I have an email address in the form of [Cyril.Fotheringay-Phipps.1@gmail.com] (using my actual name). A couple of weeks ago I got an email completely in Spanish from BancoEstado (apparently a Chilean bank), but addressed to some other person and informing her that their client so-and-so had transferred $60,000 to her account.
The email was not addressed to [Cyril.Fotheringay-Phipps.1@gmail.com] but rather to [CyrilFotheringay-Phipps1@gmail.com]; however, gmail does not recognize dots in email addresses and if you omit them the email will be delivered anyway.
So I called the bank and they said someone must have accidently put down my email address and not to worry about it. OK.
Then today I got an email from T-Mobile - also addressed to [CyrilFotheringay-Phipps1@gmail.com] - saying Dear [Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps], thank you for your order of a Franklin T9 Mobile Hotspot Test Drive, and informing me that it would be delivered to an address in Brooklyn.
So I called T-Mobile and they said they don’t know why I would have gotten it and they confirmed that my cell number is not in their system, and said not to worry about it.
I have no suspicious charges on my credit cards or bank accounts.
I do not and have never had an account in either BancoEstado or T-Mobile, and don’t recall having ever had any sort of contact with either of them.
So the questions how do these people have (something close enough to) my email address, why would they be using it etc.; basically, what’s going on?
Some of it is going to depend on your name- I have a very uncommon last name and my first name is not too common , so I have multiple email addresses of the form first.last@something.com ( or something.net) My husband , however ( who has a different, common last name) always has a number - and he might be first.last1@our internet provider, and first.last12@gmail.com If he’s got the number 12 on his gmail account, that means someone else has( or had) first.last1@gmail.com - but it’s very possible he might accidentally give someone first.last1@gmail.com as his own email address.
I get a lot of email like that, too. Let’s say my name is “Fred Smith.” My email address is Fred.Smith at Gmail. Because Gmail doesn’t recognize the ., I get mail for Fredsmith, FredSmith, etc. at Gmail.
Many are order confirmations for things like Petco, Walmart, Sprint, etc. But the person’s real name is Ruth Thomas (which are on her receipts in the emails).
Why in the hell is she using FredSmith as an email address? It certainly can’t be a damn typo.
Fake shipping and package delivery notices have been going out by email to consumers for quite a while. Officials are concerned more consumers will fall for the scam as they do more and more shopping on line. Examples of these emails are fake notices, which may be shipping notices, package delivery notices or “order status” emails. Also look out for emails or texts that warn you about a problem with a delivery, that ask for account information for security purposes or ask you to open an attached “shipment label” in order to claim a package from a local office.
Me too. My e-mail consists of first-initial last-name @ gmail (with no dot in it). Moderately uncommon last-name. There is someone with same first-initial last-name and I get e-mails routinely that are clearly meant for her. Most are spam, but a few seem like for real. Some have that dot in the name, but I get them anyway.
What I wonder is: Hasn’t this other person figured out that she isn’t getting her e-mails?
Some e-mail senders apparently get the @ xxxx part wrong. There’s another person with same first-name last-initial @ not-gmail and I occasionally got mail @ gmail meant for her. (This person I actually managed to contact somehow, and strangely she lives in the same neighborhood as my father. We even agreed to do lunch someday, but it happens that I’ve never been back to that neighborhood since.)
Alternately, somebody you mailed in the past had their account compromised and their address book was pillaged. Since then, you’ve gone on a fraud-spam list and you’ll just be getting those emails for the forseeable future.
That’s a good possibility. I have a Gmail email account and for a lot of people that’s the ‘default’.
The interesting thing is I get some emails from someone in India, with a different first name than mine (my email is initial lastname @ gmail ). I get mails intended for some doctor in Canada (hospital job emails, etc). I also have gotten emails from a school in Virginia who are giving school info - I’ve had to reply back to say you have the wrong email.
Question for anyone following this thread: How many of you ever do this?
Me: When I get e-mails that are clearly intended for someone else, I sometimes reply to so advise the sender. I do this when the e-mail:
(a) has an identifiable sender or return address that at least appears to be legitimate,
(b) appears to be a legitimate message,
(c) appears to be important or at least something that might be of interest to the intended recipient.
I have never gotten a legitimate email that was intended for someone else. That’s probably because I have my own domain name so that rules out garbling the letters of a gmail account. But I have gotten phishing emails that were supposed to look like they were for someone else with malware or advertising attachments or links.
I have indeed gotten the occasional e-mails that were clearly intended for someone else, clearly legit, clearly possibly of some importance, and having a clear “From” address to reply to, all intended for this one person I described above. I does happen.
Upon replying to the senders to advise them, I’ve even gotten the occasional response from those senders thanking me for advising them.
Neither of these emails are spam - both are from highly reputable institutions and appear to refer to legitimate transactions, just ones involving other people.
If there’s some fraud involved, I’m curious as to what it could possibly be.
Re contacting the people involved, it’s not really an option. In the case of the BancoEstado one, I have the names of both people involved but no further contact information. (There is another email address copied, but that does not appear to be either of the people doing the transaction.) In the case of the T-Mobile one, the person named as the buyer is me (and no one else is copied).
Both emails specifically say they are automated emails and not to respond to them.
My name is pretty basic. Let’s call it Tom Donnor, and assume that “Donner” is both a common misspelling and also a common name on its own. My email address is TomDonnor @ gmail.com. I started getting some emails for TomDonner @ Gmail.com (or he got them for me, I can’t remember). At some point, we contacted each other, forwarding the email in question. We’ve developed a pretty solid little internet friendship over the years.
And then we started getting emails for Thomas Donnor. And then Thomas Donner. So we started a little email group that we’ll send out mis-sent emails to when we get them - especially if they seem important. In fact, Tom Donner found out I was getting married before my parents did, and I found out he was buying a house before his wife did. Next time I’m in DC, we’re grabbing a beer.
I too get a lot of misdirected email. Let’s say my name is John Smith, and my email is jsmith@gmail.com. I get emails for Jack Smith, Jason Smith, Jane Smith, from all over the world. One is somewhere in California, this person works for the wine industry and is worried about wine barrels a lot. Another lives near Atlanta and is apparently a stuntwoman, one time I received a PDF with Hunger Games shooting locations. Another lives in Australia, and one in the UK. The UK guy seems to be a commercial truck driver so he gets MOT emails.
I have actually figured out the real email addresses of a few of them and I try to forward important looking emails to them. I had a conversation with a guy in the UK and we are fairly certain we are related somewhere down the line.
I am always getting signed up for stuff. If there is an unsubscribe link I will click it, otherwise it gets reported as Spam.