Insecurity
My personal email address is a simple one. Many strangers on the Internet think it’s theirs, so they put it on their bank accounts, their cell phone service plans, their social media accounts, their electric service, &c. These companies – without checking that the address is good – blithely send me these people’s address, bank balance, SSN, names of their children on their cell plan, call history, and so on and so forth.
Often I’ll do a password reset via email and then change the email address on the account. Or if it’s a throwaway (like, dating) account then I’ll just close it. But sometimes I can’t take over the account, so I’ll contact a company’s support to ask them to take my email address off their customer’s account.
It’s kind of hilarious when the company then gets all concerned about security. “What’s your date of birth?” Um, my DOB isn’t useful to you, and I have no idea what your customer’s DOB is. “We’re sorry, we can’t make any changes to the account without verifying your identity.” So you’re going to keep sending me your customer’s private information? Okay then.
…