Outlook Express, strange problem...

15 years ago

I'm the geek here, I do the fixing. My better half is getting emails addressed to someone else, completely different email address, but in his inbox. Other issue, not solved by our provider, he gets emails to the correct address,ie..his first initial and last name, which the provider required as primary account holder. We found these emails to same name are to a woman, he is not, so these are not his. I suggested to our provider this morning that since they are multi-state company, the email could be in use in another state. Tech support said she checked other states, did not find this email in use. We know the state for one of these, from car dealership in New Hampshire? I'd find it fairly odd that a dealership is sending emails to an address they've had for more than nine years, which is what the explanation was that our tech help suggested. we've had this email acct. for 9 years.Since tech help was unsuccessful, I guess it's up to me to solve the problem. My other half does not use email to friends, it's mostly incoming from business. He's now looking for a job, so if he gets someone else's email, are they in turn getting his? That could lose a job interview for him. He told me he just deletes the emails, so I haven't been able to investigate the source on them, or see what info they may contain. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

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Comments (4)

grandms
15 years ago
I would not delete them until you've had a chance to investigate further. Right click on the e-mail header to find out where it is originating and from what provider.

Seems strange that your provider requires a certain e-mail address rather than one of your choice.
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
15 years ago
I have never heard of an ISP that told you what to use as your email address. Are you talking about your ISP when you say your provider or something else?

When I set up our comcast I set up an email address similar to what you are saying with some initals and part of the name. I never use it but set it up just in case I should need one and to get any correspondence from comcast should they email me. I later decided to tie that email account to my ebay account and ebay came back and said that email address was already in use by someone. HUMMM well how can that be? So I created a different one at comcast and used it.
Fast forward to last week when just for the heck of it I decided to go check on those comcast addys to see if there was any mail. Well that first one had a ton of spam in it and several emails from someone with the same initals/name and it looks like he also has that same email address.
It has not been an issue for me since I just do not use that address but I was able to open all those emails of his and they were business related and some were legal. I am sure he would not be happy about that I know I would not be happy.

I have no idea how comcast let that happen, each email address should be unique and never be allowed once someone has locked it in.
the other 2nd comcast one I set up and ended up tieing to my ebay had zero spam and only email from ebay in it.

very weird and sounds like maybe something very similar is happening in your case. If so the ISP should be able to check those 2 accounts and see why exactly that is happening. Definitely check your full headers and get all the routing info and let them have that info so they can sort it out. you may have to ask how to show full headers each email client is different, I have not used outlook express in ages.
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User
Original Author
15 years ago
We have cox, they had me use his first initial and last name for his primary email address, nine years ago, so don't recall just what the reason was. He deleted all the emails before telling me what happened, so I asked him to save them and let me know, I know how to use the properties tab, message source, to get all the info. I'm getting old, provider is same as ISP, I just couldn't recall it. I got some silly explanations, and stupid waste of time from my ISP to "supposedly" fix these problems. I think I know more about my programs and computers in general than the two techs I talked to. Next time, I'll ask for a supervisor to start with. We use Outlook because it's what we're used to and it works fine. I don't know what other bells and whistles another program can do for us. Thanks for your input and suggestions, we both appreciate it.
owbist
15 years ago
I hate it when the tech comes to a home to set up the internet and tries to use firstname.lastname as the email address. Where is the security in that? One tried it with my friends but as he arrived I told him we had set it up for him. He got bossy and said it was already done and could not be changed so I told him if he could not or would not change it he should leave and I would phone the provider for another installer. Funny how people change their minds and attitudes when faced with that decision.

Always invite any repair person or installer to leave if they refuse to do as you wish, it works because they do not want to look stupid back at the office.