All You Dang Karen Berrys
Ye Old Email Complaint Ahead
It’s gotten a little absurd in the past couple of months at the old inbox, so I thought I’d update everyone on how things are going for all the Karen Berrys out there, those women with my name who like to use my email address. These are just the letters that get through my spam filter, which is a wasteland of feverish right-wing newsletters and fervent donation requests. I find it hilarious that those pleas continue despite the election results. A sucker is born every second, apparently.
I do have a first! One Karen Berry (very definitely not me) is being pursued by a debt collection agency. This request included the full address and phone number of this KB. Her phone number! I could call her! But I didn’t. I just wrote back saying it wasn’t me. For a debt collector, the person who replied was nice. He did not demand my social security number or the like, he just fixed something and I haven’t received any more emails demanding payment from a Karen Berry who lives in Texas.
Gambling
As I have posted before, there is a Karen Berry with an online gambling problem. I believe she kicks the habit, then starts up again, which involves signing up for a bunch of websites that end up hacked on the dark web (I get the alerts, the passwords are never mine, and so on).
Apparently none of these websites require you to verify your email address. I get a flurry of “Welcome to our family of games!” emails. These are followed by emails urging her to play play play! Then come the emails reminding her to gamble wisely and set limits. Eventually, emails arrive about where to get help for problem gamblers. Then I get a bunch of dark web password alerts.
It’s a vicious cycle, and here I am, trapped in it with a Karen Berry who is not me.
New Zealand adventures abound.
One of the New Zealand Karen Berrys is taking a trip to an inclusive resort with her family that sounds really fun. I got her booking confirmation, so I wrote to her travel agent and let her know she had the wrong email address. Also, I did not cancel her ride reservation to the airport when that email arrived. I’m nice like that.
Another of the New Zealand Karen Berrys kept trying to sign me up for dating websites. I guess those don’t make you verify your email, either. When my inbox was overwhelmed with invitations to connect from hoary-bearded New Zealand gentlemen of certain years, curiosity got the best of me. I signed in and looked at her photo and wondered what was going on, because she is as old as I am, but apparently she’s a hot property in NZ. Or she would be, if I hadn’t canceled the account.
More Dating Site Adventures
Another Karen Berry, this one in Oregon (but not the lawyer PI, that’s a different Karen Berry in Oregon), signed me up for a site called “BeNaughty.com.” I’m not sure what this site is about but suspect it’s not a site I want to be part of, since I’m married (though many people on there seem to be married, but anyway). Men in the Salem/Keizer/Dallas area were flooding her with behind-the-wheel photos taken in the cabs of their large American trucks.
So, of course I signed in and had a look because, again, the amount of email she was getting was staggering. Her photo was super cute! Whatever BeNaughty.com is, this Karen Berry could have had her pick. But she is not me, so I took the necessary steps to shut down the account. I hope when she signs up again, she is a little more careful with her email address.
She got almost as much email as the Karen Berry in Italy who used my email address to sign up for the Italian version of Match.com. That was an avalanche. I signed in and discovered the prettiest Karen Berry of them all. She was very young and VERY blonde, and the Italian men were all over it. I shut that one down, too, but maybe she’s had some luck because I recently have been getting a bunch of travel reservations in Italian. Maybe she signed back up with her correct email, and she’s jetting around Europe with a handsome Italian as I type this. I have not canceled a single one of her reservations. I hope she’s having a blast.
Ireland and Wales
A realtor in the UK keeps trying to find a flat for one of the UK Karen Berrys. The addresses are not in Ireland, so it’s not the Irish Karen Berry who let her teenage son sign up for SnapChat and TikTok with my email address (this is why I have those accounts, I had to sign in, change the passwords and take them away from him so now I guess I’m on there). The Irish Karen Berry has also signed me up for PlentyOfFish.com twice. I’m hoping my email address is flagged, because it’s been months since I had to make a stink to get the profile taken down. Or maybe she just learned her own email address.
That must mean that the Welsh Karen Berry is thinking about moving. I’ve had actual contact with the Welsh Karen Berry. I was privy to certain sensitive events in her workplace that resulted disciplinary warnings, and then her pension people kept sending me legal documents to sign. I am somewhat attached to this Karen Berry, because she is the only one I’ve corresponded with (I asked her in all caps to stop using my email address) (she didn’t take it well) (she found my use of caps uncalled for and most upsetting) (I DON’T CARE).
And…Yachting?
Today I found out I was signed up for a yachting newsletter for a Yacht Club in the southern United States. I’m not sure which Karen Berry has taken up yachting–possibly the realtor? Maybe the horse trainer? Or the eye doctor? Don’t you have to be sort of wealthy to yacht? I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of yachting knowledge. I have zero interest in yachting at this time, so I unsubscribed.
There are 338 women in the world with my name. And they all like to use my email address.
