gmail or paypal problem

[scotia]

My email address is of the form x.y@gmail.com, where x and y are alphabetic text strings. I have a paypal account with this email address. Recently a newcomer to paypal has been setting up a new account with email address xy@gmail.com - i.e. my address without the dot. And I have been receiving email from paypal concerning this new account, apparently being sent to xy@gmail.com. I have made repeated complaints to paypal, who took several days to respond. They apparently think it is a gmail problem. I have contacted gmail - but have received no response. I have continued to receive paypal email to xy@gmail.com
Has anyone out there had a similar problem? If so, how was it resolved? Is it a paypal or a gmail problem?

[chas49]

See this Google support article (https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en)

Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses
If someone accidentally adds dots to your address when emailing you, you'll still get that email. For example, if your email is johnsmith@gmail.com, you own all dotted versions of your address:

john.smith@gmail.com
jo.hn.sm.ith@gmail.com
j.o.h.n.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com

......

So it's a gmail problem in the sense that that is how they work, and Paypal for not knowing that. One of you will need to change their Paypal email details. Presumably the other person is not receiving any emails from Paypal.

[chas49]

So - to add to mt response above - you can correctly say to Paypal that the other person is wrongly using your email address and their account needs altering. They probably mistyped the address as they cannot receive any email to the address they gave.

[Infrasonic]

My email address is of the form x.y@gmail.com, where x and y are alphabetic text strings. I have a paypal account with this email address. Recently a newcomer to paypal has been setting up a new account with email address xy@gmail.com - i.e. my address without the dot. And I have been receiving email from paypal concerning this new account, apparently being sent to xy@gmail.com.

From chas49's post presumably Gmail must be giving dotless addresses priority, otherwise you would have thought any variation on xy would defer to the older (dotted) account and the newer one wouldn't be able to take a dotless variation of that?
If so then never take a dotted Gmail address would seem to be the only way round that anomaly?

My Gmail master account is a dotted address equivalent to my main domain mail address (I use the Gmail as an SMTP alias with the domain mail) so I'm susceptible to the same issue I suspect.

[AllYourBase]

I have the same problem with someone using my "undotted" email address for their American Express account, i.e. I receive all their emails from Amex - the only method I've found to contact Amex is via telephone, so I haven't bothered.

[Infrasonic]

I get text messages from Littlewoods giving me updates on deliveries and account balance info.
Clearly someone has entered the wrong mobile number into their LW account, the novelty has worn off for me so I've just blocked the sent from number now.

[swill453]

From chas49's post presumably Gmail must be giving dotless addresses priority, otherwise you would have thought any variation on xy would defer to the older (dotted) account and the newer one wouldn't be able to take a dotless variation of that?

As has been said, the dotted and dotless addresses are the same account. Gmail hasn't opened two accounts.

It has to be a mistype by the other person.

Scott.

[Infrasonic]

From chas49's post presumably Gmail must be giving dotless addresses priority, otherwise you would have thought any variation on xy would defer to the older (dotted) account and the newer one wouldn't be able to take a dotless variation of that?

As has been said, the dotted and dotless addresses are the same account. Gmail hasn't opened two accounts.

It has to be a mistype by the other person.

Scott.

Yes, having re-read the thread you're right, posting before thinking, always a bad idea.

[UncleEbenezer]

Are you sure your email was from paypal in the first place? It's a common forgery for phishing attacks.

[scotia]

Are you sure your email was from paypal in the first place? It's a common forgery for phishing attacks.

That was my first thought. But I have logged in to paypal with my password (where I can see all of my transactions), and I have sent (secure?) messages via this account - so I feel reasonably certain that I am talking to paypal, and they seem convinced that there is a separate xy@gmail.com address, and that the person using it is attempting to set up a paypal account - with the paypal messages coming to me! Since this seems to be a clear breach of security, I have requested that paypal tell me who their UK regulatory body is (if there is one) - with a view to reporting this affair. However that's a question they have so far refused to answer.
I'll try gmail again - to see if they can confirm that x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com are the same address - in which case it looks like someone is attempting to setup a fraudulent paypal account. But surely paypal would know that they were the same address, and my messages to them should have rang their alarm bells. But since their response, apparently blaming gmail, they have still sent a message to this xy@gmail.com address which is concerned with the setting up of a new account - and this has been received by myself. Are they just totally incompetent?

[Infrasonic]

I have requested that paypal tell me who their UK regulatory body is (if there is one) - with a view to reporting this affair. However that's a question they have so far refused to answer.

Wouldn't they fall under the jurisdiction of the FCA?
https://www.fca.org.uk/firms

[scotia]

And I can confirm that on sending an email from a BT email account to xy@gmail.com, it arrives in my x.y@gmail.com mailbox - which seems to confirm the helpful responses from contributors. So is paypal really unaware of this? Do they believe that this is a gmail "fault"? Are they happy to open accounts from different persons with x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com addresses, and think that its OK?
I still need to check with gmail to see if there is a genuine other gmail user with address xy@gmail.com. I suspect not - and my guess is that someone is trying to carry out fraudulent paypal transactions - so I'll watch my account carefully.

[MyNameIsUrl]

I'll try gmail again - to see if they can confirm that x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com are the same address...

You could do a quick test by getting a friend to send you two emails and check not only that you see them both, but also if you can distinguish them in the header.

