Realized that foreigners stopped contacting me...

[DrPizza]

It was amusing in the early 90's - I started with "pizzaguru" but soon became DrPizza. Shortly after becoming DrPizza, every place I used that name, I had people contacting me, asking for my help to emigrate to the United States. Most of these people were doctors in foreign countries. It generally appeared that they wanted me to help pull strings or otherwise facilitate them getting their green card or whatever it was that they needed to get here. This hasn't happened to me in over a decade now, but it used to be a weekly occurrence.


Anyone else run into similar or otherwise weird mix-ups over their username?

 

[Spacehead]

No, but the US already has enough Spaceheads

 

[Ken g6]

That's the closest I come. Well, not phone bill, but I get lots of other weird stuff.

 

[Skeeedunt]

I don't think my username inspires anyone to come to me looking for help.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Umm... That was spam. Everyone got those until spam filters became more sophisticated.

 

[MongGrel]

The whole Mong thing has been unusual since I started using Mong Grel in a lot of games over time.

I never received E-Mails over it, I was going to go with Ming on a whim back in EQ beta, someone else was using Ming att so I went with Mong and joked I was his less evil younger brother.

Was interesting once I found out what the Aussies thought of the term down the road, but I stuck with it.

My first two initials IRL are D R , was interesting I even had a hot stewardess hitting on me in the past asking me if I was a Doctor when I was in the military, I guess I should have ran with it at the time

 

[DrPizza]

Umm... That was spam. Everyone got those until spam filters became more sophisticated.

I didn't say they contacted me via email. I didn't receive that type of spam on my email accounts at that time. But, I'd be on, say, The Gaming Zone, playing cards against someone, and they'd start asking for help moving to the United States. Since I was a member of several "clans," I had other names as well, e.g., Toon_Mac on the game zone. This did not occur with my other usernames.

 

[SKORPI0]

I've been using the username SKORPI0 (end is number 0, not letter O) since the mid '90s in whatever website/forum came out.
Got search results of others with similar username from other countries. Thankfully never got confused with anyone.
Avatar used will be of anything (people/etc.) related to the SCORPIO sign.

 

[Rumpltzer]

My GMail address is my first and last+name@gmail.com, and I very well understand about how old people (and their friends!) think that I'm them.

When I completed my PhD thesis, I think the my university put me into some sort of database. I got dozens of form letter emails and resumes from Chinese students addressing me as "professor" claiming to have read my thesis and wanting to be in my research group. Most were not in my field of study... like, I'm an EE, and they're in biology or something.

Also, I'm not a prof.

 

[Mike64]

I really don't have much of an imagination for long-term "monikers" so have always just ended up using my first name/nickname with either my last initial or some other random-ish suffix, or when I really want to stay (at least superficially) anonymous, some sort of anagram-ish variation of it. And since "Michael" was the most popular name for males in this country from shortly before I was born until the turn of the 21st century, give or take, none of my online IDs or my email addresses has ever really stood out enough to attract anything but randomly generated spam.

[ETA: Upon reflection, that's not quite true. My first non-numeric CompuServe address was my full first and last names. At that time, inter-BBS email among "civilians" was still pretty rare (and CS itself was pretty heavily "moderated") and the Web was still at the idle musing stage, if that, so I wasn't really worried about privacy. But I let that account lapse even before the Web went public and commercial/blackhat spammers had really even come into existence in a any noticeable way...)

If I'd ever used my first plus last name, on the other hand, I'd have been far more visible online than I've ever wanted to be (especially before the late 1990s when large numbers of Russians started immigrating here for the first time in many decades) and if - God forbid - I ever used both plus my middle name, I could be pinpointed from high Earth orbit through heavy cloud cover by a near-sighted, astigmatic astronaut. Which is precisely why I've never been foolish/dumb enough to do that.
"

 

[Ns1]

I get alot of domain names pointed in my direction, I don't understand why.

 

[BudAshes]

I get alot of domain names pointed in my direction, I don't understand why.

 

[PowerEngineer]

When I was back in college, our fraternity was called on to help canvas alumni for donations. As the night was drawing to a close, we were just a couple of donations short of winning a keg of beer (yes, times have changed!). In desperation, I called home to get my father to donate a couple of bucks. Well, his name and address went into the donation database, and was apparently cross linked to the record of an alumni with the same name. I think he is still getting all the alumni newsletters.

 

[GregGreen]

That's the closest I come. Well, not phone bill, but I get lots of other weird stuff.

Ugh, this struggle is real. I have that same firstName+lastName@gmail address (you can guess it if you really want) and I get so many emails for other people. The ones that really bother me are from the guy who keeps signing up for shady sex-based dating sites. I'm going in and changing the password so the accounts don't work anymore and I stop getting emails, but I know they're still keeping all that info in their database in case "I" want to come back to their site. I can deal with the occasional emails from their Deacon in South Africa or their job hunt in Houston or their family in Australia.

And yes, one of them I really did get their phone bill once. They live in Cincinnati and had signed up for Cincinnati Bell FiOS and I got many emails about the install of the service. Luckily Cincinnati Bell isn't some fly by night company and a quick call got that sorted out.

 

[John Connor]

Can't say I have.

 

[flexy]

I get alot of domain names pointed in my direction, I don't understand why.

Ahahahha....witty

 

[John Connor]

LOL I just caught that.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You must not be worldly enough. I have all kinds of Nigerian princes contacting me.

 

[StiffPickle]

It's a conspiracy.

 

[Mike64]

Over the past few weeks, I suddenly started getting an absolute barrage of "fuck the girl next door!" spam (to quote the tamest of the sometimes quite imaginative subject lines) from "senders" with female names plus a slightly smaller amount of "business opportunity" spam from a mix of male and female sender-names. There've been enough (5-6 per day) to actually get sort of annoying and I did kinda wonder why they were suddenly appearing out of nowhere... and then about a week after it started, I got notification from some DIY-home-repair forum I'd signed up for God-knows-when that they'd been hacked./

I really just don't get wasting even the minimal time and effort it takes to set up spam-bots to send out ridiculous bullshit like that to non-random, "good"/known email addresses rather than something that might possibly get results, like well-crafted phishing emails (and I only get those a few times a year, at any address.) I mean, does anybody over the age of 10 or 11 even open emails like that anymore?

 

[Paratus]

Mine is first initial, middle initial, last name at gmail.

I've gotten emails fo sign ups for high school cheerleading before.

The main one is I'm somehow on a church distribution which doubles as somebodies crazy uncles conservative email
List. So I get all sorts of ALL CAPS emails that read like a P&N post.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Lies, law enforcement is after him so he is burning bridges with his customer base. DrPizza was the one that helped me enter the US and become a citizen, for a fee I am still paying off.

 

[herm0016]

That's the closest I come. Well, not phone bill, but I get lots of other weird stuff.

I started getting legal documents because some shumk lawyer with the same name put my email address in his signature. i called his secretary and she was confused. the lawyer called me back and told me to delete everything and he was changing his email. i also get email about appointments at the mayo clinic, someones pay stubs from a city job in ohio and am on a boyscouts email list.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Well that explains why pretty female spanish magicians keep asking me to chat.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I regret my handle. In the early & mid 90s I was a fan of Pantera.

Yes, I loved their great & popular albums (Cowboys & Vulgar), but I also really liked their first album with Anselmo a lot "Power Metal". On the Power Metal Album, I liked the song Burnnn. Also I was a pyromaniac and a teenager. (their earlier albums are garbage)