Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I have a reasonably common name. I am in Bay Area, and have received mail meant for people in Fresno or Bakersfield, someone in Toronto, someone in Australia, and I think someone in a London suburb. There are drug test results, online orders, legal discussions, store receipts and hotel bookings. I even connected with 2-3 folks with my name - don't recall how I figured their other email. It was quite common for a while, but then I haven't seen anything like this for 2-3 years. When I say common, I mean once every 6-8 months and I guess I have had that email for 15 years or so. Maybe my universe of overlap was finite and all those people have figured out how to type their email now :)

That email is my first name dot last name but at one point I had been able to secure both first name at email provider dot come and last name at email provider dot com which somehow I abandoned. I wonder what level of erroneous emails I would have received at them.



I was an early Gmail adopter and have a common ethnic first initial last name. People mess up their email all of the time and I get insane stuff.

One lady, a general manager of a factory, sent a zip file with her VPN client, a list of backup MFA codes and a list of SCADA and IT systems for a large factory.

A police detective sent a video from a paratransit bus that was in an accident. I got a bitcoin years ago. One dude had a hobby of test driving luxury cars from almost every dealer in the Washington DC region. I have a $50 gift card for an Australian electronics store.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: