Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: telstarbox on 17 November, 2017, 12:00:56 pm
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I've been sent an email invitation for a Christmas drinks party at what looks like a fairly posh Central London flat. By chance it's within 10 mins walk of my workplace.
The intended recipient isn't me but we share the same forename. I'm assuming that they therefore won't be aware of the invitation.
Should I go along anyway (and bring a bottle of Blue Nun?)
ETA: This isn't the first time this has happened - I am regularly CC'd into a group of business people in Tanzania who I've never met, and someone once sent me $1,500 via Paypal intended for a relative (which I refunded).
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(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/reverse_identity_theft.png) (https://xkcd.com/1279/)
I get this sort of thing all the time. I've had everything from photos of random grandchildren through reciepts for firearms and royalty payments for an episode of The IT Crowd, to gynaecologist appointments. I once got invited to the civil partnership ceremony of a lecturer at $british_university that I had to think really hard to work out whether they knew me or not.
No invitations to come and play with anyone's submarine, thankfully. Though I did get one yesterday from someone asking where the umbrella was. I assume that was a coded message from a spy.
Most of them are sign-up confirmations from online services. Some of the better ones have a "I am not the intended recipient" button, or at least unsubscribe facilities. Sometimes I have to log in and change the email address on the account to support@service.com.
But the real ones from friends and acquaintances of people who don't know their own email address are harder. There's almost never a clue as to who the intended recipient actually is. The law of averages suggests that the friend of a luser is also a luser, and if you reply to them they'll just add your real address to their contacts list, which will inevitably get added to one of those CC-to-everyone-in-my-address-book emails and sent to *other* friends of the original luser, and then you'll never escape.
If it's particularly important looking, or from a professional who's likely to have out-of-band contact details on file, I will reply and point out the error.
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Should I go along anyway (and bring a bottle of Blue Nun?)
Yes of course. It could change your entire life. Once I declined an invite from a client. My colleague who went along became his main man in the UK helping establish Wing Yip's wholesale & supermarkets.
Not sure about the Blue Nun, though.
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A co-worker has the same name as two other people in the firm. Well, not exactly, because they both spell their first name AND surname differently, and only he has (Finance) at the end of his Outlook address.
He still gets shedloads of e-mail for the other two, including several party invitations, a letter congratulating him on his promotion (with new salary) and numerous technical queries about servers. He's given up replying because people are rude and don't bother to apologise.
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El Presidente once wrote an email to another chum, saying of a club member "cette bonne femme m'emmerde" then accidentally sent it to the bonne femme in question. Explaining that it wasn't meant to go to her didn't help much. Around seven of our most active members resigned.
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How annoying for them ...
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They were all her relatives.
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For the last 6 months I keep getting emails from the IRS, I think this will sort itself out at some point.
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I got my Yahoo address in '96 and was lucky to get [given name]_[family name]@yahoo.com. Iwas beaten to the uniterrupted version by someone in The States. In 2006 Yahoo allowed me to add the . version of my address. Since then I have had quite a few personal messages for the other Andy, some very intimate. I always forward them to him - without reply or thanks, assuming they are for him, but still they arrive. Andy voted Trump, seemingly, so I shan't forward any more.
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I have <firstname><surname>@gmail.com and haven't had any issues. Guess it is purely down to an odd spelling of my first name.
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I have a unique surname and so own both r.co.uk and r.com, also rr@googlemail makes life easy.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
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Emails, but also Tweets & other social media: I note that the great and wonderful LeVar Burton, of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame, is receiving shitloads of hate mail intended for LaVar Ball, erstwhile NFL player, who snubbed Donald Trump after Ball's son (an NBA player) was released in China following his arrest for alleged shoplifting. Trump and Ball have been in a feud over the Twitterverse, and Trumpniks have been joining in...
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I have <firstname>.<surname>@gmail.com . Pretty much any email addressed to <firstname><surname>@gmail.com is not intended for me, and so I have an automatic setup that replies saying they have the wrong person and deleting the email. Every so often I get a reply to the proper address apologising for the original (that I never even saw).
I persistently get information about some bible study group in the US - I think I share a name with a pastor. I also get a whole load of hotel booking confirmations for someone who should put his initial in the middle of his email address but fails to do so.
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I've discovered I have a namesake in Galway, but last week I found an entry in Google Calender for a flight to Abu Dhabi. I had been sent a boarding pass addressed to someone else entirely. ???
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Those are the ones that baffle me. I can just about understand that Kimberley Wallace might truncate her surname to reduce typing, and the children signing up to Instagram with what their parent thinks is their email address makes sense. I can even understand that someone might decide to keep their maiden name on a google account because the inertia required to change it outweighs the confusion factor. (Though by that logic, why change your name when you marry at all?) But some of them really don't seem to be using an email address with my name format for any apparent reason. How does that seem like a good idea?
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I've had an unintended email from Paddy Power. They are adamant that it will be in Khalim's best interests to place a bet on something in some event.
