I get emails for someone in Melbourne who shares my name. Mostly about his broadband service and tennis club, but I also had a few with payroll details of the company he apparently runs. Obviously I don’t know what his real email address is, but I did try to track him down. I found a person with the same name, also in Melbourne, and emailed him, but he said it wasn’t him. So there must be two of them.
I emailed his broadband provider and told them it was the wrong address. The first time it had no effect but I contacted them again and they seem to have stopped.
I also bizarrely had someone else set up a Facebook account in my name a few years ago, using my Yahoo email address, and then send friend requests to some of my friends. I think that was some kind of hacking attempt - they must have had access to my Yahoo email to do this, right? - so I changed my passwords and retook control of the duplicate account and shut it down. I still occasionally accidentally reactivate it, though. Facebook doesn’t delete accounts that you deactivate, and reopens them if you log in again. So if my browser autocomplete puts my Yahoo email address instead of my Gmail one into the FB login, I can accidentally open the duff account again.
A few years back, I started receiving emails from wedding planning businesses, photographers, videographers, honeymoon travel, florists, wedding party outfitters… basically EVERYTHING one could possibly need for any type of wedding; in greater Denver CO. At the time, I was living outside of Cleveland OH.
My email address was different by one character (substitue a numeral zero for the letter O). We figure the woman who owned the other email address had visited a bridal fair and gave her email address; and a number of the recipients mis-read it.
Within maybe ten minutes of internet snooping, I learned this woman’s full name, birthdate, address, phone numbers, parents’ and grandparents’ names and addresses, fiance and his parents’ names and addresses, A PICTURE OF HER DRIVER’S LICENSE, wedding date and location, reception location, honeymoon destination and so much more.
Had I ANY desire to assume her identity, it’d have been SO easy to do!
There’s a man in TN who is apparently an idiot and doesn’t realize that my email address isn’t his. He signs me up for some service or another about every month or so. He’s horribly behind on his bills and frequently gets rejection notices from FastLoans69.com and equivalent websites. A couple months ago I got an email from his insurance company notifying him he would soon be dropped due to nonpayment. So, I emailed the man back explaining that I was Firstname Lastname, but not the Firstname Lastname he was looking for. I asked him if he could inform the other gentleman of his idiocy for me - and he thanked me and said he would.
I just received another Hunger Games email, this one was for a stuntperson rehearsal the next day. I didn’t want some stuntperson with my last name to get in trouble for not showing up so I replied “Sorry, wrong email, I am not the person you know.”