r/Scams • u/Weak_Confection1101 • 1d ago
Is this a scam? Someone with my uncommon name accidentally used my Gmail to book a hotel room tonight in the city I live in
I have a pretty uncommon first + last name. Today I received a legitimate booking confirmation for a room at a hotel in Times Square, with check-in TODAY and checkout tomorrow, under my name. My gmail address contains a period between my first and last name but the booking was sent to the same address without the period.
Since gmail ignores periods it came directly to me.
I happened to be going to Times Square today, so l stopped by the hotel and confirmed the reservation is real.
I'm aware of two people in other states with my exact name so I suspect he either accidentally entered my email or has a similar address. Still, the combination of my uncommon name and a same day NYC hotel booking is bizarre.
The hotel seems to think it was a bizarre coincidence. I have no strange charges and they just appear to have signed up on this third party booking website with the wrong email that came to me. The coincidence of it all is spooking me a bit.
EDIT: he made another booking today using the same website so I called the new hotel and let them know what was going on. They called him. He didn’t answer. I texted him because there is a phone number this time on the booking and he never responded. I do think that it is a strange coincidence because the area code matches the area code of one of the guys that has my exact name. I still feel really weird about it though. He also checked out of the other hotel and paid with his own card so I really don’t know what the endgame would be if it were a scam of some kind.
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u/Powerful-Comment-113 1d ago
As an early adopter of Gmail with a reasonably common name, I have firstname.lastname.
I get SO many emails for other people with my name who think it's theirs
So far I've had to call two primary schools to ask them to speak to the parent and get the correct email address and STOP sending me private medical information about a child, speak to a solicitor and say that it is not me needing a power of attorney over a parent, confirm that I cannot permit viewings on a rental property I don't live in and they need to get permission from the actual tenant and many many more
There was a FABULOUS holiday booked for me that I was very temped by given that I have ID in the correct name...
Job interviews, flights, online shopping, the list goes on.
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u/Arcite1 1d ago
Lol. This happens to me too.
Just the other day I had to call Verizon to ask them to stop emailing me collections notices for someone with the same name as me who's apparently delinquent on their account.
One time I got an email from someone at an ophthalmologist's office in Canada about scheduling my eye surgery. (I'm not in Canada and wasn't about to have eye surgery.) I replied "You have the wrong email address."
Their reply? I kid you not: "What is your correct email address?"
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u/witeowl 1d ago
Yep. I've received sensitive documents (a mortgage contract with unredacted information), family photos, and at one point, I kept getting info about "how to log in and use the prepaid phone card for jail" that even though there was no way to just reply and tell them their error as I'll often do, I reached out to the phone card people to get them to contact their customer some other way.
And sooo much spam and newsletter signups and the like, which I can often determine because at least one of my name twins adds a period or two (and gmail ignores periods).
Don't tell anyone, but...
I've occasionally used the "forgot my password" feature to log in to a place and change the email address to smth like "contactcustomerfortheir@actualemailaddress" 😂
I sometimes entreat people to always add numbers or something personal to their email address and never use just their name because it suuucks...
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u/Arcite1 23h ago edited 17h ago
I've occasionally used the "forgot my password" feature to log in to a place and change the email address to smth like "contactcustomerfortheir@actualemailaddress" 😂
I've tried that and come up against 2FA. Which tells you that the person has never logged into their account. 🤦♂️
I sometimes entreat people to always add numbers or something personal to their email address and never use just their name because it suuucks...
Good idea. I could never have foreseen, back in 2005 or whenever it was, that that would be necessary.
What I want to know is, who are all these other people who think their email address is johnsmith (or JOHNSMITH) @ gmail? Like, are they actually typing that in when they sign up for an online account or writing it on the registration form at the doctor's office? How can they not know their own email address?
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u/witeowl 17h ago
I think sometimes they're doofuses who say gmail.com when they should say yahoo.com (or whatever), but I think it's most often a CSR who mishears/mistypes the email address. Or maybe someone retyping/mistyping from a paper form they could barely read. And family/friends are just goofy sometimes.
