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Gettting someone elses email (gmail)

Gilbert0Gilbert0 North of SeattleRegistered User regular
I was an early adopter to gmail and have owned my email address firstname.lastname@gmail.com for years. Recently, I've been getting more email that's not spam but clearly subscriptions to things someone has signed-up for. They're using the firstnamelastname@gmail.com (because google ignores periods).

I was just ignoring it and opting out of the distribution lists but now it's starting to be their Virgin media account and I'm starting to get account numbers and install dates for TV/Internet in London, UK. Problem is, I live in Vancouver, Canada.

I've been opting out of these emails when I can, but really the fix is to let the person know, stop signing up for services with the wrong email account. Is there anything I can do?

Posts

  • PantshandshakePantshandshake Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    *edit for reading comprehension*

    I guess you could try telling the folk sending the emails to stop it, though they likely won't.

    Pantshandshake on
  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    I'm not sure there's anything you can do. They should have known from the beginning that it wasn't theirs (since gmail shouldn't have let them register it), so they're just willfully forgetting their email address now.

  • Gilbert0Gilbert0 North of SeattleRegistered User regular
    If only you had some way to contact them...

    What email myself? That's not exactly helpful.

    I've already emailed Virgin (because I'm not waiting on hold with Internation LD to call them) to fix it. But I'd rather have the guy to stop signing up for stuff.

  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    Happens to me all the time. I just hit the unsubscribe/this is not me link and call it a day. I've (oddly enough) received a lot of personal email for this person as well, which is always fun to reply back to.

    "No, I assure you, I am not a sorority sister from Eastern Michigan."

  • PantshandshakePantshandshake Registered User regular
    Yeah, I posted in a hurry without reading your whole bit. Sorry about that.

    Aside from emailing the individual companies and explaining? I don't think there's much you can do. You're basically the victim of the old 'sign up my buddy for spam' prank.

  • Gilbert0Gilbert0 North of SeattleRegistered User regular
    Yeah, I posted in a hurry without reading your whole bit. Sorry about that.

    Aside from emailing the individual companies and explaining? I don't think there's much you can do. You're basically the victim of the old 'sign up my buddy for spam' prank.

    Which is what I was afraid of. The problem now is that it's not music or restaurant deals of the week, it's his home TV/Internet. I have enough account information that if I wanted to, I could register as him and cancel all the services. Or triple his cost.

  • amateurhouramateurhour One day I'll be professionalhour The woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered User regular
    I've got the same issue you have and I get everything from OKcupid registrations to people's paycheck stubs for their contract work and I've sent e-mails to the people sending the e-mail to me more times than I can count and it's never done any good.

    There's really not a lot you can do other than keep opting out for the spam and letting the company know if it's for registration for a pay service.

    are YOU on the beer list?
  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    Crossposting my answer, but you can have gmail filter by the "To:" field and automatically delete these emailes. Doesn't help the other guy, but what ya gonna do?

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • JebusUDJebusUD Adventure! Candy IslandRegistered User regular
    I thought you weren't supposed to hit the opt out links on spam because then they know they have a live one and send you even more.

    I write you a story
    But it loses its thread
  • NightDragonNightDragon 6th Grade Username Registered User regular
    JebusUD wrote: »
    I thought you weren't supposed to hit the opt out links on spam because then they know they have a live one and send you even more.

    It sounds like this is from an actual person though, who is just unaware (I'd assume? Account information and whatnot is pretty sensitive stuff)...that's certainly true for actual spam, though.

  • Gilbert0Gilbert0 North of SeattleRegistered User regular
    JebusUD wrote: »
    I thought you weren't supposed to hit the opt out links on spam because then they know they have a live one and send you even more.

    If it was spam, yes. But I have an account number, refernce code, home address, appointment time for his TV/Internet install. If this is spam, this is the best spam ever.

    I typically don't click the unsubscribe link, I'll go to the actual business website and unsubscribe from there.

