This weekend I've received 4 emails from 2 merchants addressed to my name (uncommon). One was a shoe purchase from a place I've never heard of - but is real - and the other was something called Jpay. No charges ony CC, and in fact the shoe place receipt showed it was paid in store and was just a shipment notification

It included the shipping address in another city and it looks from my searching like it is legit. There is a person with the same first and last name bit differnt middle.

So I assume after the first one that this guy also has a similar Gmail address and they just entered it as mine. Then I get another today so I take a closer look.

The strange thing is that my email address is FirstLast but all the emails were sent to First.Last

Why would I even get these emails?

I'm perplexed...

Gmail ignores periods for whatever reason. I had this happen before and eventually tracked down the person based on the info in some of the emails but never figured out how they kept screwing the email up. Was a high school kid so might've been the parent. Anyway try finding them on facebook based on any other info in the emails?

Gmail ignores periods in email addresses. Try it. First.last is the same as firstlast, is also the same as f.i.r.stlast, etc. Can actually be really handy when signing up for multiple trials of things...

Ahhhh ok.

So why in the world is this guy using this as his email? I guess I'll change my password to make sure but WTF is he thinking ?

Definitely a nice feature for filtering mail. I give out my address without a period to business and with a period to friends. All business emails get filtered to a folder for record, but don't clog up my inbox.

cclearman said:

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Ahhhh ok.

So why in the world is this guy using this as his email? I guess I'll change my password to make sure but WTF is he thinking ?

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I don't think they always ignored it or something. It happens to my wife as well with her maiden name. She has no period between her first and last gmail and she receives order confirmations to first.last at gmail for the other girl.

I got a couple of these last year all around the same time from some guy in San Jose, CA. Like you, I looked up the stores and they were legit, and I looked up the guy's info who bought the stuff, and he looked to be legit. I even looked up the address to where the stuff was getting delivered, and it was a house that showed to have recently sold on multiple sites (Zillow, Redfin, etc). The only thing I could think of is that we have similar email addresses and there may have been a zero instead of an O.

This happened to me a few years ago. I started getting receipts from some video production company. I called them and they gave me the person's phone number. I called him and he said it was just a mistake in the way they entered the email. We had the same name. Then I started getting a bunch of emails as if had signed up for some weird dating site so I went ahead and deleted my account. Also, I have been repeatedly warned that you should not put your name in your email address.

It is mindblowing that gmail doesn't recognize a simple period, but it is also entertaining. I used to get emails not meant for me sent by some land surveying hobby club in Idaho.

It got the point where I'd read their meeting minutes and took a genuine interest in their club activities. At some point one of the club officers got in a bad wreck and I felt empathy for the injured guy and the other club members.

RPM said:

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It is mindblowing that gmail doesn't recognize a simple period, but it is also entertaining. I used to get emails not meant for me sent by some land surveying hobby club in Idaho.

It got the point where I'd read their meeting minutes and took a genuine interest in their club activities. At some point one of the club officers got in a bad wreck and I felt empathy for the injured guy and the other club members.

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Whoever was sending those to you was sending them to the wrong address.

This isn't gmail "getting it wrong". Those aren't separate addresses in gmail, so if you have "Texas.Aggie@gmail.com" and somebody sends an email to "TexasAggie@gmail.com", then either it IS meant for you, or they made a mistake. Nobody else out there has your email, with the period removed (or added).

I've gotten on plenty of bad email lists and more often than not, what has happened is somebody miskeyed it when putting it into the system.

There is also a fairly succesful graphic artist in NYC with my name....he has firstlast.com, but I've had first.last@gmail.com since beta and I get his email all the time (he includes his middle initial, but people miss it and put firstlast@gmail.com which comes to me since the period is ignored.

Again, that isn't gmail "not understanding" a period - that is people sending it to the wrong address.

boboguitar said:

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akaggie05 said:

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Gmail ignores periods in email addresses. Try it. First.last is the same as firstlast, is also the same as f.i.r.stlast, etc. Can actually be really handy when signing up for multiple trials of things...

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Another handy trick is gmail ignores things like +1, so boboguitar@gmail, boboguitar+1@gmail, boboguitar+2@gmail all go to the same email address.

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Agree - this is super helpful and can also be helpful if you're trying to find out who is giving your email out to lists.

I like resetting the passwords on the accounts people create with my email. Some guy in the UK uses mine all the time. Some Asian guy in Kentucky used mine on Ashley Madison. His profile was pretty funny.

Some lady used my wife's email on her Home Depot contractor account once. Names weren't even close to the same. Logged in and had access to CC numbers, past purchases, etc.

dlance said:

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I like resetting the passwords on the accounts people create with my email. Some guy in the UK uses mine all the time. Some Asian guy in Kentucky used mine on Ashley Madison. His profile was pretty funny.

Some lady used my wife's email on her Home Depot contractor account once. Names weren't even close to the same. Logged in and had access to CC numbers, past purchases, etc.

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I totally do this too

Quote:

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Agree - this is super helpful and can also be helpful if you're trying to find out who is giving your email out to lists.

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When registering for things, online or otherwise, I give it my email address, plus a "+<vendor>", where then I know if I received an email addressed to that email address, I know where it came from. Ex: capcity12thman+torchys@email.domain

Interesting to see who sells your data and how doesn't.

boboguitar said:

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akaggie05 said:

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Gmail ignores periods in email addresses. Try it. First.last is the same as firstlast, is also the same as f.i.r.stlast, etc. Can actually be really handy when signing up for multiple trials of things...

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Another handy trick is gmail ignores things like +1, so boboguitar@gmail, boboguitar+1@gmail, boboguitar+2@gmail all go to the same email address.

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This is called sub-addressing. Every e-mail server worth using handles this properly.

One thing I used to do was to give only sub-addressed e-mail addresses for one account and would add each and every one to a filter. If someone sent me an e-mail to anything else and it wasn't encrypted with my PGP key or signed with the sender's PGP key, the mail was rejected and I would never see it.

One hassle is that if you try to enter a sub-addressed e-mail address in many web sites, it is not accepted because of web designers who had their own ideas about what constitutes a valid e-mail address.