I am hoping Khalim will do it anyway and I will receive his winnings. When I return them to him Khalim will be so grateful I will get half. That's what Khalim is like, I think.
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I've discovered I have a namesake in Galway, but last week I found an entry in Google Calender for a flight to Abu Dhabi. I had been sent a boarding pass addressed to someone else entirely. ???
There is someone in America who has a similar name to my wife's maiden name, her mother is constantly sending google calendar invites to Mary and so they appear in our diary. I've tried emailing but she dosent seem to get it.
D.
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Why do some people think putting a stupid disclaimer on emails is even remotely sensible. There is someone who posts to a mutual mailing list about disability who has:
"To help us to comply with our Data Protection responsibilities, please ensure that you are the intended recipient of the email below before you read it. If you are not the intended recipient, please reply to the sender identifying this and permanently delete the email, observing the confidentiality of its content at all times."
This is at best stupid and pointless. I don't think it has any legal standing and is pointlessly irritating.
Also it is a significant access failing as those using assistive technology like screenreaders to read emails will have to churn pointlessly through this paragraph before accessing emails (something I'm told is very annoying, like multiple layers of crap lengthy annoying sigs). And I happen to know many list members DO use screenreaders.
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How are you supposed to confirm that you are the intended recipient without reading it?
Sending them another email might work, only it'll come back with the same disclaimer, and that way lies recursion. Maybe using sme out-of-band method, thereby defeating the point in email... :facepalm:
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I presume you're supposed to know you don't want an email from the sender, or not recognise the topic, or have that WARNING! blazing away in your brain when you see random content (about someone's disability) and somehow be more inclined to say "errr this isn't for me" than you might have been in the first place.
I refuse to use such disclaimers at top or in sig of emails, they clutter up email space and they're an access barrier I will not impose on disabled people kthxfuckoffwithyourshitwhichdoesn'tchangeDPAlawsanyway.
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I refuse to use such disclaimers at top or in sig of emails, they clutter up email space and they're an access barrier I will not impose on disabled people kthxfuckoffwithyourshitwhichdoesn'tchangeDPAlawsanyway.
I think this is why X- headers were invented. :demon:
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(Though by that logic, why change your name when you marry at all?)
For me it was a great opportunity to go from a surname that everyone spelled wrong (including the first letter, so my notes were always filed in the wrong place) to one where people at least spelled the first three letters correctly.
For this reason I didn’t return to my maiden name after my divorce last year. Plus I have lived longer with the second surname than the first.
New GerMan has a surname that the Germans can’t spell properly either (although it is a German name) so I won’t be doing a portmanteau of our names anytime soon. As it is, the Germans can’t pronounce my surname but I am used to being Frau Hen*** rather than Frau Han*** here.
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This is what we get at the bottom of emails. The very last sentence is pertinent, especially when the email content is about Policy ???
This e-mail, and any files transmitted with it, is to be treated in accordance with its protective marking (if any) and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not a named addressee please notify the originator as soon as possible as this communication may contain privileged information. E-mail traffic on MOD systems is subject to monitoring, recording and auditing for lawful purposes. While this communication is believed to be free from viruses the MOD accepts no liability in this respect for any loss or damage. The statements expressed in this communication are personal and do not necessarily reflect opinions or policies of the department.
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*snorts* Guywards... At bottom of emails is slightly less irritating than the top. I LOLed at the deny all responsibility nonsense. I wonder if any of YACF's resident lawyers have a view on the legal sensibleness or enforceability of such statements...
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(Though by that logic, why change your name when you marry at all?)
For me it was a great opportunity to go from a surname that everyone spelled wrong (including the first letter, so my notes were always filed in the wrong place) to one where people at least spelled the first three letters correctly.
Yeah, I can understand that. But you'd change your email address accordingly, right?
(We thought about it for about 20 seconds and decided that neither of us could be bothered to change from one simple surname that people inexplicably struggle to spell to another.)
For this reason I didn’t return to my maiden name after my divorce last year. Plus I have lived longer with the second surname than the first.
Yeah, that makes sense.
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I don't receive much random unintended email, but I know there are a lot of people in the US who receive plenty intended for me. All you need is a very common first name, a fairly common surname and an idiot who sends a bunch of of stuff via email, but assumes .com rather than .co.uk....
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... why change your name when you marry at all?
I think we came to the conclusion , half way through the rigmarole of name-changing, that it's probably best not to (even though more people can actually guess correctly the spelling of my surname than Butterfly's original).
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This is what we get at the bottom of emails. The very last sentence is pertinent, especially when the email content is about Policy ???
This e-mail, and any files transmitted with it, is to be treated in accordance with its protective marking (if any) and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not a named addressee please notify the originator as soon as possible as this communication may contain privileged information. E-mail traffic on MOD systems is subject to monitoring, recording and auditing for lawful purposes. While this communication is believed to be free from viruses the MOD accepts no liability in this respect for any loss or damage. The statements expressed in this communication are personal and do not necessarily reflect opinions or policies of the department.
Should we be worried that the MoD still hyphenate email?