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Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

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Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#11

Post by tyingq »

Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

"they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks)"

I had a bank account I thought I had closed, but hadn't. Finally noticed and closed it 10+ years later. We moved around a lot.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#12

Post by caseysoftware »

joncrane wrote: post #4

What about + signs? That's the trick I use.

In theory, providers/servers should ignore everything from the + to the @ so that should work just about everywhere else. And since most forms don't filter that out, you can make numerous "unique" addresses connected to a single one.

Now odds are, someone is going to respond with the one service where the + becomes significant..

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#13

Post by Santosh83 »

ses1984 wrote: post #7
Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

Set up a filter? Did you ever try to contact the institution where the emails come from?

Yes, I do have it filtered. And yes, contacted all the institutions. They don't bother at all in updating their records. And these are banks and other financial institutions. One would think they'd take the integrity of their data more seriously.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#14

Post by boogies »

Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

> At this point I'm sorely tempted to delete my email and start over with another service provider.

Why not? Or you could start over without deleting your current email and go into Gmail settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Add a forwarding address, and make it forward all of your emails to your new provider, where it should be easy to sort all emails from your old address to a certain folder or tag that you only check and clean, say, once a week (for any senders that don’t have your new email).

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#16

Post by pricechild »

caseysoftware wrote: post #12
joncrane wrote: post #4

What about + signs? That's the trick I use.

In theory, providers/servers should ignore everything from the + to the @ so that should work just about everywhere else. And since most forms don't filter that out, you can make numerous "unique" addresses connected to a single one. Now odds are, someone is going to respond with the one service where the + becomes significant..

> providers/servers should ignore everything from the + to the @

Why? I'm not sure it has ever been a standard and it's certainly not a default implementation for most providers?

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#17

Post by tzs »

Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

> But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years without ever wondering why they aren't getting the routine emails they're supposed to get or even why they aren't getting the OTP email they had generated?

Perhaps they also get paper statements in the mail and text message notifications, and don't even know that they also are being sent redundant emails?

(It can go the other way, too. I think I've got some of my financial institutions configured to only send me email and text. If one was also still sending paper statements and those were going to the wrong address, I'd never notice).

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#18

Post by AltruisticGapHN »

I still get occasional emails for `firstnamelastname@gmail.com` while I registered `firstname.lastname@gmail.com`

Which seems to contradict what the article says, since the article suggests anyone who registered my `firstnamelastname@gmail.com` would own mine.

Or is the article suggesting actually nobody ever registered `firstnamelastname@gmail.com` and some idiots just think "oh i need to write to firstname lastname" (one of many who share my firstname/lastname in French) and they just compose that email address? I don't get it.

edit: but moral of the story I think it's really a bad idea to register based on a real firstname/lastname -- I'm tired of getting junk ... and worse, getting invoices for other people for a service I also use. I got confused once and actually made a payment which was not meant for me >_>

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#19

Post by mwexler »

Santosh83 wrote: post #13
ses1984 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Set up a filter? Did you ever try to contact the institution where the emails come from?

Yes, I do have it filtered. And yes, contacted all the institutions. They don't bother at all in updating their records. And these are banks and other financial institutions. One would think they'd take the integrity of their data more seriously.

Yeah, this is a tough one. You can't just have random people saying "please change this email for another person" without permission, on one hand, but you violate other codes if it's clear you send med or financial info to the wrong people. That's why you get so little actual info in emails from bank and medicals these days.

But without a confirmation process to verify correct emails, this will continue as a fact of life, just like wrong phone numbers in the last generation, and wrong postal addresses in the gen before that.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#20

Post by LatteLazy »

Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

You can filter your gmail based on the TO field (so anything without the dot goes to spam) if you like. I've done the same thing myself intentionally: I give the dot-less version to sites/companies where I need to receive an email or two (account confirmation etc). Then I manually grab them from spam and then forget the whole thing knowing I'll never see the other crap they send me.

Hope that helps, as someone with a common name I sympathize enormously.

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