Someone keeps using my email address. WWYD?

[InaccurateDream]

Someone keeps using my very boring firstname lastname icloud account.

I know it sounds like a minor irritation but it's more than just spam. Eg they bought loads of stuff at Walmart using the address so I was getting order confirmation, order dispatch, order arrived emails, product reminder emails etc. It's at least 'medium annoying!'

I'm getting loads of insurance emails, lots of Fox Nation ones. And it's all the same person so not spam as such, but purposeful activity.

Last year she bought flights using my email. I could see her full name, address, names of her children and even had access to cancel the flight.

I got in touch with the place where she bought it and asked them to take the account down. They did - until the next time.

She's just bought a new flight (short internal US flight)! I can cancel it in one click. I'm really tempted to - what would you do?

There was a US phone number in the booking details so I have messaged it (it was on imessage) and asked them to stop using my email address please (I was nice). I sent a follow up saying I would cancel the flight in the morning.

Message has been delivered but not read. Of course that could be fake too.

I can't find her on social media/Facebook. Though I have messaged someone who could be her son.

I just don't know if it's laziness, stupidity, maliciousness. Probably the first. But it's making me grumpy when I think about it (which is only when I get a new email with all her details in it!).

Would deleting her flight be a step too far?

(have changed username for this thread)

I'm still gobsmacked that it's 2021 and some people don't have the first idea about how an email account works. Request an investigation from the email company because someone somewhere typed in your email address instead of theirs? Really?

I'd contact her. Surely she must be panicking that her plane tickets haven't arrived.

I'm assuming op has an email like aajones@icloud ... and she has ajones@icloud...

What an annoying situation to be in. I hope you get the problem resolved.
I’m fortunate that there isn’t another ‘me’ with a similar email address nor anyone with the same name on FB., I don’t use any other social media platforms.

@InaccurateDream

Yes, perhaps I'll cancel the cheque/write to her. But I was trying free routes first as I don't particularly want to spend money on overseas postage.

Postage costs for a letter to the US is £1.70

If you can see her credit card details them order her some stuff and see if u get the confirmation emails! Pls order her some random things. Small value bt keep it up until she sorts it! You dont need to cancel her flight bt def change the seat humber LOL

Do not do tht - illegal!

My US Facebook group don’t know her personally but have been able to look her up locally and it looks like she might be in her seventies. I feel rather mean now.

I actually wonder if a letter would seem intimidating and perhaps it would be better to leave alone and stop being grumpy.

It’s a shame not to have an email address I could forward things to (I would happily do this), but I don’t want to actually upset anyone.

I think she'd rather know, regardless of age?

Yes I suppose so. I was thinking of my parents in that situation but that’s literally projecting so maybe I shouldn’t. My mum could make exactly this mistake and would be confused/embarrassed to be contacted, my dad would be cross.

Anyway, one of them says they can see her email address on a US lookup site that I can’t access - I’ve asked if they can pm me and then hopefully I can get in touch.

@InaccurateDream

My US Facebook group don’t know her personally but have been able to look her up locally and it looks like she might be in her seventies. I feel rather mean now.

I actually wonder if a letter would seem intimidating and perhaps it would be better to leave alone and stop being grumpy.

It’s a shame not to have an email address I could forward things to (I would happily do this), but I don’t want to actually upset anyone.

If she’s in her 70s it’s not unlikely that the phone number you texted is a landline and the TelCo either doesn’t convert texts into voice recordings so it didn’t reach her at all or it does but she thought the recording was confusing/some kind of scam.

Hopefully the email address is more successful.

Your posts are very clear but you might have to work out how to be extra clear with what you write in your letter!

@Redcrayons

I had this as well. The other person has the same first initial and surname and mine is rcrayons@. I used to reply and tell them it’s the wrong email but now I just delete them She probably has the email and password saved on her laptop so doesn’t notice it’s the wrong one. You could always go in and change her passwords so she’s forced to reset them.

Change of password email would go where, though? Think that one through again

If you can see her credit card details them order her some stuff and see if u get the confirmation emails! Pls order her some random things.

