This seems like such needless hassle and pain for everyone involved. If these companies just adopted a username system like most video games, where the user gets to pick any name they want and some arbitrary numbers get tacked on to the end, then this situation would be totally solved.
'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
81–90 of 164 posts
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#82I wonder how many of the fake orders could have been cancelled by the restaurants themselves if they had tried to verify the phone number of the new customer (new phone number and/or address). Maybe an SMS for verification (fails in case of SIM-swapping) or pre-payment in case of a new customer. Assuming that there are viable methods for pre-payments.
I think if they choose to avoid any kind of verification of contact information they don't have good reason to complain in cases like this.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#83I grabbed a short 2-letter Twitter handle within a few months after they launched. A few years ago I had someone used SIM hijacking to steal access to my phone number. This failed to get access to my Twitter account because I never set up a recovery phone number, however he got access to my Facebook and a few other accounts. I got T-Mobile to fix the SIM swap, but after 3 nights of harassment I just changed my handle…
How would they know the phone number associated with your account?
They may have had their Twitter handle on their CV.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#84I remember getting a demand I surrender my HoTMaiL address to somebody in a very threatening email to my address way back in 1998. It was kind of surreal back then as the internet was still fresh. Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves.
Yep, I get the same. My Gmail is a simple first initial + surname, and I've received payslips, job offers and, most entertainingly, invitations to speak at a neurosurgery conference in Brazil.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#85I remember getting a demand I surrender my HoTMaiL address to somebody in a very threatening email to my address way back in 1998. It was kind of surreal back then as the internet was still fresh. Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves.
I have a domain I've used pretty much just for email for the past 25 years. The domain is similar in a kinda h4cker l33tsp34k way to the name of a SaaS that started up about 8 years ago and offers a free trial. Now I get multiple emails a day due to people being clever and using their made up name @ my domain for their test accounts.
It was hard to filter it at first since people kept exploring areas of the trial that generated novel message templates and the messages seemed to come from an endless supply of unique hosts.
At one point I contacted the SaaS company about it but they told me there was "nothing they could do" even when I promised I was the only user at that domain and I had no intent to sign up to their service with it.
I used to just log into their trial and delete the account, but while trying to automate this I figured out a better way to do my filters so the emails don't really bug me anymore (except in the cases when someone picks an alias I already have in use).
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Gmail domain will deliver email to an email address regardless of periods in the username. My email address is first name period middle initial period last name. I can a period between any letter, all letters or none and I can still receive it.
Yeah, the story goes that very early on it let two people register joe.blow and joeblow.
PayPal let someone else add my Gmail address to their account, so I have to use a +paypal in my own account email.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#87I remember getting a demand I surrender my HoTMaiL address to somebody in a very threatening email to my address way back in 1998. It was kind of surreal back then as the internet was still fresh. Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves.
Likewise I have no fewer than three people trying to use a gmail address I've had since 2003 as their own. It's extremely frustrating - one even sent me $45,000 in a mistaken paypal transfer and then when I reversed the charges I was hit with an overdraft since I had made a Paypal purchase (which would ordinarily come from my direct bank funds) not knowing the money had been sent to me in error. It shouldn't be this…
When using Gmail to compose an email, sending to another gmail user, it shows me their profile icon. This has stopped me from sending to the wrong firstname.lastname@gmail.com variant several times. I don’t know if other providers do this but it’s something.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#88This seems like such needless hassle and pain for everyone involved. If these companies just adopted a username system like most video games, where the user gets to pick any name they want and some arbitrary numbers get tacked on to the end, then this situation would be totally solved.
'I want your Instagram#0000 account'
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#89There's a similar story on the reply-all podcast about a group trying to take a woman's Snap Chat handle because it was Lizard.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#90This seems like such needless hassle and pain for everyone involved. If these companies just adopted a username system like most video games, where the user gets to pick any name they want and some arbitrary numbers get tacked on to the end, then this situation would be totally solved.
The problem is that these usernames are used to represent companies. They say "Follow us on social media: @Swann" but "Follow us on social media: Swann#58139" would be much harder for customers and potential customers to remember, and could lead to fat-fingered phishing and other issues.