Ask HN: My responsibilities if I receive another company's emails (domains)?

3 points by tranche ↗ HN
I'm wondering what issues there are if any if I am receiving emails in error that are addressed to different companies because of similar domains.

This is actually an issue with 2 companies of fairly large size. It's like so:

  name@domainfizz.com (mine) > name@domainfizz.co.uk (others)
  name@domainbuzz.com (mine) > name@thedomainbuzz.com (others)
Basically, because I maintain a Catch All for these domains I sometimes receive and open emails addressed to companies in error. The senders are just getting the emails wrong.

So, I'm getting things addressed to:

  the-company-attorney@domainfizz.com (should be going to the UK addr)
  hr-directory@domainbuzz.com (should be going to thedomainbuzz.com)
Basically, I'm wondering how this should be handled going forward.

1 comment

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 10.3 ms ] thread
You should bounce and not accept the emails for the other domains. If you should accept them and NOT, for any reason, re-deliver them, you may risk litigation.

If these were my domains, I'd bounce them back with the new body of "Perhaps you were trying to reach domainfizz.CO.UK, but that is not us. Please check the email address and try again."

Cheers.