Received emails confirming new accounts I didn't set up. Crap?
January 24, 2018 9:03 AM   Subscribe

On Friday, I got an email from a website I never heard of before confirming that I had set up my account. I changed my email password. Today I got another email from a different website I had never heard of confirming my account. Now what?

The website I got an email from on Friday was Olymp Trade, today it was Pinzoo. I emailed Pinzoo and asked them to cancel the account and they said they would. I also emailed Olymp Trade to ask that they cancel the account but never heard from them. Both accounts show no activity. Do I need to change my email password again? Light my computer on fire? Before changing my password, I looked and Gmail doesn't show any unusual activity. Any idea what's going on here?
posted by kat518 to Computers & Internet (23 answers total)
 
Is it possible someone is mistakenly using your email address to sign up for stuff? I have (first initial)(lastname)@gmail.com and even though it's not a very common last name, I still get weird signups for people who seem to have forgotten to leave off a number or direct email to hotmail or whatever.
posted by zempf at 9:07 AM on January 24, 2018 [6 favorites]


This is just some idiot who doesn't know their own email address and is putting yours in, thinking it's theirs. It's very common and doesn't mean anything. I get these all the time. Ignore.
posted by joan_holloway at 9:14 AM on January 24, 2018 [13 favorites]


Response by poster: Maybe? I couldn't tell who signed up for the thing Friday but today, it looked like the person signing up for an account had a first name similar to the last three letters of my last name and a last name one letter off from my first name (like if my name was Joe Xyrbob, it appeared this person's name was Rob Moe).
posted by kat518 at 9:15 AM on January 24, 2018


Response by poster: Apologies for threadsitting and possibly overreacting. If these two things took place a month apart, I might not have noticed.
posted by kat518 at 9:16 AM on January 24, 2018


I have this happen all the time. My gmail is a fairly common word with no numbers after. What happens is people mistakenly enter what they think is their gmail when they sign up for stuff. Nothing nefarious, just absent-mindedness. Once, I got put on a list for a support group in California (where I don't live) and started getting emails asking for help setting up chairs and stuff. That's the only one where I made an effort to contact the sender and correct the mistake. (It goes without saying that I don't click on any unknown links.)
posted by lovecrafty at 9:24 AM on January 24, 2018 [5 favorites]


I have a friend whose Gmail address is "xxthomas@gmail.com" (obviously withholding the two identifying first initials).

You cannot imagine the amount of VERY PRIVATE emails he receives (insurance quotes, pics, the list goes on).

I'd just chalk this up to a similar email and someone rushing their typing.
posted by kuanes at 9:27 AM on January 24, 2018 [5 favorites]


People a) are useless b) not terribly good at telling their email addresses to other people. I've got one asshole I have to follow around reporting and shutting off accounts routinely and have done for two years now, except I got them thrown off Facebook a month ago right in the middle of announcing their engagement (at least the dating site signups stopped a while back) and that seems to have made it sink in. I've also got an old couple in Australia whose first names are my first and last name and damn do they love getting quotes for RVs, holiday packages, and solar panels. I've even asked RV salesmen to please tell the woman to stahhhhhp already.

My yahoo address is unusable because I was an early adopter and got first initial lastname and every L-name Lastname in the current and former British colonies think it's theirs. I couldn't even tell you how many "password reset" attempts I get a week.

Additionally, one of my accounts does seem to routinely get targeted by spambots that try to set our address up as their backup address. I just report as quickly as I see them.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:32 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


This happens to me all of the time, and I don't have a name based email, just an embarrassing circa 2004 one smiliar to bohochick -at -gmail. People think they're bohochick when they're actually bohochic or bohochicky or hobochick and boom... now I'm getting quotes from a car dealership or potential mates from a dating service.

I close the accounts and move on.
posted by kimberussell at 9:35 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


On the reset note, though: DO set up two-factor or whatever else highest offered security for your account, so when they think they forgot their password and submit two dozen change requests that they never receive, your account doesn't get frozen.

Keep in mind though that you can change your email password all day and it doesn't stop someone from using your email address on a sign-up form somewhere else. That's not a hacking attempt, it's just incompetence.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:38 AM on January 24, 2018 [5 favorites]


My name is Jane.Smith, and my email address is Jane.Smith@gmail.com. (It's not really Jane Smith - it's an equally common female name and a super common Asian surname.) I was so happy when I got a Beta test invite for gmail, so I could snag my full name as my email address. Now, I get email for every Jane Smith in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and OMG Hong Kong. Last night, a Jane Smith in Calgary signed up for Plenty of Fish. In the time it took me to go to the site, request a new password, reset the password, and unsubscribe from all emails, my inbox was flooded with horny Canadian dudes with usernames like Hockey201. (I shit you not.) I've gotten college acceptance messages, job and interview offers, bank statements, and children's report cards, among other things. I used to make an effort to correct these errors, but it's just too much now. I had to nip the POF thing in the bud because I didn't want my email addy associated with POF and then sold on to every other dating site out there, but usually, I just mark as spam and move on.
posted by ereshkigal45 at 10:30 AM on January 24, 2018 [7 favorites]


