Who are these people that don't know their own email address?

January 27, 2017 10:10 AM

Since creating my Gmail account, there have been close to 100 people that thought my Gmail address is theirs. I receive all sorts of messages because someone mistakenly provided my email address. I'm really curious as to why this is is such a common mistake, but I'm too tech-immersed to even speculate. I'm wondering if anyone here knows someone that made this mistake and provided an explanation. Even an informed guess will be better than than "wha?" I currently have.

Some details:
People I know with the same email address format (first initial + last name) also experience this quite often. People I know with the same address format get similar amounts of mistaken emails.

I don't count anything that might be spam or intentionally providing an incorrect address.

There's no demographic consistency - age,sex, region vary.

Straight Talk wireless provides password reminders in plain text! Avoid!

Homeadvisor.com gives users access to their accounts by just clicking a link in their emails. It allows people to request quotes on things like a Lazy River to surround ones house (plus drawbridge of course), a scale reproduction of the Law & Order SVU Precinct, and a Chuck-e-Cheese anamatronic band for the living room. If one were so inclined (but only if that person was not acknowledging text & Facebook messages saying that they are providing the wrong address to dozens of companies which resulted in literally hundreds of non filterable emails). Avoid!

posted by yorick to Technology (7 answers total)

I'm sorry, but "Wha?"
posted by humboldt32 at 10:12 AM on January 27, 2017

Not sure I understand the mystery; people make typos. Jsmith@gmail accidentally becomes Ksmith@gmail.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:16 AM on January 27, 2017

I'm confused about your confusion. I have a first initial + last name gmail address and have occasionally received mistaken emails of this type. People with the last name mistype or get confused when entering their email into a web site or people trying to reach them mistype or get confused. (Perhaps their email is [e-mail] and they forget and type [e-mail] into a newsletter sign up page, or perhaps they wrote their name sloppily on a cocktail napkin.) It happens rarely because my last name is rare. I would speculate that your last name is relatively common?
posted by reren at 10:19 AM on January 27, 2017

Not everyone uses their email address a lot.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:19 AM on January 27, 2017

I have both firstnamelastname@gmail and firstinitiallastname@gmail (Early adopter!) I receive some of the mentioned mistake emails. I break them into three categories. One, a spelling mistake by the sender. Think "docter" instead of "doctor". Two, a mistake by the person who wrote it down or an assumption as to what the provider service was. Think, @gmail instead of @hotmail. Third, are just frigging morons who really don't know or don't care.

I have one person who contacted me looking for some emails that may have been sent to my initial addy who had a different first name, same last name. I forward to her all the emails that come in for her. The initial ones were documents related to a mortgage so she was rightfully freaking about her privacy. We have since become internet friends exchanging pleasantries whenever I forward to her an errant email.
posted by AugustWest at 10:20 AM on January 27, 2017

This happens to me all the time. The weirdest thing is that I get emails addressed to addresses that look NOTHING like mine. Say my real address is [e-mail]. I will get emails addressed to

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

There is no rhyme or reason to it, as far as I can tell. Whenever I ask gmail customer support about it, they shrug.

There is someone with an email somewhat close to mine who checks into a Hilton Garden Inn in Abilene, Texas once a month. I have tried to get these emails to stop coming to me. There is no way to get my address of the list, because MY ADDRESS IS NOT ON THE LIST. But still, the emails come.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:21 AM on January 27, 2017

My wife has this. She has a very specific, not at all a name gmail address. It could be considered generic/not a real gmail address I guess, but she has a TON of people creating accounts and the like for things they would want access to (dating sites with actual profiles, music services, real estate services, tumblr accounts etc). It seems to be not spam stuff (creating a fake account to encourage use) but just people using a fake gmail address. Same as you it is non-nation/language specific.

She has no idea to stop it. It seems to be stupidity from people that decide they don't want to link their real email address to stuff (even though they need to) to make one up and hers is generic enough that people choose it in high numbers.
posted by Brockles at 10:24 AM on January 27, 2017