If I really want to be cynical, I'd say that sometimes it could be people giving out "fake" email addresses, but they'd have to be assholes instead of doofuses, so I choose to not believe that one 😉
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u/eastboundunderground 1d ago
I kept getting emails from a church in Hastings, England, “inviting me to pray.” Turned out there was indeed a parishioner with my name. I had quite the task convincing the pastor that I was not the lady who attends his church. He got it in the end.
I’ve also had movie tickets, booking confirmations for nice holidays and information about my Sky account, all from Ireland. I don’t live in Ireland. When a man with the male version of my name (think Paul/Paula) needs to pay his electricity bill in Louisiana, I am informed via email. Then I am thanked again via email for paying it. Medical records sent to me from Virginia. Mortgage information from California.
My name isn’t even that common, especially my surname, but a name with a minor variation to my surname IS common (like… if I’m Smithe, they’re Smith), and I suspect a lot these incidents stem from typos.
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u/lgbtdancemom 16h ago
I have an unusual last name that’s similar to a common name as well (more like Shmith instead of Smith). My first name is extremely common, though. It doesn’t happen often, but I do get emails for someone else with my name, either with the correct last name or the more common one on my Gmail.
I had some guy with my last name and first initial constantly give out an old email of mine (first initial last name AT domain DOT net). I knew what car he drove, when it needed and/or was scheduled for service, etc. I tried contacting people stating that the email was wrong and it never went anywhere. The emails stopped several years ago, probably because I no longer have that ISP, but it was a pain in the ass for a while. I still don’t know if the ISP reused my email address or the guy just gave out the wrong one.
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u/_Anon_E_Moose 1d ago
Same. And my email works for males and females. Think Robert.a.smith or Roberta.Smith. Twice the fun. Many things you cannot reply or unsubscribe from.
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u/not_thrilled 1d ago
I got into Gmail during the beta, and also have a common first name and last name (that unfortunately make for a bad combination). Someone signed up for an Apple/iCloud account with my address, I got someone's CVS receipts, Tractor Supply Co receipts. But the best one was someone who was a volunteer soccer coach. It took years to convince them I wasn't who they were looking for, that I lived half the country away and had zero knowledge of soccer.
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u/OT_fiddler 12h ago
I get sooooo many Lowe's receipts from upstate New York for a guy who is apparently a contractor who doesn't know his own email address.
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u/cardifan 4h ago
Someone keeps using my phone number for CVS and I rack up Extrabucks. $18 last month. lol
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u/Early-Bid-7958 1d ago
The worst is that some banks in India (here's looking at you State Bank of India!) don't even verify the email the customer claims to have when he signs up. So I get emails from SBI for somebody else to my email. With serious financial and other info. PDFs even (password protected, but trivial to brute force... tempting!)
I called SBI. They said I have to physically go to a bank, with my ID proof, and then they might do something about it. I told them GTFO and just filter the emails now. (Real worry: some moron at the bank actually ends up attaching MY info to that account and makes the situation worse. Better leave it alone!)
(I mention SBI because it is the most egregious; I get emails for about a dozen people, from as many small merchants and services which may or may not have the smarts to do the right thing. But you'd think the largest bank in India would care a bit about verifying the email before sending out stuff!)
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u/Solrax 1d ago
Same for me. but with what I thought was a relatively uncommon first and last combination. I thought I was so clever to snag it LOL. I've been contacted by prisons on behalf of prisoners who want to talk to their relative, collection agents, college recruiters, domain name renewals, cell phone service bills. Who the heck is savvy enough to register a domain but too stupid to know their own email address?.
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u/Gold_Tangelo8464 16h ago
You would be amazed. Also, there are people who make up email addresses, either because they are scammers, or simply because they are tired about their address being sold from data broker to data broker.
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u/Wide_Elk35 1d ago
I tried stopping a house purchase in the US once (I'm in UK) because I kept being included in an email chains using my Gmail account. One of the third parties called me a dick but never mind!
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u/Powerful-Comment-113 1d ago
Yes I had some house sale stuff also, I ended up calling the solicitor for that one. Realistically, I could have diverted the sale funds to myself with the info I had! They were horrified to give them credit and I didn't get anything else.
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u/lostmuppet47 22h ago
I once accidentally canceled an Ontario hotel getaway for another lady with my name. I hope they were able to work it out when she arrived.
