4

A little similar to this question. but rather than hack my email address someone has created an Apple ID with a gmail address that is similar to mine, but had dots '.' in it. For example if I have [email protected] some one has used [email protected] as their apple ID.

According to google support I effectively own both email addresses as the dot is ignored. Given this, I am receiving a number of emails from apple for this ID (mainly app purchases, all through store credit), along with emails asking to verify the account.

So

  1. What should I do about it? I have no means of contacting the real user of the apple ID
  2. Given that I own the email address am I allowed to change the password and lock out the "owner" of the apple account? As an incentive to get the other person to correct their mistake.

To Clarify I do have an apple ID account, but it is not tied to my gmail account

Improve this question

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
8

Is he using your credit? If so contact Apple.

If he's not, then he just might have the same name as you and he's not really doing anything wrong. What you can do is send an email to apple making them aware of the problem so they can force the user to choose a new email address. Since you do not own the apple account, it's not really your right to change the password.

Improve this answer
1

If there is a possibility that the other user could currently purchase apps that would get charged to you, I would change the password now to lock it out.

Obviously right now you are getting emails asking to verify the account, but a small amount of social engineering may allow him to charge to you.

Lock it.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    It sounds like this is a third party's account that inadvertently used his e-mail address. Acting as that party may be against the terms of service for the system and thus could potentially be considered illegal in some jurisdictions. (I am not a lawyer, but that would be my concern.) The best bet is to contact Apple about it. Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 17:07
  • Just to clarify, I downvoted because there is nothing in the question that indicates that the asker even has an Apple account based on his GMail account. I can't see any way that Apple could be socially engineered in to charging an e-mail account they have no billing information for. This sounds much more like a case of a typo where the username and password may be all that the legitimate user of that account has to go on to fix the issue. Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 17:12
  • I do have an apple ID, but it's not tied to my gmail account Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 18:21
1

Most likely sounds like a typo. If I understand correctly, they entered the wrong e-mail address when making their Apple account and it ends up making it so you get the e-mails intended for them. Send Apple an e-mail about the problem. There might even be details about what to do in the e-mail verification. If you change their password on them, they will may have no way to recover their account if they just made an honest mistake. It's really up to Apple to decide how to deal with an invalid e-mail address on an account since it isn't at all affiliated with any account of yours.

Improve this answer
1

I have the same issue and I dont think it is due to a typo. Someone named Dan Myers used my gmail email address to open an appleid account. I googled my problem and found this, where someone says in a hotmail forum:

I have been receiving emails from Apple to verify my address so they can process it.It was addressed to a Rose Myers,my name isn't Rose Myers. But she is using my hotmail address to open the Apple account with,so how is this possible? And now I have received an email from Apple that's addressed to her but sent to my email saying that her password has been reset. This is my email account,what is going on? If any one has an answer to this please reply asap as this is urgent,thank you.

I find it a remarkable coincidence that the name of the person who allegedly typoed his email address is "Dan Myers" in my case and "Rose Myers" in the case of the guy posting in the Microsoft security forum.

Improve this answer
1
  • Could you please detail you answer? If the link you gave gets broken, so get your answer. Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 12:13
1

There may be a way of contacting them directly. Via the Apple ID.

Create a new contact with the email address in question, and iMessage it. It will probably depend on the email address being in the "You can be reached by iMessage at" section of the settings.

iMessage settings

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.