So far only one: Hinge dating app.
Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
81–90 of 444 posts
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#82I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…
I have the same problem and at least once a week someone tries to recover the password to “their” email address. I’ve gotten unlimited spam which my provider usually deals with well but sometimes there are periods of days where 5+ per hour get through. I’ve gotten dick pics and all kinds of receipts. I have hotel logins with the wrong name assigned because I could only make accounts by recovering one someone else made (so my hotel receipts have the wrong name on them).
I used to reply to misaddressed mail when it amused me. I used to string along a whole family of people that included me in group emails with racist Obama memes and pictures bragging of poaching.
I stopped replying to these when in another case I was asked to tell estranged and family member that their sister had cancer since I was the only one still in contact with her. I did inform them they had the wrong address at that point.
I’m still on a mailing list for senior members of a local police department and even was sent logon/passwords to some of their systems but I’ve learned not to try to correct these things, it’s just too much of a hassle. In the case of Venmo and Verizon I couldn’t get it fixed even with phone calls.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once had a irate business owner call me after I placed an order, demanding to know why their business name was in my e-mail address. After I explained it: "That's pretty clever."
HAHAHA Same but it was in the store of Sixt (a european car renting firm)
This has happened to me too, though not at Sixt. "Do you work for our company?"
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#84I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…
I had an entire Comcast account registered to someone with the same name in another part of the state that took me years to get rid of. Could even login with my email address because he registered it to my account and somehow the email side stepped verification.
Imagine dealing with Comcast customer support. Then imagine not even being a customer anymore trying to get this resolved. Now imagine explaining how you're not the person on the account yet have the same name and how this is a huge privacy/security violation.
Took years to get rid of. One day I'm waiting for a silly collections bill or something to show up in "my" name for the other person.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#85U.S. political campaigns are by far the worst offender. If you give your real email and phone number to one candidate, twenty unrelated candidates will contact you next cycle.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#86In my case it's been from sites that got hacked or were discontinued. I don't investigate every single item of spam to see where it's addressed to, but some of the major data breaches like LinkedIn and Dropbox feature prominently. There's also an address I used as admin for a long-defunct domain.
In practice it's hard to differentiate between the sale of an address and a data breach, especially for smaller sites where the breach may not be publicized at all.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#87No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#88U.S. political campaigns are by far the worst offender. If you give your real email and phone number to one candidate, twenty unrelated candidates will contact you next cycle.
This. It's relentless. Both email and SMS spam.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#89Years ago (> 10) I used me+hertz.com@mydomain.com registering for Hertz.
I started getting spam on it. Tried contacting them to let them know someone was selling customer email addresses and of course they just responded that obviously I had a virus or something.
Mostly unrelated, but just before I responded I was modifying a custom milter to filter messages based on the byte string "Copyrights =C2=A9 Xsolo All Rights Reserved" because this particular spammer likes to copyright his gmail spam. Weird but convenient.
Re: Ask HN: People who use different emails everywhere, who sold you to spammers?
#90I mostly use one single address, but I can tell you exactly where all the spam comes from: idiots whose name is the same as mine. They give my address as if it belonged to them. Probably they created addresses like narag33@server and they believe that it's narag@server instead. So not only I receive all the spam from dubious sites that they suscribed to, but also their legitimate mail from lists and friends. My names…
There's a in Australia so occasionally I get stuff for @gmail.com. I got his golf club membership info sent to my email address. I've gotten his dinner reservation info sent to my email address. For like 2 months I got his paystub sent to my email address.
I really wish I could get his phone bill sent to my email address so I could call and tell him he could have gotten a larger raise