Stole a Gmail account... kinda

[talisman]

Hi,

Some usernames which I really like to have for my own use are already taken like john.smith (just an example). So wondering how I could live with a john1234.smith-ish e-mail I decided just for fun to claim access to john.smith. I use the password recovery option to answer to the security question, which was plain dumb and easy to guess. To my surprise I was in john.smith's account in less than 2 minutes! I quickly noticed john.smith was never used though, there's still the "Gmail is different" introduction e-mail dating back to 2007!!! I thought maybe the owner of john.smith wouldn't care so I went to Google Accounts to edit personal info like changed the name to that of my own, used a different security question et cetera.

Now I have full access to john.smith, which I've always wanted to have in my posession. Just a tiny problem: in Gmail account options the "Send email as:" field still displays John Smith and not my name which was set in Google Accounts. For some reason I can not get the changes in Google Accounts to reflect in Gmail. My option is to use the alternative field where I can type my own name. That works perfect, but there's still a remnant of the old John Smith to be found in my Gmail options and I can't live with it.

What would you do? Leave john.smith alone or what?

[Kaeru Gaman]

If my name was John Smith, I had found myself a shiny Pseudonyme back in the bloody Seventies.

[milan1612]

Aren't you able to unsubscribe the account and then, in a few days, reregister it?

[naw]

Sell it on eBay

[SFSxOI]

As neat as this sounds, I have a question. What if the original John Smith shows up and tells Google that his email was hacked and they prosecute you under any one of many different laws?

[talisman]

@milan: no, if unsubscribed/deleted then it is completely gone from the google servers.

@SFSxOI: well that could pose a problem :p

[milan1612]

@milan: no, if unsubscribed/deleted then it is completely gone from the google servers.

Well, that's the purpose of it. The name will become available again, and you'll be able to register it yourself...

[Foz]

As neat as this sounds, I have a question. What if the original John Smith shows up and tells Google that his email was hacked and they prosecute you under any one of many different laws?

What if talisman shows up and tells Google that his email was hacked, and then he can prosecute the original John Smith under any one of many different laws?

[SFSxOI]

As neat as this sounds, I have a question. What if the original John Smith shows up and tells Google that his email was hacked and they prosecute you under any one of many different laws?

What if talisman shows up and tells Google that his email was hacked, and then he can prosecute the original John Smith under any one of many different laws?

twisted, just twisted

[talisman]

@milan: no, if unsubscribed/deleted then it is completely gone from the google servers.

Well, that's the purpose of it. The name will become available again, and you'll be able to register it yourself...

Sorry, bad wording. Here take a look at http://groups.google.com/support/bin/an ... swer=75422

In particular,

[..]you'll no longer be able to access that email. You'll also be unable to reuse your Gmail username.

Sucks... but anyway I'll fill in some random details and remove the account. So should Mr. Smith get back to Gmail at some point there won't be any problem.

[utopiomania]

Just sent you this: mail, did you receive it?

Hi,

If you managed to hack into this account, you should inform Google that you did so, and
ask them to give it back to john.smith

Regards,
utopiomania

[Rescator]

I agree! You've had your fun. Inform Google and let them handle the rest.
If you keep it you could end up banned by Google for life and you could also possibly be prosecuted if you got really bad luck.

[talisman]

I agree! You've had your fun. Inform Google and let them handle the rest.
If you keep it you could end up banned by Google for life and you could also possibly be prosecuted if you got really bad luck.

Done (though it was really hard to find a contact form, Google really need to make this easier to report stuff)

Don't bother with john.smith anymore guys, the show is over

[Rescator]

Yeah! I know. Trying to "contact" Google is very cumbersome, which is odd as you could practically shake a tree and have Googlers fall out by the dozens these days,
there always seems to be some darn FAQ or Q&A you have to trundle through, you'd think Google would have used their search engine voodoo to make a brilliant subject filter for all feedback heh..

[Kuron]

I do wish you could undelete Google accounts. I deleted mine by mistake and I really want my email address back