Someone used my Gmail account to sign up for OnlyFans. So I did a password recovery and deleted their account.

I really hate (a) people who don't remember their email. addresses. And (b) sites that don't use a double opt-in process.

@sbisson I've had loads over the years - one guy spending CAD$1,700+ on videos, a lady buying office supplies, an Aussie for travel insurance, and in the last week - 10 emails back and forth about car hire!
I too wish there was a double-opt-in (and out!)

@alister Oh, so many. Cars, phones, houses, hotels, and a Canadian ice hockey player...

@sbisson I love that someone in the UK registered a credit card to my Gmail address. I wrote to support who didn't care so I keep flagging the emails as spam.

@phil The worst was a UK legal firm that had a shortened internal domain that matched our domain. They soon fixed it when we suggested we were going to report them to the regulator.

@sbisson
The funny thing is, you probably did them a favor. Odds are they just typoed the email address, but might have put some other details on there, so just completely deleting is really the best possible outcome.

Though really, why wouldn't you have a 'Click here to verify this is really you' email double check. It's so basic I feel like we were doing it in the late 90s.

@Oggie Oh I am sure they did. Google did no-one any favours with an email system that ignores "." in names.

@sbisson @Oggie Can you actually register another GMail address with the same characters but variations of “.”? I don’t think the “.” are the issue here.

@teotwaki @Oggie You can't; but people think they have as the error handling is terrible. They may think they have f.bloggs, but they really have fbloggs451 or similar.

@sbisson A few years ago, someone in the US kept using one of my domains as their spam address. I got all their email through the catchall. I kept getting hairdresser reminders, dry cleaners, etc.

One day I got tired of it, tracked them down, and messaged them on iMessage. They were military and I asked if maybe this was a some kind of national security threat with someone impersonating them close to the military base.

I never got another email.

@teotwaki Yes, we did similar when a UK legal fim used a shortened version of their domain internally; it of course leaked and hit our mail server. I pointed out that I was about to report them to the appropriate regulatory body.

Nothing since then.

@sbisson

This kind of thing happens to me often, too. I deeply wish I had set my Gmail address to something more complex than first initial / last name, back in the invite only days. Turns out there are a lot of morons in the world with my initial and last name.

@starhawk How did you guess that's what I did? :-)

@devilgate Burn it all down!

(You saw my cunning plan)

@sbisson The worst ones are the political donation sites. Because they share the emails amongst each other. For months now I've been getting fundraising requests asking "James" to donate to all kinds of different Democratic candidates. I'm not James.

@sbisson I have a guy in the UK who uses my Gmail for everything. I've lost track of how many accounts I have closed.

@sbisson I’m assuming you are aware of XKCD 1279! 😉

https://www.xkcd.com/1279/

@jmb Yes.

@sbisson Short Gmail addresses are the worst. I've become an NRA member before! And I have a whole bunch of store accounts for stores I have never been to.

This has never been an issue for my own domain email which I moved to eight years ago.

@ocdtrekkie We did have an issue with a legal firm that was using a shortened version of its FQDN internally. Unfortunately mail for it leaked outside their routing and was hitting my catchall on our domain. We had to threaten to contact the regulator for them to stop.

@sbisson @starhawk I’m in the same boat. The most egregious thing someone did is register their home security system to my email.

All of a sudden I’ve got access to your physical address and the ability to disable your home security? Brilliant, both the customer and the system.

@sbisson firstname.lastname for me. So much junk from so many countries.

@sbisson Thought for the afternoon. "Is it really identity theft if they've given it to you?"

@sbisson I’ve gotten so much information from an owner of a gmail account one letter different than mine that i could EASILY fully steal their identity. I had a lot of their info, then they bought a house and I got 100% of those documents, and that put it over the top.

@sbisson I get this all the time. I had somebody sign up for a paid Google Workspaces account using my domain because they didn't realise that just putting {name}@{city}.com isn't how email addresses are made. So this guy John who lives in Otway in Ohio, signed up using john@otway.com - but I own Otway.com.

I also frequently get email for the Otway bakery in NYC, because they keep signing up for stuff using my domain instead of their own (otwaynyc.com).....

@sbisson @cstross I have gone as far as cancelling Hotel, car hire and bikini wax reservations amongst others

@jmb @sbisson I find that people also enter first<space>last@ when they meant first.last@ which resolves to just last@ and I have a whole bunch of sometimes interesting and random stuff coming from very distant relatives. I’m getting to know Ken Cockcroft in South Africa because the local DMV sends me all the renewals for his work trucks for the last few years. He’s tried but can’t seem to get them to fix it.

@sbisson
1/2 There is someone who must have a similar gmail account to mine. I first became aware of this when I started getting Instagram alerts which I ignored.

Then I started getting emails from her midwife so I replied pointing out that the email address was wrong & she should correct this.

A few months ago I started getting emails from a primary school. Again I replied each time asking them to get the correct email & update their records which they didn't action.
[... more ...]

@sbisson

I did that to someone’s Tik Tok.