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I have had a few incidents where I sent an email to the wrong address. Some bounced back but, not others. The few times I had issues was, for example, I was sending something to someone with a common name. For example "Mary Smith". I would put "Mary Smith" @ xxxx, then realize that I should have put "Mary Smith2". Recently, I had something similar happen. Someone that I discovered was a long lost relative who wanted to know family history. She has a common name similar to example above. I sent along the info but failed to notice that she had a number after her name. Oops! So someone who doesn't know me got the email and is probably all confused right now. I then passed the info along to the correct person.
Once a friend gave me her email but forgot to add the number that she uses with her name. When I told her the email I sent her bounced back, she apologized for the mistake.
OTOH, my husband has a common name. Years ago, he got an email address before anyone else took it, so he didn't need to add a number to his name. He has since gotten emails meant for other people with the name.
I just looked at my “Misdirected Emails” file, and I have received over 130 misdirected emails since the beginning of 2015, so I guess that’s one or two a month.
Like the OP's husband, I have an "original" email address that I grabbed when Gmail started up. It's one digit away from that of a woman in Australia who is a participant in a multi-level essential oils company, and I get a lot of her emails. And it must be a different digit away from five or six other people, because I get emails from every kind of concern imaginable.
Among other emails, I have received complex and detailed legal papers, a notice that the rent on my boutique Gold Coast shop space was overdue, a rental contract for a storage facility (complete with the person’s name, address and VISA card number), a contract to be signed to hire a wedding photographer for a sunset shoot on the beach, and a rambling complaint about someone’s boss. Oh, and a request for “some of that nice horse manure you sold me last year.”
I forward the ones I know belong to the lady in Australia, and for the others, I let the sender know they have the wrong email address.
I just looked at my “Misdirected Emails” file, and I have received over 130 misdirected emails since the beginning of 2015, so I guess that’s one or two a month.
Like the OP's husband, I have an "original" email address that I grabbed when Gmail started up. It's one digit away from that of a woman in Australia who is a participant in a multi-level essential oils company, and I get a lot of her emails. And it must be a different digit away from five or six other people, because I get emails from every kind of concern imaginable.
Among other emails, I have received complex and detailed legal papers, a notice that the rent on my boutique Gold Coast shop space was overdue, a rental contract for a storage facility (complete with the person’s name, address and VISA card number), a contract to be signed to hire a wedding photographer for a sunset shoot on the beach, and a rambling complaint about someone’s boss. Oh, and a request for “some of that nice horse manure you sold me last year.”
I forward the ones I know belong to the lady in Australia, and for the others, I let the sender know they have the wrong email address.
My husband has let the senders know they have the wrong address, and has even forwarded some. One man thanked him for doing that.
Years ago, a coworker emailed an extremely "steamy" message to another employee in the company that she had had a one-night stand with the night before. Unfortunately she sent it to (names changed to protect the guilty...) joecitizen@xyz.com, instead of joeqcitizen@xyz.com. What's the difference, you ask? Well, joe-without-the-q was the president of the company. She wanted joe-with-the-q.
Panic! Hysteria! OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE??? We couldn't retract emails. Luckily for her, I was good friends with the president's executive assistant and put in a call to FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FIND THAT EMAIL BEFORE HE SEES IT AND DELETE IT!!! She did and disaster was averted.
No, but I once got a text that was mistakenly sent to me - and that was actually about me. Let's just say that there's a certain family member who smokes way too much dope and with whom I now haven't spoken in several years.
I think everybody does this. Especially if your email program fills in email addresses based on a few keystrokes, and you're not paying full attention to what you're doing. I recently included a former co-worker on a group email that was meant to include someone else with the same first name.
Years ago, when I had a number of e-mail "pen pals" I would sometimes write the emails in notepad, then copy/paste them into the email server. More than once, I pasted the message for Person A into an email addressed to Person B.
Yes. Back in college, the shared governance staff accidentally included me on an email chain detailing the selection process/notes/ranking of candidates (myself included) who applied for positions to the campus judicial boards; I applied for and was selected. Once the staff realized their error, they emailed everyone in that chain demanding that we "delete" what was sent to us as it was sent in error and was confidential information. There may have even been the threat of legal action. I did no such thing, however, as I did not come about that information via fraud or illegality, but rather by a mistake/clumsiness on the sender's part. Did I share the email with anyone else? No, but the email chain did give me a chuckle.
Interesting topic! I have received many benign emails to my personal email address in error, and I always respond to the sender that I was copied in error and they probably meant to send this to someone else. They usually thank me.
However, I have a work email address for recreational sports leagues that I administer and you wouldn't believe how many times I have been CC'd by mistake by people talking trash about me......nasty untrue things. I send quite a few informational emails out to all team captains and they often forward to several people. Then days later someone responds and asks me a question and doesn't realize that 3 emails down someone said something terrible about me that is being sent back to me. And quite often, the people who are saying negative and untrue things about me in these emails will be all nicey-nice to my face and thank me for all I do to promote the leagues. It's quite disturbing to realize how fake many people are, and how many so-called adults will make personal attacks on someone because they don't get their way or don't like some rule in a recreational sports league. I have to admit that it has messed with my mind over the years and made me see a very nasty side of people.
Years ago, a coworker emailed an extremely "steamy" message to another employee in the company that she had had a one-night stand with the night before. Unfortunately she sent it to (names changed to protect the guilty...) joecitizen@xyz.com, instead of joeqcitizen@xyz.com. What's the difference, you ask? Well, joe-without-the-q was the president of the company. She wanted joe-with-the-q.
Panic! Hysteria! OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE??? We couldn't retract emails. Luckily for her, I was good friends with the president's executive assistant and put in a call to FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FIND THAT EMAIL BEFORE HE SEES IT AND DELETE IT!!! She did and disaster was averted.
Sometimes you're lucky....
Not smart to use work email for such things.
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