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Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Misdirected Email?
An anonymous reader writes "My Gmail account is of the form (first initial).(middle initial).(common last name)@gmail.com. I routinely receive emails clearly intended for someone else. These range from newsletters to personal and business emails. I've received email with various people's addresses, phone numbers and even financial information. A few years ago I started saving the more interesting ones, and now have an archive of hundreds of emails directed at no less than eight distinct individuals. I used to try replying to the personal ones with a form response, but it didn't seem to help. To make matters worse, I frequently find I can't use my email to create a new account at various sites because it's already been registered. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there any good way to handle this?"
Just ignore them, or block the sender.
To make matters worse, I frequently find I can't use my email to create a new account at various sites because it's already been registered.
In that case, use an e-mail based password reset, set a new password, and done, as far as having registered for the site, or contact the site's support.
Well, I have a solution to your "email has already been registered" issue. Gmail will treat yourname+blah@gmail.com as the same address as yourname@gmail.com, both will go into the yourname@gmail.com account. Give the site an email address with a plus sign postfix like that and it should detect it as a new unique address. Some sites don't allow the plus symbol in email addresses (even though it's a valid character), so mileage may vary.
http://xkcd.com/1279/
Backscatter only counts if you send bounces after the email is fully received. If you reject the email between SMTP HELO or EHLO and DATA, you're good.