Sent: 17 January 2008 16:08
To: Another Dave Smith
Subject: please stop!
Dear Dave (or whatever your name is):
You have caused unbelievable chaos in my life over the past few months by pretending to be me when people have written to your email address by mistake. Yes, my address at Google has a "g" in the middle and yoursdoes not. Had I gotten your mail by mistake, I would have just told the senders to check out the address and try again. Instead, you pretended to be me and sent obscenities to some of them and gibberish to others. Luckily three people knew me well enough to realize that it was a sophomoric prank, and that is how I discovered what has been going on. Even so, it took lots of explaining and apologies. The real worry is that I have no way of knowing how many people were truly offended and have now written me off. I have just gotten off the phone once again explaining all of this to one of my supervisors at work who wondered why his emails had be answered by nonsense.
I have begged Google to ask you to stop, but they will not get involved. Of course, you probably knew that already.
Grow up and get a life!
Dave
On 1/18/08, Dave Smith wrote:
Hello David,
Thank you for your email. As per your request, I shall no longer take our name in vain. For quite a long time my responses were generally informative, but the volume of email I got on your behalf became overwhelming. It got to the point where it seemed as though you were using my variation of your email address for liaisons with people that perhaps you did not want to deal with. I appreciate this is an assumption, but as I had no idea who the 'other' David Smith was and since it's such a popular name, I didn't feel this conclusion was entirely untoward. It was always easy enough to get in contact with myself at any point, yet no communication came so I thought nothing more of it.
It seems you've gotten yourself into quite a state, even contacting Google yet never thought of actually contacting me yourself. I shall stop replying to the emails, but would request that you're more explicit when sharing your email address.
Also, Dave.
Thank you for your email. As per your request, I shall no longer take our name in vain. For quite a long time my responses were generally informative, but the volume of email I got on your behalf became overwhelming. It got to the point where it seemed as though you were using my variation of your email address for liaisons with people that perhaps you did not want to deal with. I appreciate this is an assumption, but as I had no idea who the 'other' David Smith was and since it's such a popular name, I didn't feel this conclusion was entirely untoward. It was always easy enough to get in contact with myself at any point, yet no communication came so I thought nothing more of it.
It seems you've gotten yourself into quite a state, even contacting Google yet never thought of actually contacting me yourself. I shall stop replying to the emails, but would request that you're more explicit when sharing your email address.
Also, Dave.
From: Dave Smith
Date: 21 January 2008 12:52
Subject: Re: please stop!
To: Dave Smith
Dear Dave,
Thanks for your note...very glad to get this cleared up. I discontinued use of this email address after the first incidents were brought to my attention last fall and now use it for the sake of checking archived mail. I had not contacted you directly on the advice of friends who had dealt with identity theft cases, but I realize now that the direct approach would have saved us both considerable inconvenience. Sorry about that...you live and learn.
I have by now contacted everyone in my address book with my new address which cannot be confused with yours, so I hope you do not be receive any further mails that were meant for me.
Sincerely,
David Smith
