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)

@Changechangychange

Change her seat, add on five suitcases, and give her an Indian vegetarian meal. And remove her advance passenger information, so she has to queue up at checkin to resubmit it before she can print out her boarding pass. That’ll teach her.

Hopefully that would, but maybe not considering she hasn't realised. It's what I check straight away if booking flights or something expensive, that I get email confirmation about it. It's just stupid to have not noticed that, most boarding passes have to be printed off by yourself now or used on your phone. So she either somehow hasn't twigged that she has no proof of flights yet so no boarding passes or she has access to ops email account.

You have to cancel flights and orders, change passwords, delete accounts - the person will only stop doing it if it causes them inconvenience. I would also look them up on Facebook and send a message saying hi, you’ve used my email address and it’s compromised your privacy because I have access to your personal info and credit card details, for your own security you need to stop using my email.

Cancelling the flight isn't going far enough IMO.

If you've contacted this person in the past, you should escalate.

You need to go in and change the flight details, i.e. passenger details so that she gets knocked back at check in at the airport.

I had this a few years ago. Firstly change to a secure password on your email account, to make sure they are really not accessing your account.

You have probably received something with her home address on. Write to her about what is happening and tell her to stop.

If you are on a group email, reply to the person sending to tell them it's the wrong email address.

It's probably something really simple. Like her email is [email protected] and yours is [email protected] and she is just flighty and forgets the "." when she is in a hurry. There could also be a database error with the email provider causing the mixup - unlikely but possible (I've seen it happen before).

In any case you would be a monster to cancel her flight over this very minor inconvenience for you. When you get an email that isn't for you, take literally two seconds to block the sender and move on with your life.

I can't believe after a few years she's never queried why she isn't getting her confirmation emails with the airline, shops etc. Unless it's some sort of scam that I can't fathom

Also I would not advise cancelling flights etc as you could seriously get in trouble. I would reply to the flights/other purchases emails though - usually there is something you can click on to tell them it reached the wrong recipient/that the email is incorrect.

After contacting everyone concerned and getting nowhere, I would be likely to cancel the flight, and if possible book them on one that goes somewhere else. It might make them aware of what a risk she is taking with her own security because there seems to be no other way to do it, unless you can bounce the e.mails back.

That's it, though. Luckily (for her), she's signed up a disgruntled but decent MNer to receive her correspondence, but it could have been anybody at all - a fraudster, violent criminal, serial killer. Never mind cancelling her flights, somebody could turn up at the airport ready to kidnap her kids or anything. At the very least, they would have her address and know when her family home is empty, so that lack of care on her part could directly result in her house being emptied out by burglars, or taken over by squatters.

I would definitely do the whole making random amendments to her orders and accounts etc. - nothing mean or perturbing, but hopefully to leave her scratching her head until the penny drops and she realises they've been acting on instructions from 'her' email address that she didn't actually send them.

Problem is, if she's a bit of a dimwit, I wouldn't put it past her to accuse you of stealing her address or of trying to defraud her - even though she's effectively 'invited' you to do so and the only reason you haven't is because you're honest.

I've had someone give my phone number at a restaurant for test and trace. Only knew cause I got booking confirmation text off the restaurant. 200 miles away. Phoned them up to say I definitely wasn't there as I'm at the other end of the country.

I think in your case it's most likely someone with the same name getting their email slightly wrong though.

Cancel everything of hers that you can. What sort of fucking idiot doesn't know their own email address?

I can see how this is really annoying.

It’s soooo, disrespectful actually. And encroaching.

Like the neighbour who keeps directing parcels to your home address!

I had something similar years ago. I emailed the person a few times about it, the first time they were apologetic but the second time they were all "Yeah, whatever".

So every time I saw a mailing list for anything I signed them up. Funnily enough, they got a lot more careful with their email address after a while.

@VodkaSlimline

Cancel everything of hers that you can. What sort of fucking idiot doesn't know their own email address?

Plenty of idiots sadly. I have had loads of stuff, including confidential medical details, from twats who can't work email. I don't mind the occasional mistype - but like OP I have a list of offenders who I have politely informed but for some reason are too think to understand that if your email address is [email protected], trying to use [email protected] isn't the same thing.

