which I hadn't signed up for and everytime I cancelled them they started again! Turned out my address of [email protected] which was on my oystercard account had been put on the same account as [email protected]. I contacted her and we had a few emails back.and forth. Turned out we had both lived in the same town and had brothers with very similar names too.

My gmail is my name but with an extra letter that puts a nickname inside it, like dazppledthings@gmail. A few years ago I booked a villa in Spain and the owner assumed I'd made a typo in my own email address so deliberately sent the confirmation to a dappledthings@gmail. He copied me in too in case his assumption was wrong!

Contact her. I’ve done this before.

There is a cheeky mare who keeps using my email for receipts at Wetherspoons... She goes far too often! Although I am a bit jealous.

I don't know why people suggest leaving it. I'd want to know if someone else was getting my medical info, and would hate to think I was inadvertently 'sending' anyone junk marketing emails.

I'd go through FB. Acknowledge, if you want to, that you feel a bit weird looking her up like that, but you thought she really needed to know.

I had a job offer for my doppelganger. It sounded quite interesting, and I've always thought Montreal looked like a nice place to live, so I was half-tempted to keep up the charade.

DH has this happen to him. He was being sent some quite important stuff so ended up phoning one of the companies that he was getting the wrong emails from.

The other person got in touch to apologise. He is dyslexic and sometimes gets his email address muddled.

DH still gets his emails from time to time. He just forwards them on to the correct address now. He's had exam pass notifications, dating site contacts, job interview details etc. He lets me know what his name twin is up to from time to time. We were both pleased he passed his exam but we'd rather not know quite so much about his dating preferences. 😂

I have the .com version of my name and every so often I get invoices/booking confirmations for the .co.uk version. I just return it and say ha ha, that’s not for me, try .co.uk. I like seeing what she’s bought though, Ohdeariedear.co.uk clearly has a lot more disposable income than me ☹️

I have this an awful lot, not just for one person but for loads who share my name all over the world.

In just the last couple of days I've had an email asking me to be in an advertising shoot (definitely not meant for me lol), and then another for someone else confirming their fishing licence. There's someone in Australia who I regularly get mail for, a college basketball player in the US, and worst of all a psycotherapist who I sometimes get emails for from potential clients detailing their problems.

I think it's because I've got an incredibly common name, and I got a gmail account when they first came out so my address is [email protected]

I reckon there's loads of people with my name with a gmail address with numbers in or something which get missed off. It's so bad I've got standard email response I just copy and paste letting the sender now it's gone to the wrong person.

Interested to read the responses as my DH has a similar problem. We think it’s just the difference in of a “.” between first name and surname. We’ve had some really private emails sent over like probate matters and it doesn’t seem right.
He used to reply to sender saying incorrect email but has given up now.

My Australian doppleganger got married a couple of years ago (I know this of course because of all the wedding organiser emails I got).

Over the years I've had lovely chatty messages from her relatives, various uni stuff, an email from her sports coach warning that she needed to start turning up to practice..

I always replied letting them know that they'd reached a middle aged woman in Scotland rather than an Australian teenager/20 something - we have an extremely unusual name and she's Hotmail and I'm Gmail.

Anyway, I think she's using her married name now because nada since the wedding.

It happens to me a lot. I have the .com version of an email address of a company with the same initials but with a .ca domain. I get so much of their email including even their boardroom minutes ( yes even their secretaries get it wrong).

I have CEOs full personal financial details for a new mortgage on his home - yes I got everything!

There’s also a legal firm which has one letter different. I get full details of everyone who is being foreclosed upon but they really don’t seem to care

Oh I'm so glad it's not just me that has this problem. I have a very unusual name which Google tells me I share with a lady in the US. I also have my own domain email - think [email protected].

I have had various shopping receipts and store updates for US stores but the worst was when I had an email from a relative of this other woman saying that Uncle Walter had passed away and giving details of his funeral.

I emailed back saying that I was not the right Iris Fenby and they needed to check the email address. I even politely offered my condolences. I had an angry response saying that that was the email address they had been given and I should stop being rude and confirm whether or not Other Iris was coming to the funeral 🧐

Needless to say, I bin everything now.

Apparently her email was First dot last name @ gmail dot com. And Google omit the dot between the first and last name.

No Google don't because I have a DOT there!

It should be almost impossible to have the same email account right down to the dot or underscore or whatever.

OP- change your email account or ask her to.

I had this years ago. A missing dot between first and last name meant I was getting constant emails from an American woman’s brother with family photos, updates on his kids and grandkids.

I emailed him a few times to nicely point out his mistake but he never replied and kept sending stuff. Eventually I blocked him.

Several years later I received an email from his sister asking if I could forward on all the emails he’s sent as she wanted to see the photos. I replied that I hadn’t kept them, and she responded quite aggressively that I had no right to delete photos of her family! I blocked her too.

@DrIrisFenby haha, that sounds like my old colleague who had a work number that was one digit different from a customer service line at a completely unrelated company. I remember her explaining to one irate member of the public that they had dialled an incorrect number and the person on the end of the line getting all annoyed and saying ”well can you put me through?!!”

@DesignerDesigner

Apparently her email was First dot last name @ gmail dot com. And Google omit the dot between the first and last name.

No Google don't because I have a DOT there!

It should be almost impossible to have the same email account right down to the dot or underscore or whatever.

OP- change your email account or ask her to.

Gmail doesn't recognise dots. If you try sending yourself a mail without your dot you will still receive it.

support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en-GB

@zigaziga 😂😂
No good deed goes unpunished...

I have an uncommon name.

The first lady who used my email luckily got married and changed hers (I was invited to the hen do planning, her teaching qualification login, all sorts. The first 5-10 times I replied and let them know - but no-one ever responded or said thanks so I just stopped.)

A little after she stopped, a new person started. I, too, have had her gym membership, various shopping receipts, and CVs from applicants and friends.

Again, I responded at first, but never hearing even a 'sorry about that' I've stopped. I do still sometimes respond to the people sending CVs, because I feel a bit sorry for them.

So in my experience, you can try, but it hasn't worked for me so far.

I had it with a lady of the same name and a very similar email address - she only slipped up a few times, often when she was copying her work HR email to her home address 🙄
I pulled her up on it when she sent me details of an disciplinary hearing which was apparently going to lead to dismissal.

emailed back saying that I was not the right Iris Fenby and they needed to check the email address. I even politely offered my condolences. I had an angry response saying that that was the email address they had been given and I should stop being rude and confirm whether or not Other Iris was coming to the funeral

WTAF is wrong with these people?

this is why i never use firstname/lastname emails, i always come up with something innocuous (without numbers) to use instead, because the chances of someone else trying to use the same thing is about zero.

There are literally thousands of men with my DH's name, he had an early hotmail address that was just his first and last name but hasn't used it for ages because he got so many emails that weren't for him. Now he uses his company email for everything as he's the only one with his name in the company.

I have a non standard spelling of my surname. It was fine when I lived in the UK because people didn't know many, if any, other people with my surname so just accepted my spelling. Once I moved back to Ireland it became a problem anytime that I wrote it down on a form and someone else inputted it later because they didn't look at the spelling just at the whole name and spelled it they way they knew.

I have this with my Gmail - what’s more annoying is when it first started my namesake worked for Google! But someone didn’t manage to get [email protected].

I had her “Covid-free certificate to work” emailed to me the other day so I hope she’s been banned from working until she figures out what her fucking email is.