Someone "stole" my email address

[brandonb]

Ok, I usually use about 3 email addresses for different reasons. One personal, one for business/professional/career, and one for junk email and signing up for things on the internet.

On one of my email addresses, I started noticing "Thank you for signing up on PassionAds.com" and several other similar sites. Looks like casual sex dating sites to me. It took a peek at one of them as it listed a username/password. Apparently some guy from the military out in Seattle Washington (I'm from MN), but he's using my email address for all his adventures. I don't think he actually has my email address password, but he's using my email address to sign up on things.

I've actually found it kind of funny because I can go in and read his emails on these sites and see what he is doing. I even changed around his profile somewhat (I made him a 5'4" marine)... So I don't know if I'll actually do anything about this or not, but has anybody else had this happen to them?

 

[paulxcook]

Is he actually in the Marines? Can you tell from his profile? If he is, change it so that he's in the Air Force, that'll piss him off.

 

[Zysoclaplem]

Go into all of his profiles and change his passwords.
Oh and remember people generally use the same password for most things. Which means if you search hard enough I am sure you can log into a lot of his things.

 

[NuroMancer]

Originally posted by: brandonb
Ok, I usually use about 3 email addresses for different reasons. One personal, one for business/professional/career, and one for junk email and signing up for things on the internet.

On one of my email addresses, I started noticing "Thank you for signing up on PassionAds.com" and several other similar sites. Looks like casual sex dating sites to me. It took a peek at one of them as it listed a username/password. Apparently some guy from the military out in Seattle Washington (I'm from MN), but he's using my email address for all his adventures. I don't think he actually has my email address password, but he's using my email address to sign up on things.

I've actually found it kind of funny because I can go in and read his emails on these sites and see what he is doing. I even changed around his profile somewhat (I made him a 5'4" marine)... So I don't know if I'll actually do anything about this or not, but has anybody else had this happen to them?

Personally, I wouldn't take the time to mess with him.

Can you set a filter to remove his messages?

Or better yet respond to the host and get un-subscribed?

 

[brandonb]

Originally posted by: Zysoclaplem
Go into all of his profiles and change his passwords.
Oh and remember people generally use the same password for most things. Which means if you search hard enough I am sure you can log into a lot of his things.

He actually used my email address as his password. So username "JoeBlow@yahoo.com", password "JoeBlow@yahoo.com" email signed up with "JoeBlow@yahoo.com"

(not really that email address, but you get the idea)

I'll probably just ignore his messages and have them go to the spam folder as I see them come in.

 

[zoiks]

Oh yeah. I had my yahoo account stolen by someone who promptly changed the password and account info. All my credit card, bills, purchases, personal info was in there. I could see the asshole go through my email since I could still see the my.yahoo.com page and the number of emails being shown was changing every time I visited that page.
I emailed yahoo but they took their sweet time in replying back and couldn't verify my info.
I in turn ended up calling them. Was on hold for an hour then they disconnected me. I called back and a recording came on that the offices were closed and this was during a weekday.
I called and kept calling and finally got someone who wanted to verify a credit card that I used to make my first purchase there. I didn't have that card anymore and I gave him at least 5 numbers that I used over the years and he kept repeating the same info back everytime like a broken record 'I am sorry. Unfortunately the information you have provided does not match our records'. Finally I dug through my drawers and found one of my oldest credit card accounts that I had closed several years back. I gave him the number and he changed his message and told me 'Thank you Mr. xxxx, The credit card number matches our records'. He gave me a link and I reset the password and logged back in.
I had to change all my credit card passwords. The idiot who stole my email also reset my ebay password though Ebay support was much more kinder and they instantly changed the password.

I now use the Yahoo Pops client to synchronize my email with my Outlook client at home so I don't lose anything. Once I synch the info, I delete all my mail on the server.

 

[SoulAssassin]

See if any of his profiles list an alternate email address and sign him up for all kinds of ghey pr0n. Definitely mess w this guy as much as you can.

 

[brandonb]

Originally posted by: zoiks

I now use the Yahoo Pops client to synchronize my email with my Outlook client at home so I don't lose anything. Once I synch the info, I delete all my mail on the server.

Sorry to hear that happening to you zoiks. That is a good idea. I should probably do the same thing, but one of the advantages of having it on the web is that I can access people's phone numbers from the library, out of state on a business trip, etc without needing to lug that information around with me. But I'll have to think about which route is best in the long run. Convience or safety.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Zysoclaplem
Go into all of his profiles and change his passwords.
Oh and remember people generally use the same password for most things. Which means if you search hard enough I am sure you can log into a lot of his things.

now that is a good idea.

 

[zoiks]

Originally posted by: brandonb

Originally posted by: zoiks

I now use the Yahoo Pops client to synchronize my email with my Outlook client at home so I don't lose anything. Once I synch the info, I delete all my mail on the server.

Sorry to hear that happening to you zoiks. That is a good idea. I should probably do the same thing, but one of the advantages of having it on the web is that I can access people's phone numbers from the library, out of state on a business trip, etc without needing to lug that information around with me. But I'll have to think about which route is best in the long run. Convience or safety.

Thanks. I was so relieved when I finally got it sorted out. I don't want to ever relive that anymore.
I've been thinking about this and using dyndns, I'm hoping to set up a webserver on my home pc where i can access all my email info from anywhere. Though I need to find the time for this since my current job requires a lot of focus

 

[sobriquet]

I had my Gmail account hijacked by several other people with the same last name and first initial. For some reason they thought they had registered the address before me. For a while, I was getting all sorts of (very) personal emails intended for other people, including wedding invites, family reunion updates, father-son heart-to-hearts, etc. I still get them now and again, and I just laugh. Yesterday I got a collection notice from a veterinary hospital in Seattle, so that was fun.