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u/theuniverselovesme 1d ago
Same. So many people with my name have gotten their email sent to me, divorce papers, their work schedules, medical info, receipts, it never ends.
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u/SprinklesTheCat9 1d ago
Early hotmail account here. First initial of first name and full last name. My junk mail folder is huge. I once cancelled the showing on someone’s house because I was so annoyed with all of the emails I was getting about it.
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u/sarahbellah1 1d ago
Same! I’ve gotten medical records, photos of grandparents, pizza delivery confirmations, and I’ve also got a pretty rare name.
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u/kemp77pmek 23h ago
I’ve probably received 10’s of thousands of emails for the non-dot-separated version of my name over the years. I add them to the spam filter every single day. Some are for a guy in New England, some for one in London, and some for one in Australia.
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u/famousxrobot 22h ago
I have another person with my name that uses the first part of their work email for their Gmail accidentally from time to time. I’ve gotten work documents about private jet repairs, delivery order confirmations for food. I actually texted them and they called. Had a fun chat about it all. Still get some random emails from prospective employers for them.
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u/lostmuppet47 22h ago
I once heard from a magazine editor in London who was concerned I hadn’t called anyone for a feature story.
I live in America and never heard of your magazine
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u/KennyFulgencio 18h ago
Same. Why do they keep entering my gmail when they can't ever access the emails that get sent to it? Years this has been going on and there's no easy way to reach them, though I guess I could use one of the free background checks on their name and location. I know all about how much money they regularly put in the account of their relative in a florida state prison by now, I guess I could call him and ask him to pass it on.
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u/cadmiumredlight 17h ago
This happens to me a lot and I finally figured out why. I have firstnamelastname @gmail. Someone else has my same name but with a middle initial in their address, so it's firstnamexlastname @gmail. One time I got an email that was addressed to both so I was finally able to contact the other person about it. He apologized but said it usually happens when he's telling his email to someone and they type it wrong but he also admitted to messing up when he types it in. Anyway, I passed on the info he needed for his prostate exam.
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u/BirthdaySalt2112 1d ago
My husband has this same issue. He was a Gmail beta tester so has had his first.last name at Gmail.com email address for over at least a decade. He gets email notifications all the time for appointments from everything from doctor appointments to last minute flight confirmations. He tried to be nice at first but it kept happening. Amazing how a simple cancelation of an oil change can get an email address changed quickly.
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u/Informal_Trick_1658 16h ago
My Gmail doppelgänger once ordered a very nice handbag, and I was tempted to change the shipping address but didn’t.
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u/rocketmanatee 15h ago
Same. Divorce papers, car purchase agreements, late notices, reservations for hotels, etc
I got tired of it, it's usually the same 4 people, now I just go cancel the reservations. They've used my email so it's on my account. I don't want to be held liable if they trash a hotel room or something.
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u/solarmoss 11h ago
Dating sites. Those are the ones I get from the people who share my name. I delete their accounts whenever I start getting too many emails though it can be entertaining to see who they are matching with 🤣
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u/fluffycritter 1d ago
This happens to me all the time. It turns out that I have a lot of distant relatives with the same first initial and last name as me, and none of them know how email works.
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u/zarathustranu 1d ago
Yes, but it happened in OP’s city— that’s a pretty big coincidence, particularly with an
uncommon name…•
u/fluffycritter 1d ago
The hotel is in Times Square which I assume is the one in New York City. It's not exactly uncommon for people to travel there.
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u/Dull_Lavishness7701 1d ago
Yeah OPs title says "same city" makes you think like podunk Arkansas and then its one of the biggest cities on earth
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
It still felt strange since I live here and happened to be 30 minutes away by train when I got the email. It spooked me.
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u/Gold_Tangelo8464 16h ago
Depends upon how common the combination of first and last names is. There are about 800 of me nationwide, for example.
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u/chownrootroot 1d ago
Funny enough I had received an email of a reservation I never made from a hotel I was not anywhere near nor going to anytime soon. I called the hotel and they said it was a phone reservation and they misheard the guy on the phone and accidentally came up with my name and email. So really sometimes accidents happen.
