Reply from contact form used ex-BF's name. How?!

November 2, 2015 3:55 PM

Yesterday I used a website's contact form to ask a question. In the form, I wrote my question and gave them my name and email address. Today, I received a reply from them addressed to my ex-boyfriend. Instead of "Dear Kinetic," they replied, "Dear Kinetic's ex-boyfriend's name." I contacted the company and asked them how this happened, and they claim to have no idea. They're forwarding the screenshots to their IT department. I'm using a new computer, I haven't seen or spoken to him years. I did not write his name on the contact form. How did this happen??
posted by kinetic to Computers & Internet (29 answers total)

Is it possible that at some point (maybe years!) in the past, your email address was somehow associated with his name for this this company? That would be my first guess.
posted by brainmouse at 3:57 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

I agree with brainmouse, or do they use some sort of hosting service for their forms that would have known about a prior association?
posted by getawaysticks at 4:00 PM on November 2, 2015

Did your ex-boyfriend use that email address to contact them or something? I assume your email address is already in their system with your ex-boyfriend's name from a previous correspondence.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:01 PM on November 2, 2015

Did they use his full (first & last) name, or just his first name? If just the first, I'd assume it was a mistake by a human who was looking at one thing and typing another, and just an odd coincidence that the name happens to be the same as your ex's.
posted by insectosaurus at 4:03 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: It's a relatively new company; I've never ordered anything from them until a few weeks ago, I've never emailed them before, and this was via their online "contact us" form, where I never wrote his name.

They used his first AND last names.
posted by kinetic at 4:04 PM on November 2, 2015

How did this website come to your attention?

My guess would be that they bought a contact list from a vendor, targeted an ad at you, and your previous association came with it.
posted by Dashy at 4:07 PM on November 2, 2015

Response by poster: The company is Overtone; they sell hair care products. I read about it for the first time a few weeks ago here, placed an order, then used the contact form for a question.
posted by kinetic at 4:12 PM on November 2, 2015

Did you pay with a credit card that was once jointly shared with him? I get mail addressed to an ex of mine, even after a half dozen moves, because we once shared a credit card.
posted by RustyBrooks at 4:13 PM on November 2, 2015

Response by poster: Paid with PayPal; he's never had access to the account.
posted by kinetic at 4:14 PM on November 2, 2015

So, I'm not especially proud of it (an obvious lie), but many years ago I used the email address of somebody I hated any time I had to get through some stupid spammy registration wall in order to get access to some bullshit online. It filled me with all sorts of schadenfreudic glee to think about all the spam she got because she was so mean to me. HAVE FUN CLICKING UNSUBSCRIBE, ASSHOLE.

Anyway, I can't be the only jerk out there who has done this. Of course I was smart enough not to use my real name, but perhaps your ex is both a jerk and a dummy.
posted by phunniemee at 4:16 PM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]

Is it possible your mail client is really badly misconfigured? Can you send a mail to yourself in the exact way you sent one to this company and search the headers for any evidence of his name?
posted by bensherman at 4:20 PM on November 2, 2015

Maybe the company bought email lists to target people for ads or something, and your ex-boyfriend used your email address. I have to think your email was in their system somehow.
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:21 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: To clarify, I didn't send an email; I used a Overtone.co's contact form on THEIR website.
posted by kinetic at 4:22 PM on November 2, 2015

sorry but... are you on any kind of meds? taken a sleeping pill before filling the form? (just trying to think of alternatives here)

do you know where the ex works now? it's not somehow related to that company?
posted by andrewcooke at 4:22 PM on November 2, 2015

How about browser auto-fill? Would his contact information EVER have been used in that browser, and then maybe there's a hidden field in their form that your browser "helpfully" auto-filled with some of his contact info? I know you said it's a new computer, but did you transfer any information from your old one? Or are you using Chrome with a Google login or anything else that might sync some browser configuration between your old computer and your new one?
posted by primethyme at 4:25 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: No meds. I even went back to their contact form and it autofilled in MY name, when I started typing in his name it didn't automatically fill in his name. I NEVER gave them his name at any point in time.
posted by kinetic at 4:25 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

he's never had access to the account.

Is it possible he at some point obtained access to it without permission?

(But then what, bought the same brand of cruelty-free hair dye with it? Or something else from a third party, from whom this company bought a list… I dunno, it's weird. Other "explanations" I thought of include (also) your falling into some kind of fugue state. Or you and your ex having extremely similar (but for one letter) first and last names, and you being just a little tired [and what, forgetting your name?]. Or your ex happening to work at that company. In the customer service department. And also having a very bizarre sense of humour. The odds of any of those happening are infinitesimal. I hope someone has an answer for you.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:30 PM on November 2, 2015

Best answer: Did you have your current email address back at the time that you two were dating?

