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What is the proper email etiquette to reply to a person?

How to deal with email sent to your address incorrectly?

  • So I have what must be a fairly common name, and I get mail for other people with my name fairly regularly because I got lucky and landed "[email protected]" a long time ago. This is usually not a big deal, but today I got a subscription confirmation email from a porn site that one of the other people with my name probably signed up for. Anybody have any idea what the etiquette here is, and how to maybe avoid this kind of annoyance in the future? I've been in touch previously with at least one person with my name and a very similar email address, and I don't think it's for them (their issue was mostly people forgetting they had a "d" in between their first name and last name in their email address). However, at least one of the people who share my name is really bad about remembering whatever their actual email address is. I still regularly get emails from people regarding social plans, a ton of emails from a car dealership where one of my name doppelgängers either signed up for a mailing list or bought a car (or both), and other similar junk. This person doesn't seem to know that they're using the wrong address when they give people their email or sign up for mailing lists (and now porn sites!). Should I just trash the subscription confirmation? It has a link in it to a page on their site that I would assume has some sensitive information (credit card for payment, etc.). Does this happen frequently to anyone else, and if so, what if anything is there to do about it? It's getting increasingly frustrating, and if this person is going to keep buying stuff and using the wrong email address, I'd like to figure out a way to avoid this kind of annoyance in the future.

  • Answer:

    Delete it, block the sending address, and move on. If they want their porn that badly they'll type their email correctly next time.

rabbitroom at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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I have the same problem, so I keep two emails in my draft folder for use as necessary:You have sent this message to an incorrect email address. The person that you intended to send it to is not at this email address. I do not know another email address for that person. I have deleted your email and any attachments. Have a pleasant day.On the few occasions the sender presses:I do not know another email address or any other contact information for that person. I am blocking your email address and will not receive nor be able to respond to any further emails from you. I hope you will be able to find that person's contact information. Have a pleasant day.But for subscription confirmations, I just delete them and move on with my day.

Etrigan

desjardins

I delete them all. My doppelganger has at least twenty cars, as far as I can tell. I get emails from multiple car dealerships (different brands) and constant reminders to change my oil or put on snow tires or whatever the hell. Yet another reason I'm happy not to have a car. Who knew car owners got so much spam?

If only I had a penguin...

I don't think that you'll be able to prevent this in any way. But, maybe your complete lack of concern about investigating and correcting the matter will help this person to be a bit more accurate. I also vote for trash & block.

quince

I once purposely ignored emails sent to my address by mistake, and as a result some oil company executives did not get the hunting license to kill as many animals as they desired. (I actually ignored it because I thought it was spam, but I realized it was real when one oil executive sent an email lambasting me for my lack of professionalism as a member of the Fish and Wildlife Service.) After that incident, however, I wrote up the "you have reached the wrong person named firstname lastname" generic email, and I send that to people who send me divorce filings, sensitive financial documents, photographs, etc.

a fiendish thingy

This is a common thing. Ignore, block move on. Don't bother trying to figure out who it belongs to. FWIW, Husbunny has a fairly common name and he gets random emails from the other dude all the time. "Hey Bunny! The other guy is going to Las Vegas!" They figure it out.

Ruthless Bunny

Ignore, delete or unsubscribe. Once in a while I get one that seems worth making some effort to reply they have the wrong email address.

724A

Thanks for the input, folks. Sorry I'm an idiot and did not find any of the previous similar questions.

rabbitroom

I reply to personal emails with: "Sorry, wrong Xavier.Onassis." All others get trashed.

Midnight Skulker

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