Someone is using my email address

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Yesterday I received an email from Best Buy Canada and today from Walmart Canada thanking me for creating an account. I received further emails from both retailers confirming orders I hadn't made. I have been using my email address for over 20 years. This other guy using my email has the same first and last name as me according to the invoices I was sent.

If this happened once then it could have been a simple error but to happen twice has got me a little concerned. I chatted online to a Walmart agent who confirmed the email address they have on file is the same as mine but all he said he could do is forward it to the relevant team and wouldn't give me anymore info.

Should I be concerned?
 
Soldato
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Is this a gmail or similar account. Maybe he's forgotten to put a full stop between his names... you may be able to track him down if you look at how he may have put your email by accident

At the very least though I'd change my password
 
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Is this a gmail or similar account. Maybe he's forgotten to put a full stop between his names... you may be able to track him down if you look at how he may have put your email by accident

At the very least though I'd change my password
Yeah, already done that. It's a hotmail account. I have his residential address from the invoice and it's the same address on both so I could write to him. I'm in the UK. I could probably access his Walmart account and get his phone number by using the forgotten password link to reset it but I don't know if that's wise.
 
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I wouldn't do anything beyond messaging the customer services of established businesses to inform them with the relevant details and leave it at that. I wouldn't contact any unknown company in any shape or form.

Had it happen before:

Had it happen for awhile - apparently I was buying flowers and cosmetics somewhere in Brazil and getting plastic surgery or something like that in Peru amongst other things - weirdly 9/10th of it was in English but someone living in South America and with a South American style name.
 
Soldato
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Is this a gmail or similar account. Maybe he's forgotten to put a full stop between his names... you may be able to track him down if you look at how he may have put your email by accident

At the very least though I'd change my password

To gmail me@gmail is the same as m.e@gmail so forgetting to put a full stop or not doesn't make any difference. This seems to happen all the time with gmail though.

Mine gets used without the full stop. I just have everything sent to spam. It's not like anyone has access to the account.
 
Soldato
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somebody used my email address on a bunch of different websites. As a result i know where he lives, what he drives, where he goes to university... I don't understand how he managed to sign up to that many sites and not realise he had no access to my email address to verify emails etc. very strange.
 
Associate
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Yeah, nothing better on say a CV than [email protected]

I’ll stick with my name and put up with the one idiot in the US that thinks they own my email address.

Not to mention the protection you now have with GDPR, having personally identifiable information in your address put it into a different class of data. I had to remove hundreds of thousands of addresses for that reason for a b2b blog i run.
 
Soldato
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I was unintentionally using Danny_******@hotmail.com for years as a spam second email address instead of daniel_******@hotmail.com which it should have been.

It was only when my now wife sent me directions to somewhere in Bradford to the wrong email address and Dan from Australia emailed her saying 'thanks but it might be a bit far to drive' that I finally realised.
 
Associate
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Yeah, nothing better on say a CV than [email protected]
I’ll stick with my name and put up with the one idiot in the US that thinks they own my email address.

I just use a separate email for CVs, banking, etc. When one address gets inevitably leaked, it's one less thing to care about.

After 20yrs of one account i'd probably just make a new one. As said, 2fa as a minimum, with new password and new security questions etc.
 
Soldato
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I use firstname.lastname@gmail but I guess I'm lucky as not many will have my name. A quick check, and I can only find a site that shows you the number of people with the same name as you in the US, shows this.

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To gmail me@gmail is the same as m.e@gmail so forgetting to put a full stop or not doesn't make any difference. This seems to happen all the time with gmail though.

Mine gets used without the full stop. I just have everything sent to spam. It's not like anyone has access to the account.

I ended up being sent house sale contracts, job offers, and the full prospectus and financial details for the TVR car company a few years back (intended recipient was serious buyer at the time, of the company), all because of Gmail issues and people with sausage fingers.
 
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Getting a lot of this recently. USPS shipping details, some private medical company in a South American country where someone has signed up etc. If you check on haveibeenpwned.com you'll probably find your address all over it.

People just use it as a valid/disposable address for some services that don't require validation I guess, I know my account hasn't been compromised from the activity logs and the 2FA needed to access the account but it's definitely on the rise.
 
Associate
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I have a gmail address with my first and last name that I use for CVs etc - the guy who keeps using it accidentially in the USA sells merchandise for the Masons so I keep getting emails about that. Apparently the Masons call each other Brother, which makes the emails a little odd to follow.
 
Soldato
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I have had it a lot with my BT email address - Had loads of differnet people email my name - My name is probably the first one on BT email as all the others have a number after the name -
Had some good convrsations with some of them - I think it was all down to the name DOT name - they shouldn't have had the dot.
 
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