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u/Western_Rhubarb_7959 1d ago
Yep, this.
I made a 'pen pal' over 20 years ago when I got emails meant for her - about TV production of some royal wedding, and then later from the NFL. Turns out she;s an American TV producer in London, lol. My email is like a.b.stien@gmail, her's is abstein@gmail. Two letters transposed and gmail ignores the dots, dontcha know
We're both retired now and still say hey once in a while. She's sent me some great stuff over the years, too!
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u/zarathustranu 1d ago
But it happening in OP’s city and with an uncommon name makes that less likely…
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u/chownrootroot 1d ago
I actually have an uncommon name, they literally just “heard” my name (but misheard a different name) and spelled it exactly as my name is.
And OP is in NYC, NYC has 8 million people, there’s going to be some coincidences when 8 million people are around.
Maybe it’s a scam if they hijacked OP’s account or credit card number or what-not, but that wasn’t said in the OP so it’s not looking like a scam, just an accident.
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u/phluidity 1d ago
Not really. It is a law of large numbers situation. The odds of it happening to a specific person are unlikely but the odds of it happening to someone are very, very high. OP just happens to be the someone.
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u/c1884896 1d ago
It happens to me all the time. The person was using namelastname at gmail. Com, while mine had a dot in the middle. I assume he meant @ hotmail , yahoo or similar, so I spent a while investigating to let him know. He never thanked me and continued to do the same, until one day I got an email about super expensive bikes added to the cart. If he had added his credit card number I would have sent them to an orphanage or similar, but I just clicked on forgot password, got a link to reset it to my email and changed it. That probably scared him because I haven’t received any more emails in a couple of years.
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u/zarathustranu 1d ago
Yes, but you are ignoring the detail that this happened in OP’s city. That’s a big coincidence.
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u/c1884896 1d ago
NYC is probably the city with the most hotel nights in the world. And the person that made the reservation has to proof their identity to check in. I don’t see the issue here.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
I could have checked in with my ID given we have the exact same name. But the reservation was prepaid.
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u/zamula 1d ago
The reservation had to be in some city.
Since the OP has verified none of their credit cards or hotel accounts were compromised, why would someone purposely do this? How could it possibly benefit a scammer.
Sometimes there are just weird coincidences. I happened to be driving to NYC for work when 9/11 happened - what are the chances of that?
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u/zarathustranu 1d ago
what? that’s not a coincidence. That’s just a thing that happened.
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u/zamula 1d ago
I was just discussing this with some friends today about how odd that whole day seemed.
It was very rare for me to drive to the location I was going to, so for it to be on that particular day, and for me to be driving at the exact time it happened, as I was on the turnpike passing the towers, certainly seems like a strange confluence of events.
If I had left 30 minutes earlier I would have been over the GW bridge and bypassed it, or if I had left 30 minutes later the road would likely have been closed before I got to the area.
So to me it was a coincidence due to all of the things that could have gone differently in my usual routine. That might not be everyone's definition, but it is for me.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
They just signed up for a third party booking website to book it. I received an account creation email followed by a reservation confirmation. Presumably they mistyped their email address which happens to be both our names. Very odd coincidence.
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u/MoaiTrist 1d ago
Contact the hotel. My wife received a confirmation for a booking she didn't make last year. It turns out someone was somehow using her reward points to book the reservation and pay for it.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
I went to the hotel. They said it was a strange coincidence
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u/Dofolo 1d ago
The chances of that are ridiculously small.
Do you have a booking . com account?
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
No they just created an account on a different third party booking website using the email that went to me. I’m not sure what the end game would be if this were a scam. But the coincidence is very very strange. This is NYC though.
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u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 1d ago
I have received endless emails meant for other people including flight reservations, bar mitzvah invitations, tax returns, therapy receipts, and a long amusing conversation with a woman who likes to buy her husband pickles.
Depending on the details, I typically just let the sender know that they made a mistake.
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u/AccidentalSirens 1d ago
Quite often it's impossible to respond. I got 5 'no reply' emails today about my current email twin's Walmart order, including their full address and a photo of all 55 items dumped outside their front door. I could have popped round and helped myself if I lived on the same continent.
