Despite going to great lengths to let a stranger know they’re using the wrong email address, one woman has revealed how she decided to embrace it and has been reaping the awards
There are very few things more annoying than getting spam emails and having to unsubscribe and spend time sorting through the spam. However, one woman who discovered someone else had been blithely using her address for their correspondence managed to get some worthwhile revenge.
Sharing the story on social media, she wrote: “I’ve had my email address since the early days of Gmail, and for the longest time there’s someone out there who has been using it (trying) for all sorts of things. I’ve gotten gestation updates, financial aid notifications, volunteer schedules, job interview offers, and so many password reset attempts for other services.
“This person signed up for a streaming service. I changed the password and they autopaid for 6 months before fixing it. I scheduled that job interview, and then rescheduled it. Recently I got a payroll account setup email for a new job I guess.
“I set up the account but then later got the email that the email for the account had been changed. They also signed up for a Starbucks account. I don’t go to Starbucks.” In addition to enjoying six months of free streaming, she recently received a ‘Happy Birthday’ email from Starbucks with a free voucher. She joked: “It’s not my birthday but now I’m drinking my free $9 macadamia something-or-other cold brew. I’d tell them directly to stop using my account, but I don’t know their email address.”
After a little admonishing that she had used their streaming service account, she explained: “I have made reasonable attempts to respond to personal emails telling people that I wasn’t the person they were trying to reach, and even tried to pass along the message to please for the love of all that is good in the world to STOP.
“But I gave up after about 5 years of trying. At one point I also reached out to everyone on social media with the same name and still, it continues. I have given up on trying and I will continue changing the passwords to every account they create with my email address until they stop using it. I’m just glad I haven’t gotten any more d*** pics in a few years.”
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People reading the Reddit post shared their own experiences of others using their email addresses. One person replied: “I had a similar situation a few years back. After some research, I learned that a lawyer in South Carolina and I had the same name. I called his office and left a message asking him to stop giving out my email address. No dice. He finally quit when I started cancelling boat reservations, tennis club memberships, and whatnot.”
And someone else added: “This is me, but a plastic surgeon. Her office manager told me to stop forwarding emails to the office. It was a lot of emails, but it was only the things I thought looked important. So I cancelled her 21 day French honeymoon. Outside the refund window. Not the lane tickets though. It’s been better since then.”
