What's In Steve Ballmer's Inbox?

Barence writes "When Microsoft last year launched Outlook.com, the company carelessly left the [e-mail] address vacant. It was snapped up by the editor of PC Pro, giving an insight into the type of emails the public sends to the Microsoft CEO. Among the messages sent to the account are complaints about the Windows 8 interface, a plea from someone who was 'literally driven crazy' by Windows Server product keys, and someone who wants Windows Phone's calendar to remind him when he's being paid. There's also a more sinister complaint from someone who claims they were the victim of racial discrimination when applying for a job at a Microsoft Store."

Another view; a catch-all inbox

[Lieutenant_Dan]

I have a catch-all inbox that I use for various disposable e-mails. It's a popular domain.

In a typical week I get:
- 10+ people trying (and succeeding) creating FB accounts plus any updates and invites and comments and ...
- ~5 e-mails from Gmail to activate an account
- ~5 e-mails from Windows Live to activate an account
- two library notifications about overdue books
- a backup of the financial database from a company that has set the incorrect e-mail
- Someone sending baby pictures of their newborn child to a co-worker to a similarly-named company
- ~4 e-mails from patients for another similarly-named clinic
- One or two e-mails from an insurance company with confidential data sent to the incorrect domain
- LOTS of e-mails from people signing up on web sites that don't verify e-mails (horroscopes, matching sites, industrial newsletters, etc)

Xmas was pretty busy with a lot of kids registering WIndows Live accounts for their XBOX.
Out of courtesy I usually tell people that they have the wrong domain ...

Worked out for them

[T.E.D.]

Just by getting their complaints published, emailing to the fake Ballmer was probably far more effective than emailing to the real one would have been.

Re:Shocker.

[Inda]

Haven't we all done this at some point?

I did it for a local football club who wouldn't stop sending me SMS texts.

After the third attempt, I received two 'out of office' replies and knew I'd hit the jackpot. That taught me a big lesson about setting those damn things. I learnt that [e-mail] was on maternity leave and [e-mail] was out of the country for the rest of the week. Joe was high up in the company and probably had nice stuff in his house.

The SMS texts stopped. Job done for the price of three emails, and a name-scrape from a website.

Re:Another view; a catch-all inbox

[stillnotelf]

I've found most of the places where I'd want to use stillnotelf+maybebadguy@gmail... don't usually accept the plus sign in the email address. I can't tell if they aren't standards-compliant because they're lazy and ignorant, or as a deliberate ploy to prevent filtering...