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Miss-directed Email

Gord_in_Toronto

Penultimate Amazing
Gord_in_Toronto
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Jul 22, 2006
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A curious tale in the Toronto Star today,

Meet Jason Young. The man who can’t stop getting your email

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...the-man-who-cant-stop-getting-your-email.html

Behind a paywall (I subscribe)

It’s been happening for over a decade. He’s been sent COVID-19 test results, plane tickets, and even become a steadfast member of a family chat — with a family he’s never met.

At first, he’d take screenshots of the funny ones and share them with friends. Then, he’d respond to each one, letting the senders know they had the “wrong person.” But in 2008, when a DJ from upstate New York emailed out of the blue asking to “borrow Ms. Pinky tomorrow night” for a “gig” at his “house,” Jason Young just couldn’t resist.

“Sure,” he wrote back. “Come by around 9. I’ll have Ms. Pinky ready.
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”

and further,

Since 2007, Young says, shortly after he signed up for his very first — and only — Gmail account, he’s received more than 1,800 emails sent correctly to his address, but intended for someone else. Over the last 14 years, he says he’s received about one every three days on average and they usually come in random bursts. Instead of being for Jason, the emails are sent to Joanne. Or John. Or another Jason.

But, make no mistake, he says, this isn’t spam. It’s all personal.
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How common is this? I've been using email since before the dawn of time and I don't remember ever receiving an email sent to my address because it was mistaken for someone else's (the only exception bring a couple on an internal mail system where the wrong name was selected from the internal directory).

My name is absolutely unique on this planet so i can see that the chances of it happening to me are somewhat slim but what about the "John Smith"s of the world?

The Star did contact Google but it was completely useless -- beyond "See our FAQ".

What are other people's experiences?
 
I have a regular one from someone in Italy, I've sent back "translated" emails telling them they've got the wrong email address, seems a combination of business and family, but they still keep coming. And I get some for a headmaster of a school, often a parent about their kid. I have sent back many replies saying "you've got the wrong email address" to find they resend it to my address again - I think it's like the British idea that if you shout loud enough foreigners can understand English - if they keep sending it the email will get through to him eventually. I sometimes get back replies of "can you forward this to him".....
 
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I've mentioned on here before that my gmail account receives genuine mails for a good dozen namesakes of mine dotted around the world.

Rather more eye-opening was a series of events last summer. I needed a throwaway account for a couple of things and so created myfirstname.veryunusualsurnameinmymothersancestry@gmail.com.

Within a week I was receiving genuine chase-up mails from a utilities company in the part of France that that part of the family was from, and then a whole bunch of Covid-related personal stuff.

I'm used to people inputting their mail addresses wrongly, but to have that happen so quickly?
 
Interesting. Reminds me of when Greg Palast opened an account with a name similar to GW Bush and he started getting Bush's emails from people who weren't careful who they sent messages to.

Greg Palast On C-SPAN - 'I have Rove's Emails'
Palast: I know because I have Karl Rove's emails. No kidding. He and his team aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. They sent copies of their plans to GeorgeWBush.ORG instead of GeorgeWBush.COM addresses -- and, heh heh, they ended up in my in-box. Who says this job ain't fun?
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IIRC, this often happens with people typing in the wrong email domain. Personal items intended for President George W Bush at his ".gov" box got misdirected to a ".com" domain not associated with him.

That aside, two of my boxes receive personal emails to previous owners ( I guess), and I mean for like over a decade. Twitter seems adamant that I have an account registered with one, but won't give me information on it.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
A curious tale in the Toronto Star today,

Meet Jason Young. The man who can’t stop getting your email

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...the-man-who-cant-stop-getting-your-email.html

Behind a paywall (I subscribe)

”

and further,



How common is this? I've been using email since before the dawn of time and I don't remember ever receiving an email sent to my address because it was mistaken for someone else's (the only exception bring a couple on an internal mail system where the wrong name was selected from the internal directory).

My name is absolutely unique on this planet so i can see that the chances of it happening to me are somewhat slim but what about the "John Smith"s of the world?

The Star did contact Google but it was completely useless -- beyond "See our FAQ".

What are other people's experiences?
Click to expand...
I've met three people with the same name as me via Gmail. Had etickets, details of the movements of a certain politician, credit card details and various UKian store loyalty schemes.
 
My name is somewhat common, not "John Smith," but close. I don't have any problem getting other's email in general.

But, I used to work at a larger company and there were four of us with the same first and last name. I was assigned the basic first.last@company email address, so I was getting email for the others all the time. More annoying was that I would be assigned to shared spaces and groups that I had no interest in.

Eventually, I had my email address changes to first.last.jr@company. But, of course, I wasn't the only one of the four with Jr. at the end of my name. Adding a middle initial wouldn't have worked, because one of the others also had the same middle initial.
 
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I occasionally get emails for an Auckland businessman with the same name as me. I know his email address, so I forward them to him, and CC: the original sender so the they know they have sent it to the wrong email address.
 
Boy, I sure derailed this thread. Nevertheless, I came back after I saw today's xkcd (https://xkcd.com/327), but someone beat me to it. I was also going to mention a co-worker who often had issues with online forms since his last name only had two letters - Ng.

I got annoyed the other day by a site that required at least six characters for the responses to their security questions. Not one of the answers I would have used had six characters or more.
 
smartcooky said:
I occasionally get emails for an Auckland businessman with the same name as me. I know his email address, so I forward them to him, and CC: the original sender so the they know they have sent it to the wrong email address.
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Donja hate it when the original sender then does a "Reply" (or "Reply All") instead of addressing the message to the correct recipient? That happened to me a lot.
 
There's a guy at my company who has the same very common first name as I do, and his last name is a homophone with mine. I've gotten occasional emails intended for him, sent by people who'd heard his name but not seen it written.
 
jadebox said:
Boy, I sure derailed this thread. Nevertheless, I came back after I saw today's xkcd (https://xkcd.com/327), but someone beat me to it. I was also going to mention a co-worker who often had issues with online forms since his last name only had two letters - Ng.

I got annoyed the other day by a site that required at least six characters for the responses to their security questions. Not one of the answers I would have used had six characters or more.
Click to expand...

You could have put "Nonono" or "Yesyes" :thumbsup:
 
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