My Facebook/Gmail account got hacked

I am urgently seeking assistance regarding a hacked account.

I have a close friend whom I will call Kat Katic; she is an American citizen. However, there is another individual with the exact same name living in another state, and my friend is inexplicably receiving that stranger's Facebook notifications directly in her Gmail inbox.

To make matters even more bizarre, my friend has never even created a Facebook profile under her own name! Her actual email address is kata.katic@gmail.com.

We suspect that this other woman might have registered a Gmail account as katakatic@gmail.com—omitting the dot since two identical addresses cannot exist—but somehow, Facebook and Google have erroneously linked this other person's data to my friend's identity.

As a result, my friend is being flooded with messages that have absolutely nothing to do with her life, but belong entirely to this stranger. Because she uses a smartphone, she unintentionally opened several Facebook notifications intended for the other Kat Katic before realizing the error.

Now, my friend is terrified that she might be held liable for any hacking activities occurring on that other account. She is also worried about accidentally clicking on more malicious links meant for the stranger while using her phone. This is a middle-aged woman who knows nothing about cybersecurity or hacking.

What steps should we take to resolve this? She reached out to AT&T since that is her mobile provider, but they informed her that they are unable to assist with an issue of this nature.

Look, if Kat Katic has access to that Facebook profile, she should just hit up a mutual friend of hers to get in touch. Try to settle things before they blow up... If that guy from the NBA team in Mexico just updates his email on his Facebook account to his actual one, the whole thing's fixed.

Simple enough? 😁

William Richardson12 said:Look, if Kat Katic has access to that Facebook profile, she should just hit up a mutual friend of hers to get in touch. Try to settle things before they blow up... If that guy from the NBA team in Mexico just updates his email on his Facebook account to his actual one, the whole thing's fixed.

Simple enough? 😁

Thank you for your response; we were actually thinking along those same lines. However, there are so many people on Facebook who share her exact same name! On her smartphone, the profile picture shows one specific person, yet when I register for my own Facebook account, it doesn't show the same image that appears on her phone.

Heh, I’m dealing with the exact same mess. A few years back, I set up a Gmail account for my mom. She never actually used it, so I figured I’d just go in and shut it down. I log in only to find a mountain of emails meant for someone else entirely. There are even notifications from Facebook, so I can pretty much pinpoint who the actual owner is. The worst part? It looks like it belongs to some young girl... if anyone finds out, I'll look like a total creep. 😲

So, apparently Gmail doesn't even care if you add a dot to your email address or leave it out, they're basically treated as the exact same thing -> gmail help

Yeah, I saw the link, but they’re claiming it’s the exact same account. Nothing to worry about, nothing at all :-p
I just found hundreds of emails sitting in my inbox clearly meant for someone else, including some security alerts from Facebook. It's a nightmare.
How did that person even manage to open an account with that name if it was already taken?

So you're telling me if I know someone uses peroperic@gmail, I can just casually open a new account as pero.peric@gmail and read all their messages? Oh my god.

edit: Hmmgh, by all logic this should be impossible. It looks like that person is just giving people the wrong address, but I still don't get how someone could go years without realizing half their replies aren't arriving because they're stuck in my inbox... sigh.