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I tried reaching out, but my email was probably ignored because they thought it was a scam.
I'm sure that sending that info insecurely at least... violates mastercard agreements? I dunno. I just hope people checked and double-checked what emails they send.
Luckily, I didn't have any issues. I just wrong a short, blunt email saying this is the wrong email address, I have no relationship with this company, and they realized the mistake and left me alone. That said, this was a European rental car company (and a European collector, I assume). The American ones might have been more aggressive.
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…
For a while, any time I got signed up for something where they provided a cell phone, I’d use my Google Talk number to text the cell phone and inform them. I don’t really bother any more, as generally people are just confused and it ends up being a lot of back and forth.
A sampling of the other emails I’ve received over the years:
- Nude photos from a woman who, when I informed her that I wasn’t the person she meant to send them to, got quite offended that I didn’t want her pictures. After a little back and forth she realized her mistake (and I deleted the email and the pictures).
- Pictures and video of a baby, along with emails criticizing me for not wanting to see my baby, and not supporting her.
- There’s a man in Texas and a man in Florida who have both used my email address to sign up for what could only charitably be described as dating sites. These sites all seem to use the same base software, and have no way to remove your account. With these I’ve taken to resetting the password and deleting the account. Sometimes I’ll have a little fun and change the bio to something like “I hope you like STDs, because that’s all I’m bringing to the table”.
- Receipts for web purchases. Mostly these are boring, clothes, home goods and the like. However one person used my email address when purchasing several hundred dollars in sex toys. The email included his name (same as mine) and his address, along with a detailed accounting of his purchase. I was tempted to print that and mail it to the address with a nice note advising him to use his own email address next time.
- Job search emails. Sometimes it’s scheduling interviews, sometimes it’s notification of a start date and some paperwork. I’ve also gotten an email with the results of a background check that wasn’t favorable.
- The absolute craziest one was an email exchange that lasted over a year. This man in California would send texts from his phone to a bunch of different email addresses complaining to his wife, who had left him (and was included on the emails). He would rant about her new boyfriend, complain that she had stolen money from him and wouldn’t visit with his kid. It was a bit sad but I tried repeatedly to convince him that I wasn’t the person he thought I was, even going so far as to send him a selfie and asking him if I looked anything like the person he thought he was emailing (his response: yes, but you’ve gained a few pounds! Jackass.). I never did convince him, and he refused to stop sending emails. He told me I should just block him. I suspect he was having some mental health issues and perhaps wasn’t all there. The emails finally stopped. I kind of wonder if he passed away or ended up in a facility without access to his phone.
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?
I have an uncommon last name OG email address. One time, I got someone's rental car reservation. A few months later, I got something from the agency about the car being in a crash. A few months after that, I got an email from a collection agency. Luckily, I didn't have any issues. I just wrong a short, blunt email saying this is the wrong email address, I have no relationship with this company, and they realized the…
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…
OMG some guy has signed me up for EVERYTHING from Home Depot to every dating site, to porn sites to cheating sites. It's absurd. I get daily emails from these services still even with unsubscribes and blocks. They're insessant.
Linkedin is criminal in this department.
I feel sorry for the guy who registered foo@bar.com
Probably his most famous domain was corp.com, which was recently bought by Microsoft because it turns out that older versions of Windows and other Microsoft products actually invited people to use corp.com for their internal Active Directory names. Problem is, when those machines are outside the internal network, they're constantly trying to share passwords and other sensitive data with corp.com.
More here:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/02/dangerous-domain-corp-co...
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/microsoft-buys-corp-com-...