.co.uk and .com issue with email

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[TonyRPH]

It's most likely someone getting the .com and .co.uk part mixed up (assuming the domain name is the same).

This is quite common - and why with a business one would typically register both .co. and .co.uk

[HantsRat]

You can't. It's purely just people typing the incorrect .com instead of .co.uk. You can't change that.

[TonyRPH]

I had an issue with gmail a while back.

My address (fake example) is [e-mail] and I was getting email for [e-mail]

I did post a thread about it on here a couple of years ago, and I was 'put down' by internet 'experts' and assured it couldn't happen - but I had proof that it did.

Maybe you have the same issue?

[TonyRPH]

Probably no point writing to them.

In my case, if there was an unsubscribe link in the email, I just clicked on that.

There was on particular one - an Xbox sing up for something from memory - and I emailed the company concerned and told them what I thought had happened.

That seemed to solve the problem.

[gf5mez]

TonyRPH said:

I had an issue with gmail a while back.

My address (fake example) is [e-mail] and I was getting email for [e-mail]

I did post a thread about it on here a couple of years ago, and I was 'put down' by internet 'experts' and assured it couldn't happen - but I had proof that it did.

Maybe you have the same issue?

Isn't this by design with gmail? I think you can add or remove as many dots as you want, it's only the letters that determine the account.


EDIT:

Yep - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=...

[dapprman]

All you can do is reply back to the people that they may want to try .com instead and the automated ones forward them on to the correct email address and hope they realise. The hospital treatment stuff may indicate they are not in a position to do much at the moment.

This actually happened to me about 20 years ago, though more humorously. Started to get emails from Dr Heinz Wolf of the Great Egg Race fame, as he confused my email address with one for one of his students. The funnier one was I was accidentally added to a swingers email list, which was amusing until I was sent photos, part of me thinks I should have asked how I could join in when I received a very embarrassed reply back to my "I'm not the person you think I am" response.

[sjg]

I get plenty as I got on gmail quite early and have a simple [e-mail]. I’ve had emails about hunting licences, job interviews, house purchase paperwork, dating site signups, Home Depot receipts, ladies golf tournaments, all sorts. Probably for a few dozen different people too.

It’s always people misremembering, or miscommunicating their email address. If it looks important or it’s persistent I’ll email and tell them they’ve got it wrong but mostly just ignore.

[MissChief]

sjg said:

I get plenty as I got on gmail quite early and have a simple [e-mail]. I’ve had emails about hunting licences, job interviews, house purchase paperwork, dating site signups, Home Depot receipts, ladies golf tournaments, all sorts. Probably for a few dozen different people too.

It’s always people misremembering, or miscommunicating their email address. If it looks important or it’s persistent I’ll email and tell them they’ve got it wrong but mostly just ignore.

Same. managed to get [e-mail] early in the sign up. I get all sorts of emails including payslips and regular updates about a South African professor with a very diverse stock portfolio. Having just checked I also received a discharge form for someone who slipped and broke a bone in their foot a couple of weeks ago apparently. I've tried emailing them back but they seem to ignore me.

[otolith]

So both the .com and.co.uk addresses resolve to your account?

Sometimes people who don’t understand how email works imaging that firstname.lastname@theirprovider will automatically go to them. If the other person imagines that they own that email address, you actually have no way of telling them otherwise.

[TonyRPH]

gf5mez said:

TonyRPH said:

I had an issue with gmail a while back.

My address (fake example) is [e-mail] and I was getting email for [e-mail]

I did post a thread about it on here a couple of years ago, and I was 'put down' by internet 'experts' and assured it couldn't happen - but I had proof that it did.

Maybe you have the same issue?

Isn't this by design with gmail? I think you can add or remove as many dots as you want, it's only the letters that determine the account.


EDIT:

Yep - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=...

Yes, it is by design with Gmail - however I was receiving someone else's email as per the description above (as implausible as it sounds).

It didn't carry on for long though, so I guess someone must have fixed it.

[jonsp]

Sounds likely that emailprovider has messed up their configuration such that .co.uk and .com both resolve to the same place.

You can test this. Go to mxlookup.com type emailprovider.com in the search box and hit mx lookup - note the entry at the top for Host name.

Repeat for emailprovider.co.uk - is the hostname the same?

If yes this is a screw up by emailprovider. They should fix this obviously but the fact they've screwed it up in the first place suggests they're pretty incompetent - changing provider would be the answer. How many other screw ups have they made that haven't come to your attention?

Other explanation is the American has mistakenly given his address as .co.uk rather than .com - but that makes no sense. Why would an American make that mistake?

[e-honda]

You need to name the email provider, there is no generic catchall on this.
For example Gmail have some rules on who can have a legacy googlemail.co.uk address, but gmail.com will work for everyone.
Eg [e-mail] may be your email address, but you may not know [e-mail] is also your email address.
If [e-mail] forgets to put in his h on a form or someone sending him something does you will get his mail.

[e-honda]

^^ it was googlemail.com not .co.uk but it was only for UK users due to some trade mark dispute in the UK

[swanseaboydan]

Exactly the same thing happened to me a few years back - was getting emails from a school in the USA telling me about my problematic ‘son’. I politely tried to correct them but they ignored it up to the point where I was in a group email from the school / social workers etc etc - awkward

[e-honda]

Yahoo.co.uk is legacy it has almost certainly been aliased to the .com address, perhaps not from the outset but for a fairly long time

[Glosphil]

I have alway had the same email address - [e-mail] since 1995. Never had a problem with receiving emails not meant for me.
Some friends with Gmail have suffered the problem.

[camel_landy]

HantsRat said:

You can't. It's purely just people typing the incorrect .com instead of .co.uk. You can't change that.

^^^ This...

M

[Zumbruk]

TonyRPH said:

I had an issue with gmail a while back.

My address (fake example) is [e-mail] and I was getting email for [e-mail]

I did post a thread about it on here a couple of years ago, and I was 'put down' by internet 'experts' and assured it couldn't happen - but I had proof that it did.

It did, and does. It's Google attempting to correctly deliver misaddressed emails. IMNHO, it's a stupid idea, but there it is;

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=...

The OP's problem is caused by people (Americans; their little brains can't deal with non .com email addresses) mixing up .com and .co.uk. He just needs to ignore them (preferably automatically), it isn't his problem.

Edited by Zumbruk on Saturday 27th November 11:27

[Sheepshanks]

Glosphil said:

I have alway had the same email address - [e-mail] since 1995. Never had a problem with receiving emails not meant for me.
Some friends with Gmail have suffered the problem.

Hmmm....it's very difficult to imagine why that might be.