Someone has our email address! please help

[boomish]

I registered email address for my wife and daughters when Sky email first come out, I was lucky to get a one name email for one of my daughters email addresses. eg Name @sky.com, this unfortunately does present a problem with occasional spam.
Recently I have noticed my 11 year old daughters email has been getting some unusual spam in that they have managed to register to a web site, and confirm it somehow. This would mean they have access to my daughters email, straight away I changed her password on Sky, I use Apple Mac's for them to access their mail and a software engineer so I am pretty secure on our computer system.
Then I noticed an email where the person has managed to place an order with an online shop, now very worried I sensed that somehow this person with the same first name as my daughter has managed to register the same email address!

I phoned Sky this morning and explained the situation, after explaining the situation the woman I spoke said there was nothing Sky could do it was my computer. I explained again this is impossible I can log into Sky and see the same email, no matter what I said she just couldn't understand it was some kind of registration error. She said Sky have no control over secondary email addresses.

In the end she still kept repeating there was nothing she could do I asked for someone else to speak to, then I get a very rude guy come on to say more or less the same thing, the only thing he offered was to delete my daughters email , I explained no we have had it for years and we have her school registered to it and all her friends, he didn't seem to understand this at all. And kept up with his raised voice and nasty attitude, I was really shocked, I just can't believe it, I mean it's really obvious that a new Sky user has been able to register the same email address. Can they not contact this user and ask her to select another. This Sky rep just carried on and said he would delete the email address I say NO do NOT delete her email.

I left it at that and now am stuck as to what to do, I have contacted the firms this other person is contacting with my daughters email so am sure she should get the message soon and contact Sky herself.
Please help I am really stuck and to be honest really shocked at the customer care, whenever I have contacted Sky they have always been so pleasant.

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

It is unlikely that someone could have registered the same email address.

I would assume that all the unused email address would be held in some sort of database such as MySql, Access etc.

Usually when someone tries to register and email address that is already taken an exemption is thrown the same as in programming. It then usually gives the person a list of similar email address that are not in use.

To be honest i have never had to deal with the email department and therefore have know idea what they are like.

Has the issue still continued to happen after you changed the password?

[Scubbie]

It is more likely that the firms are not checking the validity of the email address and that someone is typing the wrong email when buying things.

Unless they have your daughter's credit card details, don't panic.

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

It is more likely that the firms are not checking the validity of the email address and that someone is typing the wrong email when buying things.

Unless they have your daughter's credit card details, don't panic.

Good point as a great deal of websites give you the option of a sort of guest login.

You don't have to actually setup an account but do need to provide an email address for the receipt to be sent to.

[boomish]

wow thanks for the fast feedback, yes it continues after I reset the password, I even have their name and address on a recent order they did yesterday at H&M, and they have registered my daughters email as their own.
I have written to sky, changed my main account details and shall chnger her email password again, I am using a strong password generator.
Still reeeling over the guys attitude towards me am just trying to be a protective dad so watch the emails she gets.

[Scubbie]

Recently when I have purchased some things over the Internet, the companies have not sent a confirmation email to ensure that I have entered the correct address, but allowed me to continue with the order.

Once completed, the receipts have been emailed, thankfully without my card details.

[boomish]

Interestingly I got this from Sky..

Secondary user request approved

Hello xxxx,

This is to confirm that xxxx(my daughters email), has verified their Sky iD against your account. This grants them access to My Sky and all the services within My Account.

You do not need to do anything.

If this access is unauthorised you can remove this user within the My Profile area.


Now I presume thats Sky re associating her email with my account, or this other person getting access to my account!
I have changed my account password, my daughters password (again) and disabled pop email. (we use imap). Am hoping that stops the other person accessing the account.

[Scubbie]

As I mentioned in my previous post, the issue may not be with them actually accessing your daughter's email account.

In order to get the most from email addresses, many companies allow symbols to be put into an email address.

example: my.name @ sky.com

It would be very easy to set up an address which looks similar.

example: myname @ sky.com
or my_name @ sky.com
or my-name @ sky.com

I would also get you daughter to change any password reset question if you are still concerned.

As for accessing your My sky account, I can't recall how much access your daughter could have, but only the master account will have full access.

I don't think she has the ability to change your payment details within Sky, for example.

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

I am pretty certain that she can't change payment details within My Sky.

[fuzzy logic]

I would also get you daughter to change any password reset question if you are still concerned.

Assuming Sky gmail has the same options as gmail, you'd also want to check if there are any password recovery email addresses or a linked mobile phone number set up, that don't belong to you. I'd also check the email forwarding options for rogue email addresses, and all the filtering rules as they can be used to forward email to another address too.

I think the someone entering the wrong email address when buying goods is a likely explanation though.