[Semaphor]

I have [e-mail] and I've had people play poker and lottery and sign up for dating websites with my e-mail address. I've also received confidential information from insurance and building construction companies.

It's hilarious.

[colechristensen]

At this point I feel like I've shared a life with some of the others at this point. There are several people who share my name who continually give out my address. I get school closings, invites to pie socials at churches, family pictures, conservative newsletters, and much more.

Once I was told about "my" enlistment in the reserves of some armed service. That one I replied to and got a very polite response from someone with a little bit of rank.

[ian0]

ha! Same here. I was sent notifications from a military application once (seemed to be some SAP style system). I responded to a CCd email and they politely responded and corrected the address.

The others are more mundane. Mailing lists with dirty jokes from a group of american dentist friends. School notifications from a guy in the UK. Random baby pics.

Im not sure if there are lots of people with the same name who occasionally get their mail wrong. Or a few people with the same name who constantly do. It just seems weird though. Surely if you had a non firstname.lastname@gmail address you would take extra care to add in the extra padding.

[vsl]

People are stupid when not paying attentions.

I had customers who entered an undeliverable=invalid gmail address because they were confused about who hosts their email. Used [e-mail], entered [e-mail]. A few years back, I wouldn’t have thought this possible.

[dprice1]

Me too-- a lot of receipts from Home Depot, little league, real estate documents (many times), scans from signing up for gym membership (which had a lot of PII in it, I called the guy), emails from a church elders group.

Once I got an advanced copy of remarks the UK Prime Minister was going to make the next day at the 2008 Jeddah global energy summit.

[sixdimensional]

Same here. I've also received legal and tax documents, invitations to bachelor parties, draft scripts for motion pictures, medical records and offers to buy my multi-million dollar house in Florida (hint, I don't have one, but somebody with the same name does).

[ficklepickle]

OnStar, some similar VW service, lots of phone contracts, legitimate job offers. I texted a guy once and asked him if he enjoyed his chipotle burrito.

It's bizarre. The people using "fake" gmail addresses don't seem to realize it is used by somebody else. They are lucky I'm not malicious.

Edit: mine is a first name and a number

[Semaphor]

I'm about 99.99% certain they are not using fake addresses but they simply don't properly know their own address.

[richardw]

Same. I once set up a google group to forward mail to the others. Limited usefulness.

World-class was the lady who sent me pics of herself in lingerie. Not too revealing and I deleted them immediately and replied to warn her. She nearly died of embarrassment.

I'm pretty sure there are spam lists who sign me up to products, probably for some kind of referral. I join all sorts of junk.

Compounded by Google making "first.last@" = "firstlast@"

Next Gmail account is going to be a guid.

[jonathanmoore]

A while back when Yahoo released inactive email addresses, I grabbed [e-mail]. It was a nightmare. The account would receive 10,000+ emails a day. The inbox was full of insurance claims, social security numbers, mortgage applications, pay stubs, and more. In the end, I deleted the account since I didn't want the possible liability of the account.

[27182818284]

I have tons of this. I really hope the gmail team is working on it. I don't get spam anymore, I get someone with a name similar, but not quite mine's receipt, dealership tune up reminders, directTV announcements, information about going back to get their RN, etc.

Like none of it is spam exactly, just a lot of wrong numbers.

[acomjean]

I had a coworker who had the same name as a coworker in Phoenix as (we are in Boston). He kept getting invites to meetings out there because the online email was also a scheduling tool (notes). He was getting annoyed dealing with them. I suggested flying to Phoenix to go to one of these meetings...

[dsl]

I bribed an exchange admin or two and got [firstname]@[really big company].com. This company had a lot of consumer facing stuff, and some of which required an email address. Employees of the company would just put in [customers first name]@[the company].com when they didn't have an email address.

That was fun.

[fhood]

I thought I was the only one (with a [e-mail]) that kept getting confidential info from/for construction companies, dentists, and some Canadian woman.

[brewtide]

(Firstinitial)lastname@ Gmail checking in.

So much misdirected email. Try to sign up for something? Reset password change info to not theirs.

It's amazing what people send rather blindly.

[desireco42]

Me too, why do you think this happens? I get emails from people who send it to my exact email, I am not sure why they think this is their email (sorry don't want to disclose my email... but it might be in profile :) ).

[dharmab]

XKCD has a comic about that experience: https://www.xkcd.com/1279

[bacon_waffle]

Me too! One of the others with the same name signed up for a dating website (match.com IIRC) a few years ago and they sent enough information that I was able to improve his odds and help a bit with his decision making.

[imsofuture]

I get a lot of updates on the kids (not my kids) from one specific person (I've responded to them, they keep doing it), and an occasional W2 (not my W2).

[BerislavLopac]

Interesting that so many people had a similar experience. I guess my name is literally unique.