Order her 10,000 personalised ball-point pens and the same number of post-its (maybe also a diary, mug, key ring, embroidered cushion, bespoke cake etc.), all printed with "My email address is xxxxx and NOT xxxxx, which belongs to an annoyed complete stranger'

I too wonder if it's somebody not au fait with how email actually works, who maybe thinks it's like a postal address, where a slight variation or mistake probably wouldn't matter, as the postman/woman would know what they meant. I did once read of an elderly man who was given an email address, but had no idea how it worked, so he wrote it on an envelope and popped it in the post box - then got cross when it came to light that none of his letters were being delivered

I will say I was glad when the person with the same initial and surname as me at work left. It wasn't a common occurrence but it was getting annoying getting emails about a completely different dept to mine.
There was even one time after she'd gone when a contact of mine was told I'd left! I hate to think how many emails meant for me went to her because it highlighted that someone got her out of office when they'd been emailing me. But she was too important to bother sending anything on to me

And people are probably still getting bounced emails meant for me, come to think of it. People tend to guess my email address, not realising it contains my middle initial because work are not consistent in their format

@Frannyhy

Earlier this year, I had someone send money to my paypal account. My name is not uncommon, the sender said he just made a slip on the email address. He’s saying he can’t reverse the transaction.

He is trying to get me to send the money back, but I am insisting that the matter is resolved through paypal in case it’s a scam. We’re talking almost six hundred quid here.

I’ve taken legal advice and providing I don’t try and withdraw the money, they can’t touch me. Not that I would, it’s not mine.

Yep, complete scam. There's no way he couldn't cancel the transaction

Someone CAN accidentally send money to the wrong email address and if its done via friends and family, they cannot reverse the transaction. It is NOT a scam - the recipient has to reverse the transaction.

The only time a sender can get money back if sent friends and family, is if they have accidentally sent it to an email address that doesn't actually exist!

I have a gmail account with this issue as well. Early adopted a gmail account as [email protected] and it's a very popular name, especially in the USA. I don't use it often at all, and I know no one else has access to it (2 factor authentication) but I constantly get wrong emails to it. There's a few of me out there trying to use it. If I knew which bit they were getting wrong I'd email their real email and tell them. Sometimes the emails are important.

Literally thousands of them.

I had set up an email specifically for spam at the same time I set that one up, and honestly, the 'spam' email is the one I actually use. I couldn't possibly sift through all the emails for the other me's out there on a regular basis.

I got the email address [email protected] (and ppocket since Gmail ignore dots in addresses) before all the other P. Pockets out there did.
Some of the other P. Pockets aren't very bright and will type in my email address instead of theirs which, judging by their names, must be [email protected] or pv.pocket or some other variation. I don't understand how people can go online, order flights, book appointments, buy stuff, and yet consistently get their own email address wrong. They don't seem to notice that they get no confirmation emails. A one off typo I can understand, but I get so so many emails intended for other people.

I was getting emails about someone's kid in nursery once (the parent had inputted the wrong email address into the app the nursery used), with photos and everything. I emailed the nursery to let them know and deleted all the emails but imagine if I'd been less honest. You'd think people would double check their email address for important things.

@WiddlinDiddlin

Someone CAN accidentally send money to the wrong email address and if its done via friends and family, they cannot reverse the transaction. It is NOT a scam - the recipient has to reverse the transaction.

The only time a sender can get money back if sent friends and family, is if they have accidentally sent it to an email address that doesn't actually exist!

But it could be a scam. I am afraid I wouldn't trust it

It's obviously a genuine mistake perhaps she is dyslexic or something I don't see the big deal get a new email address problem solved

@InaccurateDream

I haven't cancelled her flight, but I am tempted.

I could change her seat! Would that be a middling sort of acceptable evil activity?

Personally, as I've been dealing with this with my cell phone for the last 5 years, I would cancel.

Until you've had someone using your cell phone for political propaganda, signing up for college, AND using it for benefits at the grocery store, you might not understand how after a while it's just so annoying. I constantly get phone calls about how her mortgage is not paid and they will be foreclosing and no one believes I have had the phone for 5 years. On top of that, we live in different time zones, so 5 am my phone will right about picking up a prescription that isn't even mine on a weekend.

Friend is a policeman, he says if you cancel any of the other emailers items, you can be prosecuted for malicious intent.
Also due to it showing up as your email, they can and will trace you.

It is an error. Gmail ignores all full stops within the name side of an email. Once your mother registered “[email protected]” that would have blocked anyone from creating “[email protected]” or any other version of sarahssmith with dots in it. There is no [email protected] account. (Does the same thing with capital v. Little letters too). Not all email providers do this, but gmail does

I didn't know that but originally my mum had a googlemail account and then it was changed to gmail. So maybe the Irish version of her created a very similar account legitimately while my mum was using googlemail.

@Bollindger

Friend is a policeman, he says if you cancel any of the other emailers items, you can be prosecuted for malicious intent. Also due to it showing up as your email, they can and will trace you.

Including cross border?

This is one of the holes in legislation against scammers.

In my case my email address once was used for a few days by someone clearly scamming companies. I actually contacted the companies directly so they cancelled the orders not me.