I read stupid people's emails - the joy of a sensible gmail address

Forums › Off topic › I read stupid people's emails - the joy of a sensible gmail address

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Mad Scientist
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#1891594 27-Oct-2017 22:11

blakamin:

Batman:

blakamin:

ajobbins: Gmail will ignore any dot/period in the email address as if it never existed.

Best thing ever! I have accounts with places where I put the . in various places so I know if I'm getting spammed or not.

Eh? What if my gmail actually has dots?

Try sending one to yourself without the dots...

What else does gmail not "see"?

- + anything else? or everything else?

PhantomNVD

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#1891746 28-Oct-2017 10:52

Just today I now own someone’s “Truworths” shopping account and someone ELSE’ PlayStation account (which I can’t reset without knowing the security questions, but has no ‘unsubscribe’ option either 🙄

wonderferret

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#1891820 28-Oct-2017 12:46

I have a similar problem in that I own a domain that a certain brewery used for their advertising catch phrase. The number of people who use that domain for signing up to services as either a primary or recovery email address is staggering. Password reset emails on a daily basis. On the plus side I have enough pizza vouchers etc to eat pizza for the reset of my life and never pay

freitasm

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#2042465 22-Jun-2018 14:56

On a similar vein, I think someone was trying to reset the password on a "freitas.m" at gmail address today because I got about five or six confirmation request/2FA notifications on my smartphone, which I promptly denied of course.

Someone probably trying to setup a new Android device and thinking THEIR email address is freitas.m... Which obviously is not.

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1eStar

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#2042986 23-Jun-2018 22:17

Or a bot trying to brute force a password change on your account, many people still without 2FA.

Varkk

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#2043400 25-Jun-2018 09:28

I also have an early Gmail account firstinitial.lastname@gmail so I get a few of these. One for some guy in New Jersey, I got his water bill and keep getting notices of snow closures for his kid's school. I replied to both initially and while the water utility thanked me and I never eeceived another one, the school never replied and keeps sending em stuff. I also had another one in Texas who donated to a Republican congressman and the NRA. Those wouldn't let me unsubscribe as well so they got reported as spam. Next was a girl in Salt Lake City who used my address for her Amazon account and a concert ticket company. I keep getting emailed electronic tickets for hip-hop shows. I wonder if she had been able to attend. Then this week someone signed up for Groupon in Chicago. Despite multiple attempts to unsubscribe Groupon kept sending the latest deals through. They are now reported as spam.

freitasm

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#2043409 25-Jun-2018 09:40

And now I received an account confirmation for a food distributor. I've reset the password, check around and no orders or credit card in place, so I changed all the details to my own. Whoever created the account will not use that one as there's no way for the person to convince the company it's not my account now.

This just shows that developers who write systems that allow creating accounts without confirming emails first are idiots.

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SpartanVXL

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#2043472 25-Jun-2018 11:29

From memory, you can skip the security questions for Playstation accounts (Sony Online). Initiate the password recovery and then modify the url to skip that step.

I know this because some joe in the US decided to use my gmail as well for his account. On the plus side I now have a US region PS account (it was a new account with nothing except his details registered).

Dairyxox

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#2043491 25-Jun-2018 12:29

Nope, the PSN one doesn't work anymore. Sony are a bit more security conscious now, and the loophole has been closed up.

freitasm

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#2145888 15-Dec-2018 18:03

Continuing this... Today I received two Samsung account password reset emails (not a notice of password change but the emails to initiate the "I forgot my password" process). I have not forgotten the password (thanks LastPass) neither have I clicked the "I forgot my password" link.

Five minutes later I get a couple of emails with subject "Test" from a M Freitas (a female first name actually) sent to my gmail address from a different gmail address - the person was obviously testing to see why is she not receiving the reset emails...

A couple of weeks ago I got a Pinterest email asking to confirm the email address. I immediately clicked the I "forgot my password" link and after receiving the email to start the process I took over the (empty) account - password changed, name and country changed, language changed from Portuguese to English. Funny how Pinterest created the account before the email was confirmed (like I do on Geekzone).

Last week I got a couple of emails with some invoice details for payment. The problem here is that I couldn't reset the password on that site because they ask for an id (passport or driver's licence) and email address - also the option to stop receiving emails requires you to login to change it (again stupid developers who 1) do not confirm email address and 2) put unsubscribe behind login pages).
In this case I think the personal record is actually created by a business person and the person put any email in the field (unlike public websites where people are responsible for creating their own profiles).

Anyway, emails from this sender now go to the bin so whatever happens with the financial accounts is not my problem...

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Batman

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#2145907 15-Dec-2018 20:18

Are these due to people giving the wrong email address or senders typing the wrong email address though? I have found that when you fill out paper forms or give information over the telephone the chances of wrong transcribing is high

freitasm

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#2145910 15-Dec-2018 20:26

Batman: Are these due to people giving the wrong email address or senders typing the wrong email address though? I have found that when you fill out paper forms or give information over the telephone the chances of wrong transcribing is high

Read my reply again and you will see it's both cases, under different types.

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freitasm

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#2149202 22-Dec-2018 09:41

This time was a photographer who opened an account with a stock photography site...

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#2170330 30-Jan-2019 18:35

so, using the collective knowledge of this thread, is setting up an email address with a common word/common name/common something, followed by 4 numbers a good idea? thanks

Behodar

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#2170331 30-Jan-2019 18:38

So long as they're not your PIN :)

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