Someone has the exact email address as me

[MrNikeR]

Long story short, I have held my Btinternet email address since when BT Broadband first launched, the time of the green 'Frog' or 'Stingray' routers with a 1MB connection and possibly before this. 

Someone has the exact Email Address as me and I have been receiving on and off over the many years sporadic Emails to him.

I contacted BT Support when this started happening to be told it was strange and that nothing can be done so I left it at that and felt bewildered. 

It has bugged me ever since and now I think enough is enough. He must be receiving mine too and I have tried informing him but it's been years and can't recall any correspondence from him or BT Support. Not sure how far back my Emails go.

[licquorice]

Nobody has the same email address as you. What is happening is that somebody is either mistyping another address and using your address or the somebody has given whoever is sending them the wrong address.

I get emails intended for someone else all the time due to typos.

[gg30340]

It is impossible to have the same email address as somebody else

It may be similar except by just one digit and it is being incorrectly entered by the sender.

If it was the same as yours can explain why you don't get all his emails instead of just the odd one or two "over many years".

[Andy_N · Accepted solution]

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@MrNikeRwrote:

Long story short, I have held my Btinternet email address since when BT Broadband first launched, the time of the green 'Frog' or 'Stingray' routers with a 1MB connection and possibly before this. 

Someone has the exact Email Address as me and I have been receiving on and off over the many years sporadic Emails to him.

I contacted BT Support when this started happening to be told it was strange and that nothing can be done so I left it at that and felt bewildered. 

It has bugged me ever since and now I think enough is enough. He must be receiving mine too and I have tried informing him but it's been years and can't recall any correspondence from him or BT Support. Not sure how far back my Emails go.

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As others have said, you don't have the same address as someone else.

It's a simple case of mistyping the email address - either by his contacts or yours. Indeed even the email address "owner" can enter incorrect details. Businesses can sometimes misread details on application forms and enter wrong details. Lower case "L" and upper case "i" can look the same for example.

Like others I've received stuff from various people who have entered wrong stuff, I've received order confirmation for pizzas I've not asked for! Was that the pizza company or the person that ordered it?

As a matter of interest, how have you tried informing him? If you simply emailed the address believing he's got the same one, only you will receive it - he will not see it.

BT Support can't do anything about this.

The only way you can ascertain their address - is if in one or more message you've received their may be a clue in the name, for example it might be "jon smith" rather than "john smith". Of course in the past when users wanted a new email address, BT would offer suggestions, often just adding a number after the other address. If this is case, then this can cause issues if people simply get the wrong number or leave it out altogether.

There are some many ways for people to get the wrong address. It's not a lot different for phone numbers. One digit wrong can get anyone, and virtually impossible to work out what it's supposed to be.

[MrNikeR]

Thank you for your reply.

One question, would it not help for you to see their Email address within the Email or what about the Header.

I can tell you, the names in the Email have same Surname as me and his first name same as mine if that makes sense.

Kindest regards 

[licquorice]

Because somebody has incorrectly typed your name and email address rather than his.

NOBODY ELSE HAS YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

It's exactly the same as getting a wrong number call to your phone.

[Andy_N]

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@MrNikeRwrote:

Thank you for your reply.

One question, would it not help for you to see their Email address within the Email or what about the Header.

I can tell you, the names in the Email have same Surname as me and his first name same as mine if that makes sense.

Kindest regards 

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Many people have the same name - as I said, people have simply entered the wrong email address, either by missing out a character, number or simply spelling it wrongly. I used to get a few for a person who had an extra character at the end of their name - but people just missed that off as they assumed it possibly looked wrong. I knew that because I did see emails with the person's full name.

What I did was send a default reply saying that the needed to resend with the extra character added.

If the names are the same, then that's more tricky.

For example if you saw an email address ending in boott - you might think, oh that's boot - hence then send to the wrong address. So if the wrong address exists, that person will get the wrong email.

I assume you've replied to some of the emails saying they've got the wrong person, and perhaps asking what email address do they want?

The email address in the header will only be yours - the sender has simply got it wrong.