How do I stop this Gmail confusion?

Q I’m receiving emails intended for someone else who apparently shares my name. The difference between our addresses is that mine has a full stop between forename and surname, and his doesn’t. So I’m james.mcmadeup@ gmail.com and he’s jamesmcmadeup@ gmail.com. I get emails about his Facebook account and recently I got a confirmation email for a pizza purchased in County Kerry! I’m worried that mail intended for me goes astray too. Can Google not differentiate between the two addresses? I’ve tried to contact Google, but that seems impossible. Short of changing my email address I don’t know what to do. Any suggestions? And please don’t use my real name or you’ll give away my email address! James Mcmadeup

A Don’t worry, we’ve changed your name (as should be obvious). Google won’t differentiate between the email address examples you gave, because Gmail ignores all full stops in the left-hand side of addresses. So, to Gmail’s servers, james.mcmadeup@gmail.com, jamesmcmadeup@gmail.com or even j.a.m.e.s.m.c.m.a.d.e.u.p@gmail.com are all the same address. You can test this for yourself by sending an email to any variation — all will arrive in your inbox.

Our guess is the other James Mcmadeup messed up when setting up his Facebook account, and made a typing error that means you now get his notifications. If he only uses the one PC, he’d be unaware of it because his browser will keep him logged into Facebook. Then he made a similar typing error when ordering pizza.

Messages for you won’t be going astray, no matter how people type the address — unless they make errors of their own. We’d suggest searching Facebook for a James Mcmadeup who lives in County Kerry, and try contacting him to see if he’s aware of the situation. You could even contact the pizza place and ask them to deliver a message to his home address, which they presumably have.