I've had a gmail account as my main email account for quite a few years. Email address format is "firstname.lastname@gmail.com" - all well and good. Except for the last couple of years, I've been getting a lot of emails that were intended for someone else with the same name as me - someone who seemingly has "firstnamelastname@gmail.com" - i.e. the only difference to my email address is mine has a punctuation mark.

The "To" field includes this slightly different email address. It's been a minor annoyance - it's mainly spammy marketing emails, however occasionally I get some more personal emails that have clearly been sent to that address. It also includes orders of products to their USA address. Of course, my main concern is - are they also getting emails intended for me?!?

My research shows that it shouldn't be possible for these two different email accounts to even exist, with only this punctuation mark as difference ( https://support.google.com/mail/forum/AAAAK7un8RUStVTCa-NtsE/?hl=sr ). But how is this happening? Is my doppelganger / namesake messing up her own email address when she's ordering products online etc?