Hacker News Reader

Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

I have my HN username at gmail, and the novelty... wears off. So many recipts, confirmations, random bccs... Where it gets really ugly is gmail's (incredibly dumb, imo) feature where dots don't matter. I've had mulitple people get quite insistent that they own the email tyler.e <at> gmail, which of course routes to...

View on HN

I registered this username at one of the early big name webmail services. Not unimaginably rare, sure, but neither is it jsmith or the like.

You’d be shocked how many different people have signed up for stuff with that email address that I’ve had for like 20 years (and only ever log into so I can check on the mayhem). I’ve had bank notices, home sale records, 2 people creating Facebook accounts, and plenty of other stuff.

If my name were as common as yours, I think I’d be ready to choke someone.

I ended up browsing someone else's "Cloud NAS" once. I had to resist very hard not adding a watermark to all his photos saying "stop registering with my email!!!".

i have a pretty rare last name (in my company of 225k, there's only one other for example) and I have first initial last name @ gmail since 2005.

The amount of mistaken emails I get is absurd.

Yep, I have an incredibly common firstname@gmail.com email address and I get hundreds of emails daily with random bills, reservations, bank statements and so on.

I'm not alone

The number of people who just didn't understand the implications of not using their own email for banks, etc is too many.

The fault is partially on the banks too IMO. Why don't they verify the emails first before sending sensitive information.

It took me forever to get Mint to stop sending me someone’s PII.

Send a fucking confirmation email to set up a financial account, Jesus. There should really be a law.

I have my first name . last name @ gmail and it’s definitely a reminder of how big the world is. I had previously thought my name was fairly unique. I don’t engage anymore unless it’s a small business trying to get paid.

My girlfriend has a rather uncommon name, but her FirstNameMiddleName@gmail.com gets emails meant for someone else rather frequently. Sometimes it’s even official PII or PHI. She’s tried to let people know but they’re surprisingly sometimes not all that receptive? So I think she ignores it now.

I have a similar issue with my Gmail -- my policy is to try to rectify the issue the first couple times it happens, but then just let it happen. The dull ones I filter away from my inbox, but not the most interesting ones. Some of my favorites:

- Every year the same family in Houston includes me in their email thread about who is bringing what to Thanksgiving dinner.

- I am on the mailing list for a Masonic lodge somewhere in England.

- I get receipts when some guy in Australia orders a pizza from Dominos. I also get McDonalds coupons that I think are meant for the same guy.

- I have at various times been sent the meeting minutes from an AA group in Pennsylvania (I am more persistent with trying to get off this list than the others, given the sensitive nature of it).

- I get the newsletter for 4H a group in Sacramento.

Thanks for starting this thread. I have my first initial and last name for Gmail and it's nice to know I'm not the only one getting all kinds of mail for other people with similar names!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com