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u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 1d ago
Yes, there's one person using my email address who keeps getting his phone service cut off every few months, and I get all those notices, and there doesn't seem to be any way to reply or unsubscribe. I've tried to change the settings, but I can't do it without getting a text to his phone number whoever he may be.
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u/AccidentalSirens 1d ago
Same here, I can't contact Walmart without their password.
I've had a few over the years for different people. My email is my first name and my hometown, which isn't a surname where I come from but clearly is in the States. I've had several some that are quite fast and loose with data protection,
A request for ID verification and vetting for a job
Daily updates for Pentagon employees(!!)
Elementary school children telling me why they haven't done their homework on time.
Also I get less important stuff, like realtor sending me details of American properties, and alerts that there are only 10 minutes left on a parking ticket somewhere in California.
Edit: I'm trying to remove the word 'several' above but it won't let me.
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u/HighColdDesert 1d ago
You could try logging in with "forgot password" and get the code sent to your email, in order to change some detail or stop the mailing list.
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u/ALIMN21 1d ago
Since gmail ignores periods it came directly to me.
What??
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u/BeanoMc2000 1d ago
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u/ALIMN21 1d ago
Thank you! Learned something new today 🤯
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u/BeanoMc2000 1d ago
You can also use a + to make alternate versions of your email address https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html?m=1
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u/ArmyofJuan 1d ago
Same, I was an early adopter with firstnamelastname@ and I get emails from people all over the world with my name.
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u/EveLQueeen 1d ago
Yep, same here. I can tell you where the people are with the same name as me, because none of them seem to know what their actual email is.
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u/lopingwolf 19h ago
Same. The one I most want to meet is the veterinary anesthesiologist in Australia. She seems to be doing quite the home remodel and landscape project in between vacations lolol
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u/BlueMoon2008 20h ago
I stayed at a Marriott hotel in Oxnard years ago for a conference. Imagine my surprise when a man I’ve never met entered my hotel room with a key card after checking in. He had the same last name; reception assumed we were a married couple and combined the room reservation without asking us first. My last name is somewhat uncommon with an admittedly uncommon spelling. Luckily the man was a gentleman and exited the room once the mixup was discovered.
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u/NextTailor4082 1d ago
For YEARS now I have been getting emails meant for someone in Florida. I’ve tried to reach out to any companies that contact me and get it corrected, but this is like 6 years.
Things I’ve received:
-all bank account information including current balance
-agreements for buying a car including financial information and subsequently a pdf of the title.
-Dude is president of an HOA in Florida, so I received all of their financials as well.
-401k updates and broker info
-mortgage documents.
I delete the documents, I email the companies sending it pleading that I don’t want this information, the next week I get a birth certificate or something outrageous. This guy is so incredibly lucky I’m an honorable person.
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u/IbelieveinGodzilla 1d ago
No one in America has my last name unless they are related to me in some way. For years, someone was using the same first initial last name Gmail address as I do. I tracked it down to a distant relative halfway across the country and told her to stop using MY address. But the junk continued until she finally died.
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u/techanona 1d ago
I have a defunct brand with numbers in mine. The weirdest emails I have gotten are JIO account info and a Tesla OTP.
Oh and the only other time is Honda sending me maintenance reminders for a vehicle I don’t own. They really screwed that up because you didn’t need to log in to modify appointments or schedule appointments if you had that link.
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u/Berk_2112 1d ago
My husband just had something similar happen. He got an email that he’d booked a same day reservation in a town that he’d visited for work somewhat recently (not sure if that fact is relevant). Kind of seemed like a hacking of his rewards account, or if not a hacking, a malicious or accidental linking? He called the hotel directly and cancelled the reservation.
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u/sansabeltedcow 1d ago
To be clear, the period doesn’t matter here at all; it has nothing to do with why you got this email or why the other person screwed up. This person doesn’t have the email they used, that’s all. They just forgot they’re Benedictcumberbatch1 or cumberbatchbenedict or whatever.
