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by TheDong 2030 days ago
> Yes. I can prove that this is real

There's also at least two alternative explanations.

I also get a lot of emails to an account I own from someone who keeps using my email instead of theirs. You'd think they would have noticed they aren't receiving them by now, but apparently not. Are you also totally sure that it's not just someone else entering an email address they don't own for work and party invites?

And for a second explanation, are you sure it wasn't hacked/stolen?

There's groups of people out there that bruteforce and then sell OG accounts, such as short twitter handles and common firstname.lastname email accounts.

The fact that the forwarding rules are still setup and working actually leads me to think it's more likely someone else stole the account rather than that it was deleted and recreated, assuming someone else really has access to it.

There's other possible ways your account could have been compromised too, like having a backup email address for it on some other email provider or domain that did go under or get compromised, but a weak password or a re-used password from a leak seem most likely for the compromise route.

Do you have evidence somehow that the account wasn't stole in that way?

2 comments

The emails aren't just one way. I don't see the emails in my sent items, but when the receiving party replies (his boss) I see the original email that was sent from my old email address.

The party invite was from a real person, not those evite sites.

I can no longer login to the old account and my recovery options no longer work.

While yes, the possibility of a hacked account crossed my mind, but Gmail is pretty loud when someone logs in from a new ip.

This has been atleast 2 years now.

Maybe I should call him. He isn't doing well with his realtor sales.

Another explanation is the address changes Google introduced. I’m not sure when, but my firstlast@gmail.com became addressable as first.last@gmail.com. Someone else originally created first.last@gmail.com and I get their emails.
Periods have always been discarded by Gmail when routing mail, as well as signing in. If you own firstlast@gmail.com, you've owned first.last@gmail.com all along, as well as fi.r.s.t.la.s.t@gmail.com for that matter.

You're getting that other person's email because someone has the wrong address for them.