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Since this person has used my email as their login, I was able to reset the password since it was listed as the primary email.

Unfortunately this person has set their own security questions and rescue email, and there doesn't seem to be a way to reset them using the primary email account. This account seems otherwise empty, there are no devices, no data.

How do I stop this person from using my email address as their Apple ID?

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  • How did you/they verify the email in the first place? Apple sends an email to the address to verify that the password entered in the sign up process gets re-entered a second time via a one time link to your email. You would have needed to know the password that "someone" chose or they have control of more of your identity (access to your email) than someone simply mis-typing or maliciously typing your email.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 15:21
  • Did you ever resolve this? I get emails from logins from some Swedish account that somehow has used a gmail variant of my address (period vs no period) as a login. I, too, can password reset but no security question answers.
    – David Kassa
    Commented Apr 1, 2017 at 16:55
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    @DavidKassa I had to call Apple. It probably helped that the account seemed otherwise unused since the other person registered.
    – ray
    Commented Apr 2, 2017 at 1:12
  • Thanks. I noticed that the verification email ended up in my spam folder so it will hopefully fall off as unverified. Otherwise I guess I'll call.
    – David Kassa
    Commented Apr 2, 2017 at 14:22

1 Answer 1

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You'd have to try negotiate that one with Apple.

I had the same issue with an Amazon account & the only way I persuaded them was by actually being the only one who could reply to mail sent to that email address.

[BTW, it's still not easy as their first assumption would be that you hijacked/phished someone else's email account.]

After comments, moving more info into this answer...

The way I did it was to ask them to send a specific message, that only the receiver of the email could reply to.
The possible responses could come from me, him, or possibly both of us.
In fact, as the other user was never going to receive that mail, the response only came from me.

Because I'd already been receiving emails intended for him, I could also provide details of the contents of those, too, including a list of his recent purchases.

Amazon [& me, because of the incorrect email address] already had his snail mail address, so presumably they could sort out a new, correct, email address with him using that method - or put a big banner on his account saying 'get in touch'.
I don't know how they did sort it out because, of course, I couldn't get into his Amazon account, I was just getting his Amazon email.

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  • Interesting that you persuaded them by being able to reply from that address. Pretty much any email address can be set as the From: address on an email; the ability to send mail "from" an email has next to nothing to do with being able to receive email at that address.
    – Josh
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 0:53
  • @Josh, usually in order to get something recognized as a reply, you need access to the original email. If they just wanted you to send an email, that'd be terrible. Not that sending a reply is much better, but it guards against a little
    – Kevin Brown-Silva
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 1:22
  • Re spoofing: Amazon sends Tetsujin an email saying "our shared secret is C709730Q", Tetsujin's reply (in whatever form: ticket response or direct email reply) includes the secret and proves access to the account's inbox.
    – David Lord
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 2:47
  • Yes, I totally agree, that's a much more secure system :-)
    – Josh
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 4:12
  • That was pretty much how we did it. I just challenged them to send any mail to that address & see which one of us could reply to it, quoting the original. It wasn't my primary address so I was in no danger of losing anything, just the other guy who had presumably typoed his email would never know why no-one ever got in touch with him via his Amazon account - as he wasn't getting the mails for things he was buying, of course, I was. Amazon had both out snail-mail addresses [as did I as his was on the emails], so that could always have been used as a backup confirmation.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 12:01

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