I have had the same thing for years with a woman I actually really vibe with, since the emails are all personal ones about cool arty things; I therefore just let those people know they’ve got the wrong one. If I ever get her actual address that will be easier but of course I only hear from the people who don’t know it.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
My spider senses were tingling simply because it was a booking for a hotel in the city I live in and I was on my way to that area when I got the email. Now it’s NYC and Times Square so it’s less weird but still weird.
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u/sansabeltedcow 1d ago
Yeah, the first one I got from my name twin was a festival I actually knew about and had looked at, so I was pretty thrown. I guess the James Johnsons of this world must run into this all the time, and we just weren’t as ready as they are.
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u/Lester_B 1d ago
This happens so often that there is an xkcd for it: https://xkcd.com/1279
I get emails about late library books in NY state, about all kinds of things from Iowa, and so on.
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u/imtoowhiteandnerdy 1d ago
But it was just your email address and name that are the common factors here, correct? In other words none of your financial data was compromised or used to book the reservation?
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u/Western_End_2223 1d ago
I don't see where there's a coincidence? Did you have a booking at the same hotel on the same day?
I used to get mail for two others with apparently similar email addresses, one in Canada and one in the UK. When I received an email for the one in the UK that contained a physical address, I sent him a letter. Apparently, he got more careful after that and the emails stopped.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
It was a coincidence because someone with my exact name made a hotel booking in my city when I was 30 minutes away from the hotel. I wasn’t sure if it was a scam or not but because I live here, I was able to go into the hotel and ask.
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u/Western_End_2223 19h ago
Ahh, I see. I guess I would have considered it stranger if you lived in a town of 10,000 and a hotel reservation had been made in your name. Not such a big deal when we're talking about NYC since New York is such a huge tourist destination.
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u/Zealousideal_Lack936 20h ago
The periods in the email address are the issue. Gmail doesn’t recognize them, so firstname.lastname and firstnamelastname go to the same inbox.
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u/Illustrious_Oil4644 19h ago
I am so glad you posted this. I have been receiving enails, tax notices, gym membership confirmations, for about a decade for someone in Australia with the same email ( they have a period added) We have struck up a mutual deal. They immediately forward and then delete any of my emails and I do the same for them. We are both pretty lucky that we aren't interested in scamming. I wasn't aware that Google doesn't recognize the period. I just know that they aren't very helpful any time I try to clear it up. Even the .au at the end of his isn't a roadblock to my inbox. Very perplexing.
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u/KookyPiccolo1661 10h ago
My husband got his name at gmail right when signups first were offered so he's had this happen as well as his name is midway common. One time he got sent a $200 restaurant gift card for another "john smith" who was getting married. He was nice and emailed the gifter but got a rude response instead of a thank you. I was tempted to say let's just use the card, lol.
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u/aykcak 1d ago
How uncommon are we talking about? Is it completely out of the realm of possibility that someone with your exact name booked the hotel?
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
No, there’s two guys with my exact name in the states. It’s not a totally uncommon name but an uncommon spelling. There’s only 3 of us that I know of.
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u/BuzzyLiz 1d ago
Maybe the Universe is calling your name and you are destined for greatness! It's as reasonable as any other explanation for the dupe.
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u/melasaurus_rex 1d ago
If you cancel their hotel stay with that fancy confirmation code, I bet they'll figure it out quick.
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u/ErinMichelle64 23h ago
I have had this issue often. I usually see if they created an account. If they have, I find forget password and reset it. If you get that far you could cancel the booking
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u/Loud-Cryptographer52 20h ago
My gmail is surname.initial.firstname. However the combo of my initial and first name happens to make another first name. I get a lot of information about them. I used to write back and ask them to check the email address, especially when she was being invited for job interviews ☺️
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u/Advanced-Study214 11h ago
I keep getting email from someone with the same name as me. I get her confirmed appointments and travel promotions.
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u/SafetyDancer-8065 10h ago
I am dealing with same thing but they also have my phone number. Or at least I received texts. Not my credit card or debit on booking. No new credit cards on my report. Is it Wyndham properties by chance?
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u/fullgrownnut 1d ago
With all of these endless stories of email mix-ups with other people with the same name, you would think that Google would try to rectify how they handle periods in emails because they still have the same system today if you create a new gmail address.