I agree with the others. I have @gmail.com, and I'm amazed at the other people with my same name who mistakenly put my email in things. AND even more amazed with people who have a different first name that starts with the same letter doing it. How the hell?
posted by tippiedog at 10:32 AM on January 24, 2018


My email address is my first+middle name at gmail. This happens to me almost every day. It's just folks entering the wrong email address when they sign up, they don't have access to any of your stuff. Unsubscribe, report it if possible, and move on. And two-factor authentication when possible. I've had lots of folks trying to sign in to my Facebook account and the like.
posted by puellaeterna at 10:35 AM on January 24, 2018


Yeah, mine is my first name and last initial @ gmail.com and it's ridiculous how many idiots there are with my first name and last initial. I have at least seven different people who do it regularly, and some of them have been doing it for YEARS. I wonder what they think when they don't get the email they expect. When it's personal, like someone trying to set up a group lunch, I reply and say wrong email. The rest I ignore. If it's a dating site (common) I block or set up a filter to the trash, because apparently my namesake is attractive and she gets a LOT of replies.
posted by clone boulevard at 10:36 AM on January 24, 2018


This is kind of the same thing that is happening in this not-too-old thread. Just someone that doesn't know their email address.
posted by deezil at 10:40 AM on January 24, 2018


There's a new phishing tactic out. I got a "you reset your email password, if this isn't you log in here and fix it" email ostensibly from eBay that looked *exactly* like a password reset email from eBay. I hadn't looked at eBay in over a year, hadn't logged into eBay in more than five years.

I did not click on the phishing email link. I opened a new browser window, went independently to eBay and reset my password because after five years I didn't know what it was. If it hadn't been so long since I had used eBay I might have fallen for it.
posted by jointhedance at 10:42 AM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


I get these all the time. I either unsubscribe or block the website on whim; if the website needs me to log in to unsubscribe, I'll log in, change any password that's there, and close the account; if it comes to my email, it's my account and nobody can say otherwise.

My email is an ordinary english word in a common mail domain, so I get a lot of misfires and signups from the people who didn't get into that mail domain as early as I did, and so their email is someword23@maildom.com, while mine is someword@maildom. It's no biggie. They didn't compromise me; they only caused a third-party to innocently send me email.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:51 AM on January 24, 2018


As an early Gmail adopter with a simple Gmail address I get quite an eyeful of misdirected emails, and yes many sign up notices, notices that some child needs permission for x, y and z, receipts, etc. I just delete or report spam for most of them and maybe let some folks know that their email didn't get to the right person for something personal and important.
posted by caddis at 12:22 PM on January 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


I get these all the time. I either unsubscribe or block the website on whim; if the website needs me to log in to unsubscribe, I'll log in, change any password that's there, and close the account; if it comes to my email, it's my account and nobody can say otherwise.

Same here. What I like best is to change their password to something like "icantfindmyasswithbothhands".
posted by JanetLand at 12:43 PM on January 24, 2018


In my own email address, i often make the same typo, theroa55 instead of theora55, and someone who has a similar gmail address to yours is likely doing the same. I ended up getting Instagram just to reclaim my email address. Typning is hrad.
posted by theora55 at 12:49 PM on January 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Nthing that this happens all the time. I have RLastname@gmail.com and I get probably 5-7 emails like this a week, including really, really personal stuff. I usually try to respond if it's something that seems important and ignore or unsubscribe for mistaken memberships and stuff. I love my simple email address but it does have its drawbacks.
posted by fancypants at 1:01 PM on January 24, 2018


In my own email address, I often make the same typo, theroa55 instead of theora55, and someone who has a similar gmail address to yours is likely doing the same. I ended up getting Instagram just to reclaim my email address. Typning is hrad.
posted by theora55 at 1:11 PM on January 24, 2018


The idiocy here is astonishing. Same story - early gmail adopter, firstnamelastname@gmail.com, with a relatively uncommon name (but apparently more popular in the UK than the US). I can totally understand if a business enters the wrong email address or a friend messes up a group email, but seriously how can you not know your own email address? I've had someone sign up for a Square account with my email and all kinds of other things that must be painful when I go in and reset the account password. Oh, and my preferred reset password is Suckerz but I really like icantfindmyasswithbothhands, I might try something like that.
posted by Preserver at 2:44 PM on January 24, 2018


Response by poster: Thank you all for talking me off the ledge. I think I had seen that Q in November and thought my last name was so uncommon (it’s short but most people who have it live in a different country) that I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Cheers!
posted by kat518 at 5:36 PM on January 24, 2018


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