[mc2fool]

And I can confirm that on sending an email from a BT email account to xy@gmail.com, it arrives in my x.y@gmail.com mailbox - which seems to confirm the helpful responses from contributors. So is paypal really unaware of this? Do they believe that this is a gmail "fault"? Are they happy to open accounts from different persons with x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com addresses, and think that its OK?

Well it's most definitely gmail's doing. x.y@... is a different email address to xy@..., and it's (only?) gmail that decides that dots in the name part don't matter and maps them to the same user. I don't know of any other email provider that does that.

I'll bet that pretty much every website on the internet treats x.y@... as a different user to xy@..., and I'm not sure how reasonable it is to demand that they all put in special code to deal with gmail's idiosyncrasy in this. Beware also that this "feature" of gmail has, apparently, been used for a scam before. https://jameshfisher.com/2018/04/07/the-dots-do-matter-how-to-scam-a-gmail-user/

But it's been a long time since I signed up with Paypal ... do they not send an email to the address containing a link to follow for verification when you sign up? If not then that is definitely a security flaw in itself (irrespective of the gmail flaw).

Of course, as you receive the xy@gmail.com emails you could always just take control of that Paypal account, by entering the xy@gmail.com address and requesting a password reset, and then close it down...

[swill453]

I'll bet that pretty much every website on the internet treats x.y@... as a different user to xy@..., and I'm not sure how reasonable it is to demand that they all put in special code to deal with gmail's idiosyncrasy in this.

It's not reasonable at all, and they don't need to. Especially since gmail could unilaterally change this (unlikely I accept) and break the code.

If you use your gmail address as an account name with some other organisation, it's up to you to be consistent and not assume the third party will treat x.y.z@gmail.com the same as xyz@gmail.com

For the OP, I'd simply state to Paypal that someone has erroneously used (or attempted to use) my email address in setting up an account. Don't confuse them with discussion about dots

Scott.

[scotia]

First - a big thanks to all who have contributed.
Now to answer a few questions.
Yes - email from another non-gmail account to x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com both arrive in my x.y@gmail.com inbox. And yes - I can see that one is addressed to x.y@gmail.com and the other is addressed to xy@gmail.com. I need to get a response from gmail as to whether this is a feature or is a flaw. If gmail does not allow another person to have an address xy@gmail.com - no matter whether there are (possibly multiple) dots or no dots in it, then any attempt by another user to use such an address to set up an account in paypal is clearly fraudulent - as in the Netflix scam reported by mc2fool.
But gmail must be the world's most-used email service - so surely paypal (and Netflix) know of this feature, and they should know that my responses have wakened them up to a fraudulent transaction - rather than say it is an intermittent gmail problem!
Incidentally, on my old defunct email system (freeserve), my email address was p@q.freeserve.co.uk, where p and q were alphabetic strings. But this address seemed to work for any p

[swill453]

Yes - email from another non-gmail account to x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com both arrive in my x.y@gmail.com inbox. And yes - I can see that one is addressed to x.y@gmail.com and the other is addressed to xy@gmail.com. I need to get a response from gmail as to whether this is a feature or is a flaw.

No need for that, it's definitely a feature. Here from the horse's mouth from 2008 https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2- ... -your.html

Scott.

[Infrasonic]

I suppose the flip side is Gmail could say that if all the dotted variations go to the same account then it makes ID theft/impersonation harder, as registering a Gmail address of say an.other@gmail.com when another@gmail.com is already registered wouldn't work(?)

The Netflix reverse scam in the link would mostly fail today as very few businesses now accept those temporary/one off card numbers unless they are owned or backed up by a big bank or financial institution so there's legal recourse to get their money.
I suppose you could still do the old school long firm trick of running up a legitimate credit balance/profile before trying to phish someone else into entering their details to cover the future costs. (I have a text alert to phone threshold amount, set at my average monthly CC spend).

I looked into getting some temporary/one off numbers as firewalls to my real CC's, but many of the initial players have withdrawn from the market, or been bought out by the big banks/CC players who have restricted their flexibility. It was big in the US for a bit, but didn't seem to gain traction over here (maybe with good reason security/fraud wise...).

The password reset issue you'd hope that any financial organisation would want a memorable piece of information check (or other 2FA) before resetting the account, otherwise that is open to abuse if an account gets hacked (as they did in the early wild west days of the web).

[scotia]

Yes - email from another non-gmail account to x.y@gmail.com and xy@gmail.com both arrive in my x.y@gmail.com inbox. And yes - I can see that one is addressed to x.y@gmail.com and the other is addressed to xy@gmail.com. I need to get a response from gmail as to whether this is a feature or is a flaw.

No need for that, it's definitely a feature. Here from the horse's mouth from 2008 https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2- ... -your.html

Scott.

Thanks for the response - so its clearly a paypal problem - of which they seem unaware. I quote verbatim from one of their responses:-
Please know that there is an intermittent technical issue with gmail accounts wherein the special character "." is not being recognized. Hence, emails are sent to the email address with the special character "." which are nofitidcations for the email address without the "." sign.

You may contact gmail to fix this issue for you to no longer receive notifications for the other email address.

I repeat - this is verbatim, including nofitidcations

[scotia]

And I have received another email from paypal, from which I quote:-
We appreciate your time bringing this to our attention. To further help you, I took the initiative to resend your account to our technical team so that we can implement fix. We will get back to you and send you a follow up email once we receive an update.

We never intended to make you feel nervous and we truly appreciate your patience and understanding for giving us the opportunity in resolving this issue.

My intention is to close the paypal account - as soon as I feel confident that they have resolved the issue.