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Comment by slater | Hacker News Reader

i have a similar situation. i've "known" this guy for ~10 years now, all the way from him signing up on a random dating site, to the present where I'm getting e-mails about his mortgage, and school info e-mails regarding his kids :D

I used to respond to the ones that were obviously from a real person, imploring them to tell him he keeps getting his e-mail wrong, but no dice, so now i just respond "wrong e-mail address" and hope that sorts it out.

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"i've "known" this guy for ~10 years now"

Ha. I have one of those too. His wife keeps getting it wrong too, so I get emails asking my opinion on various purchases/kitchen renovations. I used to reply "wrong email address", now I just give my opinion.

I hope he likes the kitchen counters he "agreed" to.

I go with the “wrong email address” replies when I can too, but for bigger orgs sending automated emails like Apple in this case that doesn’t work.

I’m wondering whether to look through all the attachments I’ve received over the years for a phone number and maybe try to call them but I’m not sure how that would go down.

re: "were obviously from a real person" i question how you can know that these days!

I always assume if it invokes that human emotion of "oh, help this poor guy out and reply" it's a trap!

For sure, but what i mean is, e-mails from e.g. james.whatever@bigbankcorp.com, with e-mail sig of James Whatever, Senior Analyst, Big Bank Corp, etc. and the usual boatload of (allegedly not-legally-binding) legal disclaimers etc.

exactly what I would create if I was trying to get people to reply to verify their email is a real address.

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