How hard is it to remember your own email address? Apparently too hard for a couple of people who share my last name in Newburgh, NY.

This started several days ago when I began getting emails from Gamefly [Gamefly, for those who do not know, is the video game equivalent of Netflix: you set up a queue of games you want mailed to you, and they mail them to you -- apparently you also have the option of purchasing the games once you have them, which is different from Netflix, I think]. These were not solicitation sorts of emails, but were rather addressed to an "Oliver" and were confirmations of things like receipt of returned games or the purchase of a game. Official-looking stuff, in other words, coming to my email address.

I went to Gamefly and entered my email address and clicked the "I forgot my password" button. Very lax security there, as the response was to mail me the password to the account. And upon logging in, I saw that indeed Oliver shared my last name and had entered my email address as his. Not good.

I sent a note to Gamefly:

Ok, so I don't have a GameFly account. I don't even play video games. And my name is Andrew, not Oliver -- I don't even know of any Olivers in my family.

I say this because I suspect somebody has mistyped an email address recently, since I've been getting emails from you addressed to an "Oliver." You might want to check your records associated with this email address and see if there's an alternate method of contacting this guy, since he probably wants his emails from you more than I do.

Here's some information associated with the account that was sent to me:

Order Number: [redacted]
Address: [redacted]
NEWBURGH, NY [redacted]
Charged to: Mastercard XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-[redacted]

That ought to be enough to track this fellow down.

The response I got was fairly quick and took care of the problem:

Dear oliver,

Thank you for contacting GameFly. Our apologies that this happened. We have removed your email address from any further communications.

Sincerely,

GameFly Customer Service
Email: support@gamefly.com
Online help: http://www.gamefly.com/help/default.asp

And while they didn't entirely get the whole "I am not Oliver" thing, they did take care of the problem. Whoopee.

Now, I should note that I wasn't entirely surprised by this. When I picked my gmail address, I picked one that somewhat destined me for this, namely [firstinitiallastname]@gmail.com. There are many people with my last name, and probably at least 1/26 of those share my first initial. I have had, in the five or so years I've had this account, probably 5-10 instances of having to email some stranger back to let them know that my email address goes to me and not their friend/loved one. Fine. Whatever. That's to be expected every once in a while.

What I do not expect, however, is that people would mistake my email address for their own. Mistype? Ok, I can understand that. But I think this goes beyond mistyping.

Yesterday, I began receiving emails similar in nature to the Gamefly emails, but they're addressed to an Angela and coming from Blockbuster letting me know they were shipping Angela her Two and a Half Men DVDs. *sigh* So, I sent another email to Blockbuster:

So I just received three emails from you guys. Here's the problem:

1) My name isn't Angela. I don't even have any Angelas in my family.
2) I don't have an account with blockbuster.

Clearly Angela has mistyped her own email address. You might look at account #[redacted] to see if you have some alternate method of contacting her so she can change her email address to one that isn't mine.

They responded several hours later with this gem:

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Blockbuster Customer Care.

I am sorry to hear that you are receiving emails from us.

I checked our record that Ms. Angela [redacted] has an email address [my email address]. Unfortunately, we cannot make any changes on our customers [sic] account. I apologized [sic] for the inconvenience this has caused.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can be of help.


Always here to help,

Cindy
Blockbuster Customer Care

This is clearly an unacceptable response. "We cannot make any changes" sounds a lot like "You're going to continue to get emails" to me. I initially sent them an email asking if they'd just call, but then decided that I would be a little more proactive about the whole thing. To wit:

Since you don't seem willing to take any steps to fix this, I have fixed the problem for me, removing myself from this problem and making it solely between you and Angela.

I entered MY email twice and got the password reset. (By the way? That's not very good security -- you should at least have a secret question. It was entirely too easy to get into a stranger's account.)
Then I entered a different email address into the userinfo, one that will likely bounce (thus moving the burden back on your shoulders)

The new email address is: youarenot[redacted]@gmail.com
The new password is: [redacted]

Here's what you do: call her. Tell her what she's done and what I've done in response. Give her the login information I just gave you. Have her change her account accordingly.

Sorry if I'm coming across a bit testy on this matter. When I logged into her account I saw she appears to be either related to or married to an Oliver [redacted] -- and I went through this very same exercise yesterday on his account, save for it was with Gamefly.

I don't know what their problem is -- if they think that "[my email address]" is just a throwaway email address they can use because they don't want to get emails from your company or if they truly don't know it's not theirs. Either way, it needs to end, because I don't want to keep getting their mail.

As yet I haven't heard anything back from them, but I imagine they'll be hearing from Angela in the near future when she is unable to log into her account online and gives them a phone call.

When I logged into the account, I saw that they were both coming from the same ZIP code. Thus there is a married couple or two familiar members who believe my email address is their own. From here on out, this is going to be my standard procedure for any future accounts they open up with my email address. Maybe I can disabuse them of the notion that it's theirs.