I don't know who signed up for their ring doorbell using my e-mail either - but I do know it's not working.

Oh and on the dot thing.
There's only one [email protected]
Putting a dot in doesn't give you a different e-mail address - so if you tyr to use dynamo.kev, I will still get you mail and it will still be my e-mail account, not yours.
BTW none of the above addresses, if they exist are anything to do with me.

Oh I had one like this. It was a woman who kept sending work information to a colleague of hers. The colleague has my email address but with a "m" in the middle. This woman kept missing out the m. I replied to tell her she'd sent it to me in error and she got very snotty with me. After this happening a few times, I told her that the next time I got an email with a customer appointment details, I was going to forward a big "Fuck off" poster to the client. It was the only thing that made her take care and sort the emails.
As for the lady with the similar email to me...it wasn't her fault at all. I've contacted her and pass on anything that comes in accidentally.

I've recently had some one sign up for doorstep milk delivery using my mobile number (I've had over 10 years).
Unfortunately they haven't paid.
I've tried to contact the company, but they've ignored the message. So I continue to get more and more impatient messages asking for payment.
I'm waiting for them to phone (as they did when the account was first set up) instead of no-reply texts so I can tell them again.

This is not quite as annoying as when my number was used for taxi bookings and the client didn't arrive at the taxi at 2.30am.

@LaurieSchafferIsAllBitterNow

is it exactly the same?? No "dots/fullstops/underscores" ? I am sure I read somewhere that sometimes systems don't see those so

firstnamelastname@emailprovider will get confused with firstname.lastname@emailprovider

so she may be using her correct address but the responses are being diverted to you??

I had an issue once with instagram I use my initials email for that and someone else had them with capital and an underscore. I sent an email via another account and also changed the password and signed them out, not had any bother since!

Quoting this for visibility

The internet has been around for over 20 years, so incorrect email addresses are inexcusable, especially if it's repeated.

You wouldn't forget your post code or your phone number, would you?

If you have memory problems, just use a notepad!

Why on earth would you cancel her flight? How would that benefit you at all? I think that would be malicious.
It’s clearly a mistake, easily enough done.
Is it really such a big deal to receive these emails to your inbox? Delete or archive them - job done!

How does this happen?? I haven't typed in either my own or anyone else's e-mail address for years - it's all done by clicking on electronic links. If I have to make a list of addresses in Word, say, I copy and paste each one from my Gmail list so there's no danger of mis-typing. I suppose it must have happened once through poor typing and now everything is done by autofill and these people are too rushed/inattentive/lazy to change things. Is that it?

@Propagandalf

The internet has been around for over 20 years, so incorrect email addresses are inexcusable, especially if it's repeated.

You wouldn't forget your post code or your phone number, would you?

If you have memory problems, just use a notepad!

Exactly - some people seem to think that any vague approximation of their e-mail address will be good enough - haven't they noticed that car registrations and house numbers don't work like that - why do they think the internet would be different - do they imagine a person somewhere is looking at all the email like a 1920s Postal worker and sending it to them because they got it nearly right?

She must wonder why she never gets email confirmations… Is there no way to close the email account down?

I think it depends how comfortable she is with technology. Which doesn't at all make it less annoying for you, but does alter her motivation. If this happened to me, for example, I would realise that something was up. If it happened to my Mum, who is incredibly tech illiterate, she wouldn't have a clue. We took 15 minutes trying to sign her in to WhatsApp last night, another 10 minutes trying to turn her phone on. She needs an email address for certain things because there are cases where it's compulsory to provide one, but she has no idea how to use it. I can easily imagine that she would get the wrong address in her head and then keep on using it. She barely remembers whether it's @yahoo/gmail/hotmail etc., or even that you need to have anything at all there. There's no way she would pick up on clues like not getting a reset link through.

That won't necessarily alter how you feel about getting these emails in error, but just to say that it's entirely possible she still doesn't know she's doing it.

@Ohmygoshandfolly

She must wonder why she never gets email confirmations… Is there no way to close the email account down?

EH? Why would OP close down her perfectly viable e-mail account just because some ignoramus keeps giving the wrong details for online purchases?