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Comment by mauriciob | Hacker News Reader

Wrong address is one reason. For example, I receive transactional emails from a US-based ISP for someone else and the only way to unsubscribe is calling their customer service line. I’m not even in the same country.

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Exactly, seriously -- I get monthly+ e-mails from a gym and a car dealership and some golf course because somebody else put in my e-mail.

I contacted the customer support for all of them and they said they can't do anything about it. To change the customer's e-mail address, I need to prove I'm the customer, and obviously I have no idea who they are.

So I gave up and implemented a Gmail filter in the end, but I definitely wish that parallel with the traditional unsubscribe, there was a way to say "this isn't that person's e-mail". Where I don't have to prove I'm the person, I just have to demonstrate I receive the e-mails.

The best part is when they aren't in a language you understand, and the site doesn't have one available.

I have in the past had very good data on how often a russian guy got a haircut.

I have that friend that whenever I don't feel like putting my own email or phone number I just put his. You probably have that friend too, the other way around

Why don't people like you just spend exactly 2 minutes to create a bogus gmail (or etc) account for yourself that you put down when you don't want to put your own email in? I just cannot fathom any reason for you doing this that isn't just malice. Surely nobody is just so _lazy_ that they intend to screw over their friends over a minute or two process making an account.

It's a prank. Meant to be funny. Best when signing up for something which might be construed as embarrassing.

I've also done this where I've donated $25 to U of California in the name of my friend who went to Stanford (rival universities). He's likely still getting calls.

The rival university one seems like a solid prank. The user I replied to did not make it sound like the intent was to be funny.

> whenever I don't feel like putting my own email or phone number I just put his

This sounds more like malice than well thought out humor. If I found out someone I knew and respected was using my primary contact information for spam emails at <insert random pet supply store or random restaurants' rewards programs here> I would definitely consider not talking to that person much any more. The rival university one however I would let slide because the intent from you is obviously different.

> Why don't people like you just spend exactly 2 minutes to create a bogus gmail (or etc) account for yourself

Have you tried doing this recently? Creating an email address has become a fairly draconian process.

Yeah, I just made a new google account today. It takes about 2 minutes. You need a birth date (easily lied about), a phone number (it's google, they have your phone number already, no reason to lie) where they will send you an 8 digit code for you to confirm, then type in your desired email address and your password. Hardly draconian. Viola, you have a gmail account. You can do more to ensure you're the only one that ever logs into it if you like, but chances are if you're setting this account up for the purpose we're talking about, you're just writing down the email address you set up and then forgetting everything else.

I'm not sure, are you implying that it is not worth doing this, and you would rather instead just pollute the inboxes of people that happen to know you? If so, would you like to be friends? I'd be happy to receive your junk emails if in exchange I can come by your place and just leave my trash in your front yard/driveway.

Phone number is draconian.

Google doesn't require a phone number if your ip / whatever they are doing to profile you has good reputation

Not that it’s really all that draconian anyway. Tying an address to some other piece of verifiable information is valuable when they probably have to respond to abuse complaints for thousands of gmail addresses every week.

If you want an account for legitimate mail, fastmail and gandi both make it trivial to add another email alias.

If you want an account for random garbage that demands an email address, use mailinator.

Why would you do that?

What is wrong with you?

These aren’t transactional. An email isn’t transactional just because the sender has a relationship with the recipient.

I think they mostly are -- they're all about reminders for upcoming appointments and vehicle checks (the dealership), confirmation of bill payment and notices of rate rises and holiday hours (the gym), and confirmations of tee time reservations or payments or something or other with the golf course.

What definition of transaction relates to a notice about holiday hours?

What's your point?

I'm not sending these.

I get a number of these for some reason. If they don't let me unsubscribe, I just report it as spam. It's not perfect, but it's what little I can do.

I still have a quite short firstname@gmail.com address, and those emails were unbearable about 10 years ago. Several times, the only alternative was resetting the the password and taking over "someone else's" account to then change the email to a disposable provider like Mailinator.

Hostile? A bit, but after contacting services and complaining, nothing would get done anyway.

I ended up changing email providers because of that.

This is not a spam problem but a security one. I received one guy (from the other side of the world) contracts and financial transactions. A mistake in domain name has resulted in his ?partner sending this information to me. Someone else could have used it. I think the process to handle these should a bit more different.

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