People who use the internet and email know about spam – those unsolicited messages in your inbox consisting of dubious advertising, demands to disclose your personal information, or requests to send money to an African prince.
So he stepped up the measures. Continue scrolling to read hispostfrom the subreddit ‘Petty Revenge,’ detailing the lengths CrazyIslander went to in an attempt to regain his peace of mind.
Most people find spam annoying but consider it an unavoidable side effect of using email
Image credits:Justin Morgan (not the actual photo)
This guy, however, decided to fight it
Image credits:Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)
Image credits:CrazyIslander
We got in touch with CrazyIslander and he kindly agreed to have a little chat with us about the whole ordeal.
“Simply put, [stuff] happens, and having an email address as straightforward as mine is, you have to expect that it will happen sooner or later,” the Redditor toldBored Panda.
“I will occasionally get emails from people (both male and female) who share the same first initial and last name as I do. G-Man was the exception, though. It happened with him a lot.”
CrazyIslander highlighted it was mostly trivial emails that he had been getting, such as newsletters and straight-up spam.
“It was rare that I got any personal emails that were meant for him, so it was more just a nuisance having to unsubscribe myself from whatever he had gotten signed up for.”
“But as I said in my initial post, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that either G-Man (or someone else) was perhaps making a typo with the email address,” CrazyIslander noted. But as we just learned, that wasn’t the case.
“Had I found information that allowed me to call G-Man, I absolutely would have,” he added.
“Whenever I could, I have reached out to people via email, text, and phone before when an email arrived that wasn’t intended for me. I once received an email for a gentleman named Richard (same last name) that contained enough information in it that I managed to track him down, so I called him.”
Now that all this time has passed, CrazyIslander can’t recall the specifics of that particular instance, but “the email seemed important enough that it warranted me reaching out to him to let him know about it,” which the intended recipient appreciated.
“When I emailed G-Man to advise him that the emails were going to a real person, it was replied to with apologies, so I assumed that it would be the end of the things,” CrazyIslander pointed out once again.
The Redditor could’ve never predicted the thriller that was awaiting him. “I’m only speculating, but I think my revenge tactics had a very long-lasting effect on G-Man’s behavior. The emails I receive that are addressed to him are far and few between compared to what they were. I’m sure once the physical mail started arriving at his place, he realized the severity of his continued stupidity.”
Spam continues to be an ongoing challenge for internet users
Estimates of its prevalence vary, largely because people define it differently.
Some surveys place the percentage of email spam at around 45% to 50%, while others say it can be as high as 85%.
The fundamental characteristic of spam is that it’s unwanted, meaning the recipient, just like CrazyIslander, hasn’t granted permission to receive the content.
Even though most email services today filter for spam, it keeps constantly evolving.
Image credits:Stephen Phillips(not the actual photo)
What to do if you too are getting someone else’s emails
If you are facing the same problem as CrazyIslander but aren’t ready to go nuclear, one way youcan make your life easieris to set up canned replies so you don’t have to type the same message every time you want to respond to the senders.
Gmail has a template feature where you can quickly save one:
And in Outlook:
If that doesn’t stop the onslaught of unwanted emails, another possibility is to set up filters in your inbox. This works if you tend to get messages from the same people but keep in mind it isn’t going to stop new wayward emails, so you’ll need to continue adding people to your “Not For Me” filter.
Here’s how to do it in Gmail:
Image credits:Krsto Jevtic (not the actual photo)
People eagerly reacted to his petty revenge and shared tips on how it could be made even better
Some even responded with their own similar experiences
Thanks! Check out the results:Gabija Palšytė
Ilona Baliūnaitė
Shelly Fourer
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