I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this…
@ShadowFacts have you considered that you have a friend or an enemy, that is signing you up for things under your email address as a practical joke (esp. the sex offender registration) just so that your inbox is always crammed full of stuff.
I can’t rule that out, no. But the various things they are signing up for are so…specific, it feels like a real person doing real things. But I can’t prove that.
There was an insurance agency and that occasionally stumbled their email with mine.
I received a fair amount of confidential information about some of their insured.
I got an email from one of their insured who had had a power outage. They wanted to know if they could just make a list of everything that was in the freezer that had spoiled. I replied that they’d have to bring the contents to the office. That was the end of those e-mails.
The most amusing one to me was, as a male, I somehow was on the mailing list of a sorority alumni group. After a while, I finally contacted the main list admin to let them know I should be removed, but after that I started getting private messages sent to my gmail that talked about how they were sorry about the divorce and how my husband had cheated on me…At which point I emailed again to get my email address removed from whatever profile it had been added to.
I still receive misaddressed emails, but none for that particular person whose life I hope is going better.
//i\\
I get these ALL the time. I also have firstname.lastname@gmail. There are at least 4 other people who think that’s their e-mail address - I have identified two of them (firstname.lastname8 and firstnamelastname88 - different people). I assume that when scribbled, people assume the 8 is the @ and just ignore it.
PennsylvaniaZak88 is apparently a really nice guy who was paying for multiple memberships to a yoga studio. For several months, me, my wife, and her best friend were voyeurs into the dramatic goings-on as one of the favorite instructors quit and there was some scandal involved. After one of the people on the chain started another chain with EVERYONE who was a member that included MY e-mail address as the best way to contact PennZak, I finally had to reply. Utter radio silence after that - although I still get the service notices for his three cars (2 Jeeps and a Buick).
MichiganZak8 is retired, plays golf, travels quite a bit, and, based on his destinations, seems to have done quite well for himself. I have, so far, resisted the temptation to cancel his reservations after the confirmation is sent to me, but I can’t promise that it won’t happen in the future.
CaliforniaZak is a practicing physician. After two rounds of receiving patient records, I contacted the hospital, pointed out the HIPPA violation, and that ended quickly. I don’t seem to get other things for him, so I assume it was the hospital that made the mistake.
TexasZak is on the Board of a privately-owned vacation homeowners association. Seems like a really nice place and after getting all of their end-of-year audit information and being asked my opinion on the need for repaving the main loop road, I had to contact the Treasurer (and helpfully pointed out a mistake she made in her spreadsheet) to let her know she had the wrong Zak. That one is the best though, as we still occasionally correspond. She’s trying to get me to bring my family to visit! But, one - it’s a long damn way away and two - it’s in friggin’ Texas. No thanks!
I also have a gmail address with first initial.lastname and apparently a distant relative of mine has the very same first and last name, even same age. I would get emails for his wife, now ex I think, for car oil change appointments, other appointments, and I got tired of it.
So I just started cancelling them. Sorry Stephanie, you no longer have a service appointment for your car on Tuesday. I cancelled it. After awhile these notices stopped coming, I think she got the hint to use a different email address.
This is likely not the OP’s issue but once my Amazon account was hacked and the hacker used my email address to sign up on hundreds of web sites so my inbox would be flooded and I would not see the Amazon orders he was making. (I used a unique email address for that account.) I figured out what was going on pretty quickly. But that was hundreds (maybe thousands) of emails in a few hours, so maybe not what the OP is experiencing.
This is a good reason to turn on MFA for your Amazon and Google accounts (well, any that allow it). IT security is a part of my job so I never fail to bring this up. 