I also got into Gmail in the beta, and my account is a plain first-initial-last-name address that is used by many other people with the same last name as me. Either they don't know their own email address or they are just intending to use it as a spam dump, I get an incredible amount of mail for other people. Including financial records and invitations to all sorts of things.
The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
241–250 of 285 posts
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#242Someone used my email to sign up for Instagram ~10 years ago or so. I never got a mail or any kind of verification, so I didn't know. Only found out when I tried to sign up myself a few years ago, and "the address is already in use". So I took forgot password, and got the email. I tried to get support to move the other account so I could create my own, but they never responded. Luckily the account linked to my mail h…
I suspect this happens most with people using a full size keyboard and the numeric keypad - when numlock is off, they miss that the numbers didn't get entered and boom, there's your address instead.
I suspect you never see this with people whose number-after-name was 4 or 7, because they won't be entering a valid email address.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#243I have the equivalent of billg@gmail.com, with a common first name (but an uncommon spelling, at least for English-speaking countries).
Nowadays there's a lot of different people who try to use my address, but for a long time, most issues originated from a single person. At one point I received a Christmas wishlist from his nephew, to which I responded that I was not planning on giving any gifts this year, and would instead donate to charity. I didn't receive any response, but from what I remember, he didn't use my address after that.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#244My wife and I have OG mac.com accounts (registered a few minutes after Steve announced it). She got her first name. I had to settle for a slightly modified one, as I'll bet that "chris@mac.com" is probably Chris Espinosa.
We get lots of interesting stuff. Ironically, most of it is because Apple routes icloud.com and me.com to mac.com, and there's no way (short of a mail rule) to reject that.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#245I've had lots of similar experiences...
Favourite ones are:
Getting a copy of a AirBNB booking that just happened to be 5mins down the road from me. I resisted the urge to check-in as the person with the same name (emailed their friends on the booking to alert them).
I was also included in a neighbourhood spat somewhere in the states at one point. It took considerable effort to get across I was not their neighbour (they thought I was ignoring the issue). Eventually the person's wife engaged and it's been quiet since.
My wife has a fairly uncommon irish name but gets accounts created on platforms all the time by someone with the same name. Doesn't beat showing up to work and finding your boss has the same name. My wife was not happy when she decided to go on a sabatical. Payroll added the salary sacrifice to my wife's payroll account (they never checked employee IDs because surely two people in the same organisation wouldn't have the same name!!). :0
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#246I've resorted to setting a vacation response that tells everyobe who emails my Google account that it is mine and that it is not used for email; and I consider the account a backhole for email, and only use it for google services.
It still seems to get daily private communications, including private information between lawyers and their partners and cients, and doctors and clients. It's kind of amazing.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#247One of the schools I went to introduced alumni email forwarding fairly early on and allowed you to pick your own user name. I have a not rare but not super-common first name and was able to grab a user name with just my first name.
I haven't had it happen for quite a while, but for a fairly long period when email was relatively new to a lot of people I received a fairly regular stream of mail intended for other (presumably alumni) with the same first name, including some fairly sensitive emails with board meeting minutes and the like.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#248I have an OG account that's my first_name.last_name and I keep getting all kinds of other people's stuff.
Apparently, one of them is a doctor with a caribbean bank account. I was getting monthly balance updates for years.
I get confirmations of automobile service appointments and a bunch of other things.
Once, I even got an email from someone saying "This is MY name."
Occasionally, I get alerts on my phone that someone tried a password recovery. I gleefully decline and go about my day.
My name is neither common nor uncommon but I'm glad I got here first.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#249My dad was an early adopter of the internet so in the early 90s the whole family had firstname@aol.com addresses.
They ended up being completely overtaken by spam, but I wish I still had "alex@aol.com" if just for the novelty.
Re: The joys of owning an ‘OG’ email account
#250I have first initial + surname @ gmail, and I get invoices for someone who has a similar name but with "rn" instead of "m".