It's MY E-mail Account

Way back when Google was still basically a little start up, saying "Don't be evil," (ha), I received an invitation to join its beta program for Gmail.

Yes, the very first version. I have been with Gmail since before it was made public. I was friends with a friend who worked at Google; hence the invitation.

It has become the email I use most often. Overrun as it is with subscriptions, spam, and everything else, I can still find what I need in it. I try to direct things now to other accounts.

This one shows up as being on the dark web, so I change the password a lot.

And then there are two men who have first names with initials the same as my first name, and the same last name. Apparently neither can remember their actual email account addresses, because things come to me that are meant for them.

First I started receiving employment application acceptances for "Anthony." I finally found Anthony on Facebook and asked him if he'd recently applied at thus and such a company. He apologized profusely and said he had confused Gmail with his student account.

Sigh.

He allegedly fixed it, but occasionally I still get something meant for Anthony. I now have his email, so I simply forward it to him and say, "in case you need this."

Then last fall, along came "Adam" who set up his eBay account using my email. I found Adam on Facebook, too, and he said he would take care of it. He'd simply typed in the wrong email address, he said.

I changed my Gmail password and thought no more about it.

Today, Adam tried to purchase something through eBay. The message about it came to me.

I called eBay and attempted to explain the situation to the "concierge" service person, who seemed perplexed about the problem. Zero help there, even after a 10-minute hold listening to really crappy music.

After I hung up with the useless eBay person, I went into eBay, signed in with my email, asked to change the password, and was soon in Adam's account, complete with his credit card numbers and everything. I deleted all of his personal information. I found where he'd attempted his purchase and wrote the seller that the item was bought using an incorrect email. I closed out the account that was using my Gmail account, because even though it was in Adam's name, that's my email.

He is lucky I am an honest person, because I could have ran up quite a bill on his credit card had I been so inclined. Fortunately for Adam, I am not a crook and was not so inclined.

By doing this, I will not be able to use my Gmail account now with eBay, ever again, according to them. This is fine, as I have an eBay account with another email address. I also very seldom ever buy anything on eBay anyway.

Adam, alas, will be out of luck.

And yes, I changed my Gmail account password again, too, just to be safe. It's a real pain in the you-know-what to do that because I have to change it on every device.

Lesson? Make sure you have the right email address when you sign up for things, especially things that have to do with your credit card or financial information.

You never know who might be on the other end of a wrong email address.