I’ve had a Gmail address for a long time now, since I am Early McAdopterson. I was able to get my first name, just for the hell of it. Great, right? I don’t even use it except for nefarious schemes and my Google Analytics account since I have plenty of other email addresses to wrangle. I receive password change requests at my main email address all the time I dragged myself over to check the box yesterday, and lo, at least four different citizens of the internet feel they are duly entitled to use my address. Just because they can’t log in and check their mail doesn’t mean they stop giving it out. Frequently, they even sign up for various accounts, allowing me access to their credit cards and home addresses.
A brief history:
August 2005 – Helen K___ of Wallingford, NJ opens a Blockbuster rentals account. She rented The Aviator. She has an American Express card. She also signed up for some “get paid to” sites, and I was able to get her standard password pretty easily (hellgirl, wish I’d thought of that one). I finally get Blockbuster to cancel the account under my email address after a confusing hour with several different reps on the phone.
January 2006 – present – Helene K___ of NY, NY is job hunting. Her resume gets lots of hits from Monster. Too bad she put the wrong damn email address on it. Helene also books a room at the Inn at Saratoga for a Valentine’s getaway. Her sister wants to make sure she knows about a $949,000 condo in Park Slope. In June, Helene has a job at a well-known ad agency. She makes sure I get a deck and brief on look and feel for a high profile cellular client. She also makes sure to give me the password to their extranet. Shockingly, she’s back to job hunting in October. When I emailed what I deduced was her real email, she wrote back and said “Oh, it happens, people just can’t grasp that I have an E in my name.” Neither can she, apparently, since she was forwarding all those work emails to herself.
March 2006 – Helen K___ of Athens, Greece signs up for web hosting. I can administer her account if I want. I don’t, luckily. She also joins Myspace. I reject all her friends now and then. I stuck a note in her profile to let her know she’s attached her account to an email address that doesn’t belong to her.
July 2006 – Helen N___ of Piscataway, NJ wants to sell a drum set and posts on Craigslist. I wonder if that ever sold?
Ongoing dead letter office:
Feb 16, from “David”
“Hey, haven’t heard from you in a while, but hope all is well with you and
your sis. NY’s a tough town for fragile souls . . . :)”
March 6, also from David
“H,
You got another package — a box this time, but I’m afraid the time has come.
Oslen told me he’s not going to accepti any more packages for you. As much
as I love to be your boy, I guess you’ll have to find some other use for me
🙂 I’m good at cooking, but not cleaning.
– D”
The answers usually do come in the mail, except when they don’t.
When they start coming for Helen K___, that woman with the weird, cantaloupe-headed baby, it’s time to skip town.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t just keep accepting that girl’s packages. Stand up to Oslen for a change.
Niiiice… we had the old phone number for Oregon State University for a while. Got lots of strange messages. Not quite the same, but… well, wanted to join your party.
Ha, that reminds me that we used to get calls for Somerville Hospital’s radiology department all the time because they typo’d our number on some instruction sheet. No one would believe that I couldn’t perform their colonoscopy. Perhaps for the right price…