Gmail account

ChrisCross70

I'm not sure if I am posting on the right thread.

I have had my gmail account for yours and it is the format of name.name.initial@. Recently I having been getting random emails from companies in America. They are not selling things but are to di with setting up accounts and purchasing items and they contain quite a lot of personal info such as name, address, billing account numbers, last 4 digit of card, order numbers etc etc. Not my details I hasten to add!!
I contacted one of these companies who was a utility supplier in California only to be told that their customer had the same email address as me apart from the fact that they did not have the full stops in their email address and gmail cannot differentiate between the addresses. This seems a strange thing to me and I would have expected to receive more emails than I have if this was the case. Any idea what I should do. I am not concerned my email has been hacked but I would be worried if my personal info is being sent elsewhere. I have not heard of any other gmail account users having this problem.

Chino

ChrisCross70 wrote: »

I have not heard of any other gmail account users having this problem.

This rang a bell about something I read a while back and I was eventually able to find it again:
https://jameshfisher.com/2018/04/07/the-dots-do-matter-how-to-scam-a-gmail-user.html

Google has created quite a can of worms with this "feature".

To make matters worse, it also appears that, in the past at least, Google has allowed people to create an account of the form a.b@gmail.com even though an account ab@gmail.com already existed.

forgotmyname

Possibly explains why i get emails from a School in the USA about students grades and a "we heard they were ill are they getting better" one not long back.

Emailed them several times to let them know the address they are using is wrong but they continue. Just delete them now.

lammy82

It's more likely that someone has put their email address in wrongly at some point and it so happens that what they have typed is the same as your address minus the full stops.

ChrisCross70

Thanks for that Chino - made interesting reading! And forgot - It is a relief to know I am not alone!

forgotmyname

Probably a typo on their side. should be name.name123@
where their real one is name.name.113@ or something similar.

Not had any updates of them skipping school since their "illness", maybe they fixed their email address after their little holiday?

Tom99

The other customer cannot have the same gmail address as you with or without any number of full stops.

If my email was [EMAIL="tom99@gmail.com"]tom99@gmail.com[/EMAIL] then it is also:
[EMAIL="tom.99@gmail.com"]tom.99@gmail.com[/EMAIL]@
[EMAIL="tom.9.9@gmail.com"]tom.9.9@gmail.com[/EMAIL] or even
t.o.m.9.9.@gmail.com

The other customer will have set up their email after you, found the name they want already taken so have to add a letter to make it different, typically they add their middle initial so:
[EMAIL="tomj99@gmail.com"]tomj99@gmail.com[/EMAIL]
They then forget to add the middle initial when they give out their email and you end up with their post.
Usually it the 1st person to set up a [EMAIL="1stnameLastname@gmail.com"]1stnameLastname@gmail.com[/EMAIL] who ends up getting extra mail

tempus_fugit

I've had this before where I was getting emails for some guy in Ireland, and then later in America, whose email address was the same as mine but with a single letter at the end whereas mine has a double. He seemed very popular withe ladies and had various business deals going on, so it was interesting. I haven't had any for him lately but I did get one for my email address with a dot in the middle from Domino's pizza for a delivery in Cape Town of all places. I looked up the address on Google Maps and it was a lovely house with a view across to Table Mountain. It was cash on delivery so not a credit card scam or anything, just a bit weird.

ballyblack

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

Farway

tempus_fugit wrote: »

I've had this before where I was getting emails for some guy in Ireland, and then later in America, whose email address was the same as mine but with a single letter at the end whereas mine has a double. He seemed very popular withe ladies and had various business deals going on, so it was interesting. I haven't had any for him lately but I did get one for my email address with a dot in the middle from Domino's pizza for a delivery in Cape Town of all places. I looked up the address on Google Maps and it was a lovely house with a view across to Table Mountain. It was cash on delivery so not a credit card scam or anything, just a bit weird.

I had one similar, the carpet cleaner was arriving later to steam the carpets
No doubt both were surprised when he turned up;)

ChrisCross70

:)Thanks all for your replies. I guess it is a mixture of google's decisions and a person with a similar email address either giving it out incorrectly, or some businesses recording it incorrectly. At least I don't need to worry, and from some of your posts, I may even get a few 'interesting' emails in the future:)