Strange email event

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Parilla
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Strange email event

Postby Parilla » Sat May 18, 2019 9:52 am

Yesterday evening we found 2 emails in our inbox from Trainline, one confirming a return rail ticket booking Winchester / Waterloo (going today and returning tomorrow) and giving the last four credit card digits of the payment; the other was the actual e-ticket.

We had not made the booking and do not have any credit cards with the given four digits.

Looking closer we saw that the recipient email address was not ours although we had received it. It was almost identical but had additional punctuation to ours, with one more full stop than in our address. An email to Trainline was not delivered so I guess it was from a no reply account,
so we sent an email to the address shown on Trainline's emails, ie the one with an additional full stop to ours, and that email promptly dropped into our inbox !!!

Anyone able to figure this out ?

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Enrique
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Re: Strange email event

Postby Enrique » Sat May 18, 2019 11:55 am

Hi Parilla,
Which email provider are you using............. :?:

As an Example......................

Gmail the punctuation used in the naming convention is ignored. If you have [email protected], then JohnnyGood, Johnny-Good, Johnny_Good will all go to your account. However, [email protected] will go to a different account, as would other similar addresses.
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Parilla
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Re: Strange email event

Postby Parilla » Sat May 18, 2019 12:33 pm

Thanks Enrique - we wondered if it was something like that. It is a Gmail account. However - why would Google allow someone to have the same email address? For instance, if we had [email protected] - surely they wouldn't let someone else have [email protected]? That would mean that we would get all their mail or vice versa. We did wonder if the person had perhaps given a slightly incorrect email address - perhaps using gmail.com when, in fact, their's is gmail.co.uk. We feel sorry for the person whose train tickets have probably still not arrived!

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Re: Strange email event

Postby elusive » Sat May 18, 2019 2:58 pm

Intresting to know. Thanks enrique. Very odd they would allow it. Certainly abit of a bummer if you have a box standard name.i presume the other person just set up the account to buy the tickets as if you were a regular user of that account you would realise straight away that you werent getting any mail.

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Re: Strange email event

Postby gerryh » Sat May 18, 2019 3:45 pm

One "advantage" of them allowing it is if you sign up to a site using a dot, comma or whatever in your gmail address and you get spam or other marketing junk sent to that address then you know that the ones you signed up with either have a very insecure system or that they have sold your email address to spammers.
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knowal
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Re: Strange email event

Postby knowal » Sun May 19, 2019 10:44 am

I'm not sure why Gmail do this. Wouldn't it be better if they only allowed identical details and rejected anything else?
Spammers are always looking for opportunities to exploit and I think this weakens our defences somewhat.
In reply to the OP, I would think the person making the booking made a mistake in their email address.
My wife often gets mail for another Jane who lives in the SW of England and she occasionally forwards it, as she knows that they have missed out a full stop in her case. However that is a Outlook/Hotmail address which does not allow extra punctuation in the address.

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Re: Strange email event

Postby Miro » Wed May 22, 2019 8:22 pm

Could this be a new flaw with Gmail? I've had my gmail address for years, let's say it's [email protected]. This week I've been receiving newsletters from a US financial company, addressed to [email protected]. Never happened before. Coincidence? My concern is, are any emails intended for me going to my namesake with a dot?
I just sent a test email to [email protected] using my Hotmail account - and I received it at [email protected]. Could it be possible for someone to set up an account with the dot when it's already in use without? Surely not? So did someone just subscribe to these newsletters with an incorrect address that just happened to be (very nearly) mine? Seems a strange coincidence for two of us to experience the same thing. Especially as my name (which isn't Joe Bloggs) is extremely rare - as far as I know, there's me, and a NYC lawyer with the exact same name!
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Re: Strange email event

Postby Lyric » Wed May 22, 2019 11:10 pm

I have just sent myself a mail via BTinternet to my gmail address which is my first name, middle initial and surname all as one word. I inserted periods after my first name and the initial.
Came to my inbox immediately. Interesting is that.

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Re: Strange email event

Postby Miro » Thu May 23, 2019 12:06 am

Enrique wrote:Gmail the punctuation used in the naming convention is ignored.
Interestingly, though, on the sign up form for Gmail, when choosing a username it says you can use letters, numbers and periods (full stops). If they ignore punctuation, why say you can use it? Seems a bit pointless (pardon the pun)
Anyway, I just tried setting up a new account using my existing username but adding a period at various places - none of which was accepted, saying that username is already taken.
So how is it that someone managed to subscribe to a newsletter from a site I have never visited, using my email address, albeit with a period added? And is it purely coincidence that it's happened to two of us within the space of a few days? Very strange indeed!
Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often

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Miro
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Re: Strange email event

Postby Miro » Thu May 23, 2019 12:25 am

On further investigation, from Google suport:

"Getting messages sent to a dotted version of my address
If the sender added dots to your address, you'll still get that email. No one else sees your emails, and no one can take your account. For example, if your email is [email protected], you own all dotted versions of your address:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

If you still think the message was meant for someone else, contact the sender to let them know they mistyped the email address."

I still find it strange that two of us experienced the same thing within days, and as I said before, my name is very rare, so I find it surprising that someone would have mis-typed anything remotely similar!
Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often

"Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative," Mordecai Siegal 1935-2010.

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Re: Strange email event

Postby brimsham » Thu May 23, 2019 9:00 pm

I received an email to my Outlook account from the Austrialian postal service informing me to expect a delivery to a New South Wales address, a few days later they informed me the item had been delivered. We live in a strange world.


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