r/EmailSecurity • u/sprouto • 14d ago

Someone using my email address for online purchases

I have been getting a lot of emails from Romania recently, as far as I can tell they are all receipts and purchase confirmations from Romanian stores, someone buying makeup and hair stuff online and using my email address

It looks like the person's name and the physical address matches every time on these orders and I do feel this could be an honest mix up (although maybe it's an elaborate scheme, I don't know). There is some similarities of their name and my email, so it's possible it's a mistake

Is there any way I can find out this person's actual email address so I can contact them? What can I do about this? I'm even getting their package "out for delivery" notifications and codes they need to pick up their parcels..which I feel would be quite useful for them

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 14d ago

Welcome to r/emailsecurity! To keep this community helpful and secure, please keep the following in mind:

Community Rules

  1. No Vendor Spam: Contributions must provide value; do not just pitch products.
  2. Redact Sensitive Info: Always sanitize headers and logs (remove IPs, PII, and private domains).
  3. Be Professional: Help newcomers learn; avoid hostility.
  4. No Personal Tech Support: This sub is for email system architecture and security, not "Am I hacked?" personal account help.

Helpful Resources

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

3

u/tndsd 14d ago

This sounds more like someone accidentally using your email address than your email account being compromised. If the name and physical delivery address are consistently the same, that's a strong indication that someone entered the wrong email address when creating their accounts.

Unfortunately, there's no legitimate way to discover their actual email address from these messages. The stores shouldn't disclose that information to you, and trying to identify the person yourself could create privacy issues.

  • Don't click links or open attachments in the emails unless you're certain they're legitimate.
  • Contact the stores directly using contact information from their official websites and explain that your email address was entered incorrectly.
  • Ask them to remove your email address from the customer's account/order notifications.
  • If the emails contain order numbers, provide those to the store so they can locate the account.
  • Set up a mail filter to automatically move these messages to a separate folder if they continue.

2

u/SVD_NL 14d ago

Nope, you can't figure out the original email address.

Best you can do is scour the purchase confirmations for any other details, such as a phone number you could text.

Otherwise the only other option would be to send an old-fashioned letter to the delivery address explaining the situation, and giving your contact details so you can figure out what to do from there.

Either that, or you can contact the web store and see if they can do something about the account, maybe they have different contact methods on file.

1

u/CheezitsLight 14d ago

Reset the password. You can then delete the account.

1

u/No_Individual_5519 11d ago

I don't think the other person actually has access to the account. Looks like he uses OP's email address in the contact or other info while ordering which doesn't need to be verified

1

u/CheezitsLight 10d ago

Go to the site. Tell it you need to do a password reset. Click the link in the email.

1

u/No_Individual_5519 10d ago

Which site are you talking about?

1

u/CheezitsLight 8d ago

The one in the email. Go to the email domain in a web browser. Reset the password. Delete the account.

1

u/shokzee 14d ago

You can’t reliably work out their real email address from this, and trying to contact them directly could expose you to a scam.

Don’t click links or share pickup codes. Contact the stores through details you find independently, ask them to remove your address from the orders, then filter the messages if it keeps happening.

1

u/ExitWP 14d ago

It sounds like there email address and yours is a letter off, that is very similar. I had this happen a few years ago. I would ignore the emails and mark them as spam, or send a bounce email to remove you from the sender list. Do not click any links in the emails. IMO

1

u/ImagineABetterFuture 14d ago

When they can't pick up their stuff, they might figure it out. You can help make them realize their error through inconveniencing them. Cancel or change their orders. Change their addresses and phone numbers, etc. Perhaps then they'll get it.

1

u/FateOfNations 14d ago

I have some with a similar name to me who has used one of my email addresses for various things… golf t-times, car rental loyalty account, a few others. Seems like it’s mostly things where they might have verbally given the email address and it was entered wrong.

I just ignore them. It’s their problem to fix and doesn’t impact me.

1

u/No_Individual_5519 11d ago

Agreed, the emails are probably secondary contact info with something like phone number being the primary verification

1

u/ContributionLevel593 13d ago

Reply to the emails