‘Stranger has been using my email address for five years – I had the last laugh’

There are few things more annoying than receiving spam emails and having to unsubscribe and spend time sorting through the spam. However, one woman who discovered that someone else had gleefully used her address for their correspondence managed to get some valuable revenge.

She shared the story on social media, writing: “I’ve had my email address since the early days of Gmail, and there’s been someone using it for all kinds of things for a long time. I have received pregnancy updates, financial aid notifications, volunteer schedules, job interview offers, and so many password reset attempts for other services.

“This person has signed up for a streaming service. I changed the password and they auto charged for 6 months before it was fixed. I scheduled and then rescheduled that job interview. Recently I got an email about setting up a payroll account for a new job, I think.

“I set up the account, but later received the email that the email address for the account had changed. They also signed up for a Starbucks account. I don’t go to Starbucks.” In addition to getting free streaming for six months, she recently received a “Happy Birthday” email from Starbucks with a free voucher. She joked, “It’s not my birthday, but right now I’m drinking my free $9 macadamia-something or something else cold brew.” I would immediately tell them to stop using my account, but I don’t know their email address.”

After a brief warning that she had used their streaming service account, she explained: “I have made reasonable attempts to respond to personal emails telling people that I was not the person they were trying to reach, and I have even tried to pass on the message to please for the love of all that is good in the world to STOP.

“But I gave up after about five years of trying. At some point I also reached out to everyone on social media with the same name and it’s still going strong. I have given up trying and will continue to change the passwords for every account they create with my email address until they stop using it. I’m just glad I haven’t taken d*** pictures in a few years.

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People who read the Reddit post shared their own experiences with others using their email addresses. One person replied: “I had a similar situation a few years ago. After some research, I found out that an attorney in South Carolina and I had the same name. I called his office and left a message asking them to stop giving out my email address. No dice. He finally stopped when I started canceling boat reservations, tennis club memberships and the like.

And someone else added: “This is me, but a plastic surgeon. Her office manager told me to stop forwarding emails to the office. It was a lot of emails, but it was only the things that I thought seemed important. So I canceled her 21 day French honeymoon. Outside the refund window. But not the lane tickets. Things have gotten better since then.”