Comment by tangoalpha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tangoalpha | Hacker News Reader

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So, some random person had subscribed to Tata Sky (television set-top box channels subscription in India) with my mobile number. He wouldn't pay his dues on time, and Tata sky would call me every month multiple times. Their customer service would take down my request to change the number, but they never changed it.

I was able to track down his actual phone number and on Facebook. Messaged him and explained to him. He wouldn't act. He said he intentionally gave a random number since he didn't want to be bothered by their phone calls and asked me to "deal with it".

Finding no other option, I used Tata sky IVRS service calling from my mobile number(linked to his account) to subscribe to a bunch of expensive channels, totalling the monthly subscription fee to 10x of what his usual fee was.

He reached out to me requesting that he be allowed to take control of his account, as he is unable to change the phone number linked to the account, without an OTP (one time password) received on the existing number (which was my number).

Did take some sweet revenge by not responding to his request for a while, but eventually gave him the OTP after a week.

A bunch of people use my email address for signing up to all sorts of websites (I have a common name, and my email is basically my name @ popular email provider). It is annoying to receive all this spam (usually I can unsubscribe), but the worst ones are people using my email for their bank accounts.

So now I get multiple password-protected monthly statements every month, and there is no way to unsubscribe since it's a bank statement. And the email subject doesn't have the full account number, and the email is from a no-reply address. Contacting the bank has been useless even when I found a way to do so. The most annoying one is from a bank where I have an account of my own (they used a capitalized version of my email address, which the bank thinks is a separate email), and so I can't block them all emails from this bank either.

The one fun time was when someone (in Asia) would frequently place food delivery orders using my email, and this service would send multiple emails for each order. Frustrated, I canceled their order once directly from the email, after which this particular problem stopped.

Try switching to an email service that supports custom Sieve scripts, which you can use to permanently reject messages based on variables you configure.

These are handled differently than message user agent filtering. Incoming messages are immediately rejected and the sending server is notified.

It's much easier than trying to contact some company that doesn't bother validating email addresses. You already know they are technically deficient so just bounce everything. Problem's at their end, let them work it out.

Fastmail do this, as do a few other hosted email providers. Highly recommended. I also use Sieve filters to reject attachment types beyond the default set, such as Microsoft Office files (.docx, .doc, etc.).

Here's some documentation to get started. No affiliation, just a happy customer. https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000280481-Si...

I have a 3 letter Gmail account. This is all I get.

This was my conversation with a guy last night whose phone number I now own. I guess he let his mobile plan expire or something. I can log into a bunch of his accounts around the Web because the OTPs come to me. I found him on Facebook because I have all the details of his life, but I couldn't get any reply. So last night I logged into his account on TikTok and followed my own account so we could message each other:

https://kingcharles.one/all-your-phones-belong-to-us.jpg

They didn't verify the phone number when he signed up (with a simple OTP)? Wow

> Finding no other option, I used Tata sky IVRS service calling from my mobile number(linked to his account) to subscribe to a bunch of expensive channels, totalling the monthly subscription fee to 10x of what his usual fee was.

This is, presumably, a crime.

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