My email used by someone else as appleid

Actually, for anyone interested, I just came up with a clever partial solution for gmail users. I don't know if this would apply at all to other email services, like Outlook, but you can certainly try it.

I'm going to tell the story of how I came across this. If you'd rather not waste your time, just skip down to THE SOLUTION. Everything you need to know is there. I just want to brag a little.

I discovered another forum where a user had a similar but different problem. He was a gmail user who had no interest in having an Apple ID at all. Unfortunately, someone had used his email address as their Apple ID. His concern was that he kept receiving this person's emails for their Apple ID account! He went on to find out that this person wasn't using his exact email address. If his username was bobjones@gmail.com, this random person had entered their email address for their Apple ID as bob.jones@gmail.com. They'd put in a period. Many email providers allow users to implement periods in their account names; gmail does not. In fact, in any case where an email is sent to a gmail address and periods are included, the periods are completely ignored. To gmail,bobjones@gmail.com is the same as bob.jones@gmail.com, and the same asb.o.b.j.o.n.e.s@gmail.com. Send an email to all three, and bobjones@gmail.com will receive them all. This user was never able to get his problem solved, as far as I can tell. The person who had used his email address was unwilling to change it, convinced that they were using their actual email address (dumb). He still receives this person's Apple emails to this day.

But this is good news for gmail users whose email address has been used by someone else as their Apple ID.

THE SOLUTION:

Create a new Apple ID using your real, legitimate gmail address - just add in a period wherever you want. If your gmail address is actually tomsmith@gmail.com, create a new Apple ID and make the email address tom.smith@gmail.com, or t.omsmith @gmail.com, or whatever you want. When you finish creating that Apple ID, you will have an email waiting in your real gmail inbox, tomsmith@gmail.com, asking you to verify your tom.smith@gmai.com Apple ID. And if you've been as frustrated as I've been, you will suddenly feel like the king of the world.

I hope this helps someone.

I'm having the exact same problem.

According to Apple Support, the account associated with my email address has a different person's name, with a different birthday, and answers to security questions that have nothing to do with me, not to mention a credit card number that I've never owned or used (I've only ever had one).

They've tried sending me an email to reset my password, but it won't go through. Why? Because this person was never able to verify their email address, because they can't log into my email account because they don't have my password because they're not me. Which begs the question, why on earth do you even send a verification email if, when I never responded to it, the Apple ID is still able to be used? Aren't you sending that so I can either say, "Yep, this is me, and this is my email account," or, "No... that's some other idiot using my email address as their Apple ID. Delete that thing!" What other purpose does that email serve?

It's terribly frustrating. I don't expect any solution will ever be found, but if one is somehow discovered, please let me know. I'd love to have my legitimate email address as my Apple ID.

That's unfortunate that the trick doesn't work for Outlook, though I'm not surprised. I think gmail is unique among email providers in not allowing periods.

What you say about them making a mistake and not using the period could very well be true. It's hard to say.

And as far as the additional security address, I have experienced the same thing. My additional security address is, in fact, just the same email address as my Apple ID, but without the period - meaning that, according to gmail, it is literally the same email address, while, according to Apple, it is an entirely separate one. It is funny, but Apple will let you use an address already in use as an ID as your additional security address.

Wish there was more I could do to help. Good luck.