For a year or two now, every few months I've been getting a gmail account recovery email to an old Hotmail account I own. No consistent rhythm to when it occurs.
The weird thing is I don't own the Gmail account, but it IS my name, and similar to a Gmail account I do actually own.
So to illustrate the scenario, let's say my name is Joseph Smith:
- my actual Gmail account is [email protected]
- my Hotmail account is [email protected] (ie. a shortened version of my first name + something unrelated)
- the Gmail account for which I've been receiving recovery emails to is [email protected] (this account was registered before I registered my own)
FTR, my name is quite uncommon, even globally from what I can tell. It's incredibly unlikely that someone out there has both a Gmail similar to mine AND a Hotmail account with a very similar random suffix as mine, so as to accidentally set up their Gmail with my Hotmail as the recovery account.
My first assumption was a phishing scam, but the email headers look legit, sender is [email protected].
The whole scenario seems really off and I'm simply assuming scam, but I cannot figure out what the play is or how it works.
Any ideas?
Delete.
Move on (after lockdown).