The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by iJohnDoe » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:41 AM UTC

As you read through all of these comments you hope that there is some pattern of why all of this happens. Then, unfortunately, you come to the conclusion that there are hundreds of reasons why this happens.

People on the other end of the counter just type in what’s easy because they make minimum wage and don’t care, people on the other end of the phone that didn’t hear something and just type in what’s easy because they truly don’t care, people that truly don’t understand the internet and really think that their family members first name or last name, or any combination there of will magically get to them via email because no else has the same name.

Life is truly random and the truth is rather boring once you find out what really happened.

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

#62

Post by frabcus » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #9

Its pretty ridiculous that web services still allow you to sign up without verifying your email.

It’s even more ridiculous that it is 2020 and the only method to get a verified email is by sending an email with a link.

There should be a standardised protocol and flow which makes the experience much better for both users and developers.

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

#63

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

ggop wrote: post #11

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 re…

I get multiple account recovery requests per day. Google should have a good idea that they are not coming from me based on where I'm declining them from and where I log in correctly from, but they still spam me with those requests. I don't know if Advanced Protection blocks those requests, but I'm not willing to give up access to F-Droid just because Google can't be bothered to fix its account recovery process.

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

#64

Post by pugworthy » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:50 AM UTC

Sort of like having a 1 digit Steam ID I suppose. I used to get kicked off servers because it must be fake, and get offers to buy it. Never been taken over though.

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

#65

Post by paxys » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:51 AM UTC

frabcus wrote: post #62

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #9

Its pretty ridiculous that web services still allow you to sign up without verifying your email.

It’s even more ridiculous that it is 2020 and the only method to get a verified email is by sending an email with a link. There should be a standardised protocol and flow which makes the experience much better for both users and developers.

Yeah, and we could call this protocol SMTP and HTTP

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

#66

Post by dahdum » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:53 AM UTC

I get a steady flow of misdirected email for UK and SoCal namefellows, going on 10 years now. SoCal guy got roped into Scientology but the UK fellow has had a stellar military career, at least according to the intros I’ve seen.

The most interesting ones were about a trial where the defendants sold substandard steel to the military. I got added to the thread with their lawyers discussing strategy and sending attachments. I deleted it all after notifying them, their case made it into some national news stories.

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

#67

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

madprops wrote: post #17

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.

If someone signs up for Uber with your Gmail address, you can log into their account without changing their password using Google login. This is a very old Uber vulnerability that I know at least a few people have taken advantage of.

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

#68

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 4:59 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #60

iJohnDoe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the “smart” people at Google, their incompetence is astounding.

Don't they have like three different internal Javascript libraries or something?

Am a Googler who doesn't write Javascript, opinions are my own etc etc...

I don't know how many there are, but are you saying that 3 would be a lot? There's probably hundreds of internal libraries for other languages like Java, C++, Go, etc. 3 really doesn't seem excessive.

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

#69

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #13

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 ge…

I have my not-so-common name as my gmail address and I still get a ton of crap. The most frustrating is from a power company in Ohio that sends me billing statements every month. I contacted them to ask them to stop emailing me because I'm not the intended recipient. They said they can't stop emailing me because only the account holder is allowed to change the email preferences. Apparently my only recourse is to reset the password on the account and claim it as my own... for the last few years I've just been deleting the monthly emails.

I also get fun things like family photos from people I've never met before

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

#70

Post by Stratoscope » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:07 AM UTC

I don't have an OG@popularservice.com account, but I do own the .com for my last name. It's not a common name, but not too uncommon either.

So I do get fairly regular emails addressed to people who share my last name and forgot that their domain may be the same as mine but is a different TLD and not the .com. I don't have a wildcard catchall email set up but I do have the common ones like info@mylastname.com.

The most recent was someone who ordered business cards from Vistaprint and used my info@ address. I figured out who it was and emailed them at their own info@ address. (No, I didn't sign into their Vistaprint account, though I could have easily done a password reset.) Haven't heard back yet. I just hope they didn't put my domain on the cards. They probably did - time to reorder!