    I guess this is really "dumb people being dumb" for not knowing your own email address.

  • NijaNija Registered User regular
    Just a thought: in all that information, maybe their phone number is in there. Maybe call them and say, "Hi, <TheirNameHere>, Your appointment e-mail for <TVProvider> is being sent to my e-mail. You should probably update that so I don't have your home address of <Address> and your name..."

    It might cost you a few bucks, but that would be a pretty splendid and upstanding thing to do.

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  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Gilbert0 wrote: »
    JebusUD wrote: »
    I thought you weren't supposed to hit the opt out links on spam because then they know they have a live one and send you even more.

    If it was spam, yes. But I have an account number, refernce code, home address, appointment time for his TV/Internet install. If this is spam, this is the best spam ever.

    I typically don't click the unsubscribe link, I'll go to the actual business website and unsubscribe from there.

    I guess this is really "dumb people being dumb" for not knowing your own email address.

    You have a pen? Paper? Perhaps an envelope? Splurge on a stamp?

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  • IrukaIruka Registered User, Moderator mod
    I get this all the time because of my name being common, and there being a few who have the same name who are pursuing my exact career path. I think you are basically handling this the right way, but if you have all that info about the dude, you may as well FB the guy and be like "Bro, I'm getting your emails"

    My experience has been mostly positive with that. I even had a client who paid the wrong laura wilson on paypal, and she was kind enough to return it. Occasionally you will just hit a person who doesn't understand the internet (the "what do you mean? I used my name it should come to me?") but the dude may actually be miss remembering an old account and deflecting it to a real person by mistake.

  • FoomyFoomy Registered User regular
    gmail will ignore the . for email addresses, but it does not discard it in the to: field.

    so what you can do is use this fact to setup multiple rules to filter mail based upon where a . appears in your email address.

    so make a filter rule to send all mail that is sent to firstnamelastname to the spam folder.

    and then to go even further, you can do this yourself, like when I signup for some websites that I know send out newsletters or other junk I don't want, I stick a "." in a specific spot in my email, so that for example all mail to first.namelastname go to one folder, while mail to firstname.lastname to another, and firstnamelast.name to a third and so on.

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  • SammyFSammyF Registered User regular
    schuss wrote: »
    Happens to me all the time. I just hit the unsubscribe/this is not me link and call it a day. I've (oddly enough) received a lot of personal email for this person as well, which is always fun to reply back to.

    "No, I assure you, I am not a sorority sister from Eastern Michigan."

    "But do go on."

  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    I get stuff like this occasionally from about 3 different people with similar names. Sometimes it's been emails from an actual person, so I just respond to tell them they got the wrong email and that solves that (for a few months at least). In another case I had an account number for a magazine subscription, which I was able to use to look up their address on file which also happened to have their employer. So I googled the employer and found a work email address for the person in question so I could let them know they had the wrong email set up.

    If you can't (easily) get any other contact info like that, then just unsubscribe or ignore the emails.

  • GdiguyGdiguy San Diego, CARegistered User regular
    JebusUD wrote: »
    I thought you weren't supposed to hit the opt out links on spam because then they know they have a live one and send you even more.

    For actual SPAM (i.e. 'buy this viagra from me!'), this is probably not a bad idea; for spam that's from reasonably legitimate companies, though, I've found that most actually do unsubscribe you from email lists.

    I've had the same problem with someone sending personal emails thinking I'm their brother... I think it took 5 or 6 replies before they've stopped (though every now and then they'll start again)

  • PantshandshakePantshandshake Registered User regular
    You know what you have to do? Pony up for some airfare and a hotel stay, and go to this guy's house when that cable install is happening.

  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    I get this all the time, business invoices and CEO emails for some company out of malaysia, and another one in thailand, a poor girl from alabama and her redbox rentals (and her coupons/deals), some women in england and her car insurance bills, and a few others.

    It's crazy, but there isn't anything you can really do about it.

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