10 years ago
4
I Met My Digital Doppelgänger
For those of us who share uncommon names, a kinship (and competition) is born online. By my count, there are six Kevin Zawackis in this world. Myself, the reporter; a heart doctor; a snowboarder somewhere near the Rocky Mountains; and one each in Maryland and Wisconsin. The sixth, according to a recent Google alert I received, is a precocious student who made his middle school’s honor roll.
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While I haven't formally met any of my doppelgänger's, I receive all of their email.
This post basically describes what I've went though over the years. my gmail is FLastname (first initial, then last name). Several other people with a name similar to mine signed up using the same FLastname username as well. So, whenever someone emails them, they email me as well. I get all sorts of stuff- pay stubs, them signing up with Apple, porn sites, family newsletters, you name it. I get their information.
Tried opening tickets with Google over the years with no resolution. Ended up buying my own domain name, my own email hosting, and re-registering everything to the 'new' email address- which I am the sole owner. My gmail address forwards to my 'new' email domain.
It didn't start out that way. I was unique for a long, long time (was part of the first groups when gmail was invite-only). However, after Gmail became more ubiquitous, the bigger instance of name collisions. I thought for years that my name was relatively unique. Learned my lesson that it's really not.
Wouldn't forwarding your gmail email to your new email domain just forward the problem down to your new email? How did you solve the problem of stuff just being forwarded down?
I didn't complete my thought when I was writing, got carried away ;)
Disabled forwarding a while back to the new email address. Log in on occasion to check for any missed messages that should be going to my 'new' account. I guess it's not all that 'new' any longer- I got my Gmail account 10 years ago. New account got setup about 5 years ago.
Ah ok. I remember forwarding my old hotmail account to my gmail for a year or so until I stopped the forward and just checked back there every month or two to check for anything important. I stopped doing that all together about 5 years ago also. Still use my gmail, they do a good job with keeping the spam in the spam folder :D