A mysterious weekend
We faced two great mysteries this weekend. Hubby came up with a solution for one, and I devloped a plausible explanation for the other. Could you have solved them?
Mystery #1
I needed to call my uncle Dave, who lives just a little bit down the road. He has a cell phone and I was reasonably sure he had given me the number although I had never yet had occasion to call the number.
I opened my phone and looked him up. As I expected, I found him filed under Brown, David. I file all my contacts by last name, first name. That way I don’t have to remember if I listed Uncle Dave in the U’s, D’s, or by his last name.
I hit the Call button and a woman answered - not Uncle Dave’s wife. I was a little surprised, but Uncle Dave does finish carpentry so I assumed a customer had picked up his phone for him. “Can I talk to Dave Brown? This is his niece.”
She sounded a bit surprised, but quickly put Dave on the phone. He sounded surprised too, especially when I asked to borrow his Dremel. He also sounded young. I decided to double check: “Is this Dave Brown?” It was, but he still didn’t sound right. “Is this Steve Brown’s brother?” No. “So I reached Dave Brown, but you’re the wrong Dave Brown? OK, I’m sorry.” I’m guessing he was a little less puzzled than I was, because he didn’t know that I found his number in my cellphone address book.
I was flummoxed, but hubby quickly figured out what was going on. He had a good laugh and called David’s father to explain.
To my knowledge, I have never met, heard of, or spoken to another Dave (or David) Brown. Can you guess how this happened?
Mystery #2I have several gmail addresses. One is my own name: firstnamelastname@gmail.com. I received an email in my inbox on Friday night that was an automatic reply to a request to reset the password on an email address identical to mine with the addition of a single dot: firstname.lastname@gmail.com. It arrived at my secondary email address that I had registered in connection with the firstnamelastname@gmail address.
It looked for all the world like someone had tried to set up an email account using my name, and had given my own secondary email address - the one I use on the web - as their secondary email address.
This was strange enough, but just 2 hours later I received another mysterious email at my firstnamelastname address (this time without the dot). It was an automated confirmation link for my new facebook account. I had not been on the facebook website or set up a new account, but the account referenced in the email had my name, first and last. My husband had not tried to access my email, reset my password, or interacted in any way with facebook.
What was going on? This one is not officially solved, but I think I dug up a plausible and innocent explanation. Can you? Or do you hear nothing but alarm bells?
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Filed under: Everyday life
i dont know what is going on with all this but I DO know that is how my brain feels right now! each time I have a baby i seem to loose more of my brain
I only have 5 (and counting) i put my check book in the library drop box and got a call from the library!
We very wary of the email account changes! Someone tapped into my email account once and had all my emails automatically forwarded to another account (not mine). They were phishing for personal and financial info, probably, but I was able to fix the problem and change all my passwords before any major harm happened. (Although I did get temporarily kicked of eBay for “selling unauthorized goods.”)
That was supposed to read “Be very wary.” So tired, so very tired.
The same thing happened with me– someone tried to use my name to reset a password account– in Gmail.
I had a very similar Mystery #1 a couple of years ago. My children had spent the day at my MIL’s house. When I called her to say I was on the way to pick them up, she informed me that they had gone shopping with “the girls”. “The girls” are my children’s aunts. I assumed that all the aunts were together. I called Aunt Beth, but she didn’t have the kids. So I called Aunt Kate. “Hey, Kate!”, I said. “Do you have my kids?” “Umm, no,” she replied. Hmmm…”Your mom said they had gone shopping with you guys. Who has Nicholas and Noah?” I asked. Kate sounded alarmed and asked, “Who is this? What’s going on?”
I had managed to dial a wrong number and find a young lady named Kate who had two nephews named Nicholas and Noah. Weird. She thought I was a bad prank call.
Your post took me back.
My head hurts!!!
Let’s see..mystery 1: Uncle Dave got a new cell phone number but you didn’t have the updated one, with that said his old number was given out to none other: Dave Brown, just a different Dave Brown.
Mystery 2: Somebody either doesn’t like you, or is total awe of you and is setting up a facebook account to say they are you.
I guess someone wanted the same email account name but couldnt have it because you already did,so they added a dot but the email was sent to you.
Ive had a few with similar but not the exact email address that I have which I guess is just some glitch.
I dont bother about those wierd emails,they are instantly deleted if they seem to be not for me.
Did big dave give his old cell phone to one of his younger relatives??
chris,
You’re right about the email. Somebody with the same name as me (our last name is very unusual!) set up an email like mine with an extra dot. Gmail merges these accounts so by default I owned her new account and all her email lands directly in my account. I don’t even know if she can log into the account that she created, and I certainly can’t email her to tell her the problem.
The facebook issue happened the same night - she probably set up a gmail account in her name so that she could use it to set up her facebook account. I accidentally hijacked her facebook account when I tried to view hers: I was required to set up an account of my own in order to view hers, and when I did so facebook merged our accounts, presumably because the email addresses matched so well.
In the mystery of Uncle Dave, I probably didn’t give enough info - but I never would have figured it out myself! Here’s a big hint: hubby used my phone briefly when it was new. He also laughed at me for listing family so formally in my phone book by last name, first name.
My first name is Mary-Beth. My (unmarried) sister in law is named Marybeth. Now, asking why my parents hyphenated my name is a whole nother story. My email address is bethlastname@comcast.net. Her email is marybethlastname@comcast.net. Makes things interesting. Also, I returned a Lands End item to Sears once and *she* got the return confirmation email. Go figure!
We had the same thing go on with our email only it was with Flickr, we have even gotten “Ebay Invoices”. It is spam, and they just want your REAL password so they can destroy you. Scary business.
My hubby has everyone listed formally in his phonebook including his wife!