Quote:
Originally Posted by Manabi
It's not a feature, it's a disgusting and unethical practice that causes issues for many, many people. Until you have to deal with it, you don't understand how much stress it causes.
Two of my Gmail accounts are inundated with emails from idiots using my address instead of their own. My main account is slightly understandable, as I snagged lastname@, but my last name isn't all that common. (I'm the only person who has it in my state.) You would be absolutely shocked at some of the things this happens with: Accounts created at Verizon, local utilities, ISPs, Uber & Hello Fresh; travel plans sent from travel agencies in the UK; legal threats from India for someone who didn't pay their catering bills and for someone who didn't pay their cell phone bill; and the list goes on and on and on and on, usually with no way to remove my address. There was also a guy in Illinois that used my address to fraudulently sign up for every class-action settlement he could find. I know they were fraudulent, because I also received all the denials, some quite sternly worded. Think about how you'd feel if someone was using your email address to commit crimes. It's stressful as hell.
The account for my dad got signed up to the NRA. They added it to approximately two dozen different email lists, all of which had to be unsubscribed from individually. I ended up having to mark them all as spam until they finally stopped showing up in his inbox. He still gets tons of spam from extreme right-wing mailing lists because of the same person. Those lists ignore unsubscribe requests. I've started flagging them as phishing even though they're in the spam folder, out of spite.
It's a big deal, a HUGE freaking deal that ereaderIQ allows this. They should be ashamed of themselves.
So as to not be entirely negative, it occasionally has benefits. I finally cleaned out the inbox on my main account a few months ago and earned $50. Someone had their taxes done at a Jackson-Hewitt in 2020 and qualified for a $50 Walmart eGift card bonus. That was sent via email and they gave them my address. It let me check the balance online and it's still unused. If it wasn't over a year old I'd probably be leery of using it, but since it's been so long I'm using that sucker.  |
I've occasionally gotten my email address used where it should not be. Mailing lists can be the worst as there's no unsubscribe link and you have to tell them you didn't sign up for their mailing list over and over.