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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

I have my own domain, and have email set up so that any email to that domain goes to me.

You'd be surprised (well, nobody here on HN would be) to know how many times I tell a business that my email is "their-business@my-domain.com", and they ask me how I got that email address, whether I work for their company, etc.

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Yep. I've had that conversation more than once. They get very suspicious! And probably triggers internal meetings with cyber.

I genuinely wonder how many emails I've missed because some system flagged the email address as invalid or suspicious.

I can only dream that it triggers meetings with security.

I once started receiving spam addressed to <mybankname>@<mydomain>.org and after several instances I reported it to MyBankName.

I explained that I only used that address in my dealings with them and so it must have leaked from them.

They said that's not how email works, you have one address that you use with all your contacts. One of them must have leaked it.

I tried to explain that I used a different host portion with each company I contacted.

They said that's not how email works, you have one address that you use with all your contacts. One of them must have leaked it.

I transferred my balance out and let the account lapse.

why didn't you close the account instead, after transferring your balance, to send them a stronger message?

Sounds like the sort of bank that only allow closure to be requested via fax certain months.

The mailbox is publicly accessible, in the 2nd level basement behind a locked door guarded by a hungry tiger!

Then I request, in no uncertain terms, that the government kindly close those sorts of faxers.

Since this happens often, you could try changing the form of the email addresses to make them less confusing. I can think of several options:

1. Prepend "from-", so that instead of <their-business>@example.com you give them from-<their-business>@example.com. It should at least make it easier to explain your approach when you have to.

2. ROT13 or reverse the name of the business so it's gurve-ohfvarff@example.com or ssenisub-rieht@example.com. You can design a different stateless function that maps names to email addresses. The function doesn't even have to be invertible. This is similar to a stateless password manager like https://www.lesspass.com/.

3. Use a list of pre-generated addresses you keep on your person. Think recovery codes. Of course, you can keep the list on a smartphone.

Even giving them "email+their-business@gmail.com" (instead of email@gmail.com), as every single Gmail user is able to do, will no doubt sow confusion.

I always allocate an email of my+company@myemail.com and the number of email validators that don't accept that "+" is a legit email character is infuriating.

That's why I've updated my SMTP config to handle - the same way as + 10+ years ago. And to avoid "why is my business name in your email?" questions, I rot13 it.

>rot13

That's clever. But doesn't it cause friction when trying to relay the address e.g. over the phone?

Yeah, did the same for my SMTP config way back. Don't think my family users have managed to get their head around it yet though.

> to avoid "why is my business name in your email?" questions, I rot13 it.

That's a neat idea.

Your first sentence took me a second to mentally parse and understand, so to help anyone with that same issue later, what was meant is:

> That's why I've updated my SMTP config to handle the hyphen character the same way as the plus sign over 10 years ago.

Yeah, I do this with a catchall domain as well. Indeed, I've had people ask if I work for their company -- too funny! So far the only company that has illegally added me to a mailing list I didn't sign up for is H&M (the clothing store).

I hate this stuff. Someone tried to sign up to a crypto exchange with my phone number. :| 3 times they had the code resent!

This is simultaneously a brilliant idea and hilarious because I can imagine how this must confuse them.

I do the same, and some companies flat-out refuse to accept email adresses with their own name in them. Samsung, notably, won't allow samsung@domain.tld for some obscure reason.

Every time I have to hand out my email over the phone, I brace for having to explain my catch-all to people. Depending on how tired/tech-illiterate the person on the other end sounds, I've started using plausible-sounding alternatives (contact@/hello@/email@) instead.

> won't allow samsung@domain.tld for some obscure reason.

It's not obscure. Some code monkey at Samsung was told to filter out certain addresses, Samsung ones among them, and just used a regex or substring search on the entire address.

It could also fall foul of a Scunthorpe filter - refusing to accept names with some subset of characters, and the company name got added to the filter to avoid "samsungsuxbawls@gmail.com" or similar

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