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u/HighColdDesert 1d ago
The periods in email IDs simply don't matter. It's not unique to gmail. If I have jack.jones@gmail .com already and you try to register jackjones@gmail, it won't let you because that username is already taken.
The problem happens when people forget they should have spelled it differently or included a middle initial or a number or something.
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u/classicicedtea 1d ago
Has this ever happened before?
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
Never…
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u/classicicedtea 1d ago
Then I think it was just a mistake, not a scam.
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u/Weak_Confection1101 1d ago
I think so too, it’s just a very strange coincidence especially given I was nearby so was able to pop into the hotel and confirm I wasn’t being scammed
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u/ClaireTrice 1d ago
As long as hotel did not have your credit card number, I think it gets treated like a 'wrong number' message left on the answering machine years ago - you contact the caller and let them know they have not reached their intended person. You did that. The hotel can now hold or re-book the room as they see fit, and you know it's not somehow going to come back to bite you.
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u/missbwith2boys 1d ago
I too was an early adopter of gmail back when you had to have an invite to get an address.
My name twin is a teacher across the country. She got married a number of years ago, I commented on a wedding dress in an email that was misrouted to me. Her dentist emails me all the time. So does her realtor.
She’s had kids; I recently got a series of emails to confirm some sort of kid game account.
It is annoying, but mostly I just block the senders.
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u/Nunov_DAbov 1d ago
I have a Gmail account with my FirstnameLastname as an ID. I kept getting email for a guy with the same name on the other side of world including private medical information. I also got email for another person with the same name in an adjacent country. The later included lots of international travel.
I was able to identify the first one: his email ID was actually FirstnameXILastname where X is his middle initial. Perhaps this is what happened in your case.
I chalk it up to careless record keeping by organizations that people deal with. I was able to get in touch with the first guy when the health care provider included a copy of a message he sent them with the right email address. They had mistyped it when they responded. The other guy has probably missed a lot of travel changes I was informed of but had no way to get it to the right person.
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u/Booperelli 1d ago
Last month I got an email from hotels.com that a reservation had been made under my name and email address for a hotel in Vietnam the following night. I did not recognize the CC number. I tried to cancel it but it was too late.
The same thing happened a few months back as well. Pretty sure it's some sort of scam and my name and email are just collateral damage, but I'm not sure what exactly it entails.
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u/1Pandora 16h ago
I constantly get emails for a person who shares my business webdite name addressed to my .com website.
I have gotten gettin gym membership info, store orders and one time I even got a complete report on how the son was doing at school - (it wasn’t good).
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u/OT_fiddler 12h ago
My work email address was "lastnamefirstinitial@uniname.edu" and one of the deans had my last name and same first initial. I got soooo many impassioned emails from students asking to drop classes late, or not be put on probation, or full of all kinds of very personal details about their medical issues or private lives. Sigh. I just forwarded them to the dean.
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u/rikityrokityree 7h ago
I receive prescription info, hotel confirmations, shipping addresses, patient updates ( the person using my gmail but with a period , with similar name is also a healthcare provider). I tried years ago to let them know, the pharmacy company know, even their practice manager was informed. Patient updates have declined but thats it.
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u/cardifan 4h ago
I was once included in some kind of death in the family group chat. They’re talking about dividing up property, who’s getting what, that kind of stuff.
But in like the second paragraph the person who wrote the email says, “This is highly confidential. No one outside of this group can know.
Loved reading through those.
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u/juftish 3h ago
Could be a cashback scam. I used to work for one of those third party booking sites and there were false bookings every month using fake/stolen credit card numbers.
The scam involved using a cashback site before our third party site and then booking the most expensive (i.e. five figures) hotel packages available before no-showing. The hotel would attempt (usually in vain) to charge a deposit on the card for the no-show but due to timings the cashback (10-20%) would still get paid out in certain cases.
Our company would end up out of pocket, but the CFO decided not to implement any measures to stop this. They went out of business the following year, I guess he had bigger fish to fry...
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u/InternationalSale890 2h ago
Does no one else find it odd that he knows exactly how many people have his exact name, and where they live?
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u/ClaireTrice 1d ago
I am reminded of 8 years ago when someone I know gave me his email address to join a mailing list for our local, small tiwn recycling center. When the newsletter next went out it it got an unsubscribe. I looked and the person it reached had a pic in their email acct and it was not they guy I knew!