Even if this website is new, they might be using some sort of third party application to forward messages from their customers. And perhaps that service has a database that associates your email with your ex's name – in case he ever bought something online and used your email?
posted by lisa g at 4:34 PM on November 2, 2015 [9 favorites]

Best answer: the website seems to be built on shopify (from looking at the page source).

if the contact form is handled by them then it could be processed using a database that supports multiple sites. that gives more ways for his name to be associated with your email (could be from some other site you shopped on together years ago, for example).

[on preview: what lisa says above.]
posted by andrewcooke at 4:35 PM on November 2, 2015 [18 favorites]

Best answer: And perhaps that service has a database that associates your email with your ex's name – in case he ever bought something online and used your email?

Or vice versa -- maybe you bought a gift and had it shipped to him, in his name, but had the order confirmations sent to your email address?
posted by jaguar at 4:54 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: From experience: there are definitely people sharing contact info who you would totally not expect to be doing it. I can tell because there are several variations on my name that keep showing up when I buy things from a new website, which simply aren't correct and I would never give anyone (like, with the wrong middle initial.) Weirdly, some of these originated from (as far as I can tell) one snail mail catalog order I made maybe ten or fifteen years ago - it filtered from there to several catalogs I never requested, to about two dozen different online retailers. There are also, as a result, several retailers who have multiple copies of me in their databases (same email, slight variations on name - also different emails with the same exact name) even though I've only ordered from them once. My mom's childhood nickname has also show up a few times, which could have only happened by people sharing and merging out-of-date data because she hasn't used it since the dawn of personal computers - it's appearing with a Yahoo address she created around 2002, which incorporates elements of her legal name only.

Though to be fair, my mom's problem might also be the result of an angry ex, I suppose. Almost everyone knows she hates that nickname.
posted by SMPA at 5:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

Or could it have to do with your mailing address? So, your email associated with a mailing address and that mailing address associated with ex's name?

My parent's got a collections call for an ex because the ex and I had shared a mailing address at one point. So the collection agency took the shared address and followed the trail back to every address that was associated with the two people (ex and me) that had that address. Viola, my poor parents got a call that my asshole ex is also owes someone money!
posted by Pax at 6:03 PM on November 2, 2015

Is your ex's name a common one and this could just be a crazy coincidence like you sometimes hear about on the telly?
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:14 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

This really sounds like errant autofill on your browser. Check your saved data.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:26 PM on November 2, 2015

The simplest explanation I can think of is that you and your ex have used the same device(s) in the past. You visited a few websites where trackers scraped your device's unique profile and you used signed up for something on whatever website with your email address, and some data aggregator(s) appended your email & device ID to a profile in their database. Your ex signed up for something on some website using his name. Somehow, the data aggregation algorithm put your ex's name & your email in the same profile in their database, because you were using the same machine, or machines, over and over. The company you recently corresponded with subscribed to that database to market to people and merged the info with their customer info.
posted by univac at 6:59 PM on November 2, 2015

If you used PayPay they would receive your physical mailing address from PayPal. He must have made an order from the same address.
posted by w0mbat at 8:06 PM on November 2, 2015

Did they use his full (first & last) name, or just his first name? If just the first, I'd assume it was a mistake by a human who was looking at one thing and typing another, and just an odd coincidence that the name happens to be the same as your ex's.

Even if it's first and last, unless his name is Benedict Cumberbatch, it could easily just be coincidence. And if his name is Benedict Cumberbatch, well, some people do find him pretty distracting.
posted by Sequence at 3:47 AM on November 3, 2015

This is not coincidence. First *and* last name of an ex, just by chance? Come on! They are obviously sharing a contact database with some massive vendor.

Personal experience: I paid with my credit card at a physical store a few days ago. I'd never been in there before - it's a new store. And they were using very nice iPad-based payment systems. I swiped, I finger-scratched, and she said, "Ok, you'll get an email with your receipt." I didn't provide an email address at any step, but clearly some back end somewhere already associates that credit card with that email address.

So yes, there are large (and growing) databases of names, credit cards, mailing addresses, and email addresses, all neatly tied together by a web of transactions. And the bigger these databases get, the more likely it is that they already know something about you - even if, as in this case, it is totally wrong.
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:59 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

(RedOrGreen, when I pay with Square that happens.)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:47 PM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]