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The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#11

Post by ggop »

Didn't realise this was a common problem. My gmail address has about 9 filters with ~100 terms each. Would be nice if Google automatically had an allow list with countries where I will accept account recoveries requests from.

Worst though is that PayPal created an account for another person with my email address. Apparently they don't send out the initial prove-your-ownership email. Still unresolved because PayPal refuses to believe me that I own the address, even though they don't even want to send a test email.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#12

Post by stevesearer »

Similarly, on Office Snapshots, we regularly receive contact form messages from people who search stuff like ‘NFL headquarters’.

A lot of them are people releasing some political steam and we can usually tell if a company has been in the news based on the type of messages that come in.

I still don’t really understand how people make the mistake given the nature of our site, but it is what it is.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#13

Post by Baeocystin »

I was so happy when I was able to get my (exceedingly common) full name as my gmail address.

1.x decades later, I regret it. I get people's medical information, legal documentation, all of it. It is stunning to me the quantity of PII that flows into my inbox daily. Back when it was a trickle, I used to try and contact the people involved to let them know of the issue. It almost never worked out, and I got tired of getting yelled at.

At this point, I keep my account simply because if I were to close it, I don't trust whomever might have it next. It is what it is.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#14

Post by timcederman »

jameslk wrote: post #7

I have one of these accounts (it's a dictionary word), and I can confirm everything the author has said is true. I receive constant onboarding emails I can't opt out of, "so and so thinks you're cute" dating profile notifications, weekly account recovery notifications, all kinds of random crap that was meant for someone else but due to slight misspellings come to me, such as important contracts from lawyers, endless…

I abandoned my very short @yahoo.com address in the late 90s due to this. Maybe 1 out of 200 emails I received were actually for me.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#15

Post by irrational »

I have at least three people that have used my address for things as random as harbor freight and Redbox. Every month or so I’ll get an email receipt and it is always interesting to see what these other people are buying at harbor freight or renting from redbox. My wife has another woman who apparently doesn’t know her email address because she gets notifications about this woman’s spa appointments (it’s interesting how often this other woman gets Botox and lip injections), ballet lesson invoices for her two daughters, etc.

The crazy thing is that we don’t really have any way to contact these people. None of the invoices include identifying information other than what state the businesses are located in.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#16

Post by abalaji »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

Due to a bug, for a few months I received email addressed to google@gmail.com. This was years ago, when Gmail was still newish. I couldn't send mail from that address, but I sure did receive it. An endless torrent of weird junk, and a surprising amount of personal data, business secrets, and passwords. If I was maliciously minded I could have done a lot of damage. I spent those months trying to find any way to get a…

That's amazing, sounds like a blog post in and of itself.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#17

Post by madprops »

Tip: Don't use generic names like johnsmith@whatever. It might be your name but a lot of John Smiths are going to use that account on a variety of services they use, for some reason. If you do that prepare to receive a bunch of registration and password reset emails. I even got linked with some guy in another country who did a very expensive Uber ride, which was kindof scary.

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#18

Post by gowld »

zwayhowder wrote: post #8

For three years in a row I received an amazon gift card on father's day. Always intended for as far as I can tell the same person who has the same first initial and last name as me. I contacted Amazon about it the first time and they wouldn't cancel it or issue a refund because I was the recipient, not the purchaser. I worry that someone has been written out of their Dad's will because he thinks they have forgotten f…

Doesn't amazon have a "thankyou" feature to email the sender?

Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account

#19

Post by TMWNN »

timcederman wrote: post #14
jameslk wrote: post #7

I have one of these accounts (it's a dictionary word), and I can confirm everything the author has said is true. I receive constant onboarding emails I can't opt out of, "so and so thinks you're cute" dating profile notifications, weekly account recovery notifications, all kinds of random crap that was meant for someone else but due to slight misspellings come to me, such as important contracts from lawyers, endless…

I abandoned my very short @yahoo.com address in the late 90s due to this. Maybe 1 out of 200 emails I received were actually for me.

I have a four-letter Yahoo account from the 1990s. I have never used the address anywhere. It gets lots and lots of spam.
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