I live in a rather luddite area and 8 years ago this guy had gotten hus first non-flip phone/'smartphone' ... It was android and upon setting up asked for google acct email addy. Local guy didn't realize there was a sign up that happened elsewhere, and just put in his very unique, in our area, name and thought that meant his name at gmail was now his email addy! SMDH
I called and told him a younger looking guy was confused as to why we were sending him recycling mail. "There's another X X here in town?!? No, but there is in another country, and then I explained how you get an email address, and gmail serves the whole world, not just our town
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u/Positive_Use_1308 1d ago
Interesting, never knew this was a thing. My girlfriend has been getting others emails with her name slightly different format. Unbelievable Google hasn't worked this out. What happens when an important email goes to wrong person?
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u/Ok-Internal-9655 1d ago
This isn't a Google issue, and nothing they do will fix it. Google treats all variations of a username that differ only by the location of the period as the same user; the first person to sign-up using one of them gets all of them. Those misdirected emails are either someone entering the wrong address or scams. These errors are why many sites make you verify any email addresses you add to your account.
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u/e_hatt_swank 9h ago
If that actually is Google’s intentional design for handling periods in email addresses, that’s one of the dumbest freaking things I’ve ever heard. Probably too late to change it at this point, I suppose, but it’s really silly.
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u/hang_your_cross 1d ago
I’ve received so many important emails from the person that has the non-dot email it’s crazy. Everything from real estate contracts to employment contracts to vacation plans. Not sure why Gmail is like this.
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u/Western_Rhubarb_7959 1d ago edited 1d ago
Edit: Oops, I missed where OP mentioned this. Can you ever forgive me, Reddit?
My gmail address contains a period between my first and last name but the booking was sent to the same address without the period.
The periods in gmail addresses are ignored. you.smell@gmail is the same as yousmell@gmail
Go ahead and send yourself an email without the period in the address.
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u/Individual_Agency703 1d ago
That's why OP wrote "Since gmail ignores periods it came directly to me."
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u/jimetalbott 1d ago
I also have a Gmail address with NO .., but sometimes, just….once in a great while, I receive email a for the same name, but WITH a . How can this be going on for so long, and Gmail not catch on and fix this?? To answer OPs actual question, no, I don’t think this is a scam, but it’s a symptom of an odd problem, for many Gmail users…..
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u/aintjoan 1d ago
This isn't a bug. It's by design. John.smith@ is the same as johnsmith@ and john.Smith@ and j.o.h.n.s.m.i.t.h@, etc
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u/ficler1977 1d ago
THIS COULD BE A
SCAM:
email tells you there is a booking under your name and ~click here to 100% refund.
Source of your name being legitimate could be a data leak on other service.
Coincidence:
other option is their name is your forename+your surname @ yahoo com. but autocorrect suggested them your forename+your surname @ gmail com.
I got parking ticket for a guy with the same name. mail wanted me to ring specific nr to clarify. checked the nr on internet as was marked as scam. after ~1 year bailiff took some money from account. rang him and it was for this parking ticket. he then confirm the details were "almost identical to mine". turned out that "spam" nr was a genuine nr but people kept reporting it as spam and original mail was saying if something is wrong ring the nr for appeal etc. got the money back the next day, was advised to be careful and act right away.
So OP did good job.
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u/thatguysuckssobad 23h ago
Nice try! Putting this on here and then using it to tell your wife that it totally wasn’t you and look it’s such a common problem there’s posts about it on Reddit!!
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u/Pretend-Recording-21 1d ago
If that happened to me with continued emails, for those that can be replied to I would reply to the effect that I only accept emails accompanied by a current picture of their bo*obs
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u/CommonSenseUS 1d ago
"Since gmail ignores periods"
No, that is not the case. An email address with a period in the name is NOT ignored. It is different than the same address without a period.
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u/mudbunny 1d ago
For Gmail, all of the following email addresses go to the same address:
Mudbunny
Mud.bunny
M.udbunny
In short, Gmail ignores the period and sends it all to the same address, which will be whatever the first one claimed is.
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