Posts in Category: Emails
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.
Karen Berry in the UK, what has happened to you?
OTHER KBs
Okay, by now you’ve probably heard me complain about the 250+ people who have my name, and therefore sign up for things using my email address. Right now, I’m wishing the Karen Berry (I’m guess in North Carolina or Florida) who signed me up for the Epoch News would have her Internet privileges revoked permanently. You should see my spam folder, it’s a right-wing parade of requests for money from Don Junior and Tucker Carlson and the like. “Stop the Radical Left NOW!” they demand, while demanding my money, which of course they will never get because apparently I am the radical left, even though there’s nothing remotely radical about me.
But now, I’m concerned about the UK KBs.
It all started with the appearance of ads for online slots gambling games on my Instagram account. Now, you know, sometimes you get some strange ads on Facebook and Instagram, like I was bombarded with ads for palletizing equipment for about a month. What is palletizing, you might ask? I’m not sure, but I imagine it has to do with preparing pallets for shipping. I promise you that I am not now, nor have I been in the past, in any way involved with palletizing, but those ads were all over my feeds.
So when I started to be constantly bombarded with ads for casino-type games, i wondered what the heck was going on. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I don’t enjoy gambling. I find it dull and pointless. When in Vegas, my loss limit for the whole trip is either 20 dollars or 40 dollars, depending on how long we’re staying. If I’m lucky, I can get those losses out of the way within the first fifteen minutes in a casino, freeing up my Vegas time for things I actually enjoy doing, like sightseeing, going to shows, reading in the room, and eating. And it’s been quite a while since we went to Vegas, due to the pandemic. So when these ads started appearing, I knew something was up.
After the ads came the emails.
SO MANY emails, because someone in the UK with my name has signed up for at least ten different UK gambling sites, most of which don’t require a verification of the email address. Every day, I get emails from a new one, offering free spins and so forth. So some Karen Berry in the UK has completely gone down the rabbit hole of online gambling, and she’s taken me with her!
The emails are not a big deal, really. I either write to them and tell them to take me off their rolls (if I can find a contact email) or I unsubscribe. But my email address is associated with these sites, and that’s why I’m getting all these damn ads. I’m also on the dark web with the wrong email password, and I assume it’s because she’s signed into some shady site. I really don’t like that at all. What’s worse, I’ve started to receive “Do you have a gambling addiction?” emails from the UK gaming commission, offering resources for people who have gotten themselves into financial trouble with gambling.
So, this is where the writer in me kicks in, and starts making up stories.
Is it you, New Zealand KB?
I know there is at least one KB in New Zealand, because she tries to sign up for health club appointments, spa appointments, training sessions and the like with my email. Now, if you know me, you also know that I enjoy fitness endeavors just about as much as I enjoy gambling. But this KB is just living her best life. So even though I’ve had to correct senders now and then, she appears to have learned her own email address. But in my story, this type A fitness buff has experienced a sport-related injury, and turned to online gambling during her convalescence. She’s stopped registering for 5K runs and started registering for Slots-O-Mania, instead. Her carefully maintained body falls to hell, as does her type-A lifestyle, as she sinks further into online gambling.
I like this idea, but is it interesting? Is the fall of the Type-A an overdone trope? And perhaps more importantly, am I the person who could convincingly write from the perspective of a person who is fiercely devoted to physical fitness?
That’s a serious question, by the way.
Or maybe it’s you, Ireland KB.
There’s also the KB in Dublin, Ireland, who signed up for PlentyOfFish with my email. Since I’m married, I really don’t want my email address associated with any dating sites. So I signed in, changed her password, and tried to cancel the account. PoF wouldn’t let me! If you sign up there, you have to let the account ride for a while until you can make it go away. Well, because I was irritated as hell about this, I edited her profile to reflect the carelessness of a person who doesn’t know her own email address. I said something like, “Hi, I’m a idiot who doesn’t know her own email address, so now a stranger is getting my emails!”
After about ten “reset your password” emails arrived, I signed in again and added some more choice words about intelligence. Then I wrote to PoF and told them what happened. They finally took the profile down. That’s great, but there is something about PlentyOfFish–a dating site that is well-stocked with bottom feeders–and an online slots addiction that go together in my mind.
But this is too messy and too tidy at the same time. It’s just not as interesting to me.
Please don’t have it be you, Wales KB.
My thoughts have turned a Welsh KB who was approaching retirement. This past year, I was contacted by a financial counselor with all kinds of personal documents attached, as well as an email trail in which KB in Wales requested that her on-file email address be changed to MY email address. It’s not often that I actually have my hands on the real email address belonging to one of my many email offenders, so of course I wrote to her, and asking in caps to “PLEASE STOP USING MY EMAIL ADDRESS NOW, THANK YOU.”
A week later, I got an email back from her denying that she’d ever done such a thing, and telling me that my use of caps was uncalled for and most upsetting. I guess they are very tender and sensitive in Wales regarding the use of caps. Who knew. But this KB does provide fictional potential; a story about a woman who has longed for her retirement only to find that when it arrives, she needs some thrills, chills and spills–the kind that can only be provided by online slots machines.
Which should I use?
That’s three story ideas, with three different KB main characters. Should I use the fitness buff, the online dater, or the new retiree? I can’t decide. But don’t worry. Whichever one I use, I’m absolutely going to change her name.