Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Other People's Email?
vrimj writes "I have a common enough first name / last name combination that I sometimes get other people's email at my firstname.lastname@gmail.com account. It isn't a big deal if it is a person; I let them know, they fix it. The big problem I am having is with companies and websites. These emails are often no-reply, which means I can't send back a quick note. I got someone's credit card bills for three months before I realized there was nothing for it but calling the company (I tried a couple of emails first). Recently I got a notice about someone's kid signing up for a website. I don't have any option but to hit the response button, and tell them that I first have to say I am that kid's parent or guardian. I didn't know where to go from there. Today I get an invoice from a cable company; it is for a different state. I can't reply. I go to the online support, they tell me my only choice is to call the sales office. I gave in for the bank, but I am not talking to someone else's cable company. Is there any way to make emails to an improperly formatted gmail address bounce or do something else obvious? Is there a technical solution I am overlooking. I doesn't happen that often but it is an increasing PITA with no-reply email addresses. I hate just setting up a filter because that cuts off these other people who made a typo or had someone not enter something correctly, but it is looking like the best choice. It isn't spam, but it isn't my meat."
For Apple's Mail.app there is a "bounce message" which returns something pretty much like a "no such address" type of response.
Great. Now the n00bs think that Apple invented bounce too.
Bounce has been around since before September (no, not 2010; the September), but is on the way out of mail clients because most spam e-mails are Joe jobs, where the Sender and/or Reply-To is some unsuspecting guy who had nothing to do with the e-mail. So Bounce tends to do more harm than good these days, and is better left as an expert option, hidden from normal users.