Using a "Vanity" email address

[denmarks]

I had not used the Amtrak website for years and when I tried to sign it it said I would have to change my password and it would send a code. I never received the code after trying multiple times. I called Amtrak and was told that they had problems with vanity email addresses. For example [email protected]. I was forced to change the address that I used for years to a gmail address. I just happened to have one. This is not the first time I had that problem. My insurance company did not like the part before the @ and I had to change it. Why is this done?

 

[jebr]

I had not used the Amtrak website for years and when I tried to sign it it said I would have to change my password and it would send a code. I never received the code after trying multiple times. I called Amtrak and was told that they had problems with vanity email addresses. For example [email protected]. I was forced to change the address that I used for years to a gmail address. I just happened to have one. This is not the first time I had that problem. My insurance company did not like the part before the @ and I had to change it. Why is this done?

I've had a custom email domain for a number of years (though running on Google's servers for email services) and I've never had an issue with it linking to my Amtrak account. I haven't tried my other custom domain that runs off of a small company third-party email server yet, but it shouldn't have an issue with most domains that I'm aware of.

 

[denmarks]

My address starts with "mail". That may have been the problem. It is basically my official prefix but all else gets transferred to it. I can use anything before the @ but I didn't want to waste any more time so I used gmail.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Without being able to see logs and bouncebacks it's hard to say what the problem might be. If you really want to know you should talk to your provider about it.

 

[me_little_me]

Interestingly, I found some sites that rejected a disposable email when setting up my account but had no problem with changing the email back to the original after the account was set up and that included getting email from them.

If you have your own website with email, just try [email protected].

 

[SubwayNut]

I've had issues with my [email protected] (no longer used, the spam was clogging my webserver) e-mail address I used to primarily use for everything. I remember facebook was one of them when I first registered for it back in 2007 shortly before I went to College, back in the days when it was for High School and College students, I had to register with a different e-mail address. I've since switched to just using a Gmail address for everything, but I think Amtrak is still on that e-mail address (a little worried since I can't check it anymore and might not get a code now).

 

[zephyr17]

I've had issues with my [email protected] (no longer used, the spam was clogging my webserver) e-mail address I used to primarily use for everything. I remember facebook was one of them when I first registered for it back in 2007 shortly before I went to College, back in the days when it was for High School and College students, I had to register with a different e-mail address. I've since switched to just using a Gmail address for everything, but I think Amtrak is still on that e-mail address (a little worried since I can't check it anymore and might not get a code now).

Probably a good idea to go in and change your Amtrak profile now, then.

Not everyone is getting hit by this (yet), I'm not. So try to get them on a current email before you are.

 

[PaulM]

I called Amtrak and was told that they had problems with vanity email addresses. For example [email protected].

what is a vanity email address?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

what is a vanity email address?

Rather than [email protected] or [email protected] you can instead pay a small fee to have [email protected] instead. These options usually come with additional functionality and are managed by cloud providers on your behalf. It's a middle ground between free and enterprise.

 

[trainman74]

I just changed my password on Amtrak.com, and had no trouble getting the verification code at my @ellwanger.tv address. (I guess technically it's not a "vanity" email address, because I own the whole ellwanger.tv domain and have to do some of the setup/maintenance work myself.)

 

[lstone19]

I had not used the Amtrak website for years and when I tried to sign it it said I would have to change my password and it would send a code. I never received the code after trying multiple times. I called Amtrak and was told that they had problems with vanity email addresses. For example [email protected]. I was forced to change the address that I used for years to a gmail address. I just happened to have one. This is not the first time I had that problem. My insurance company did not like the part before the @ and I had to change it. Why is this done?

It's done because some businesses can't be bothered to comply with standards and reject standards-compliant email addresses. A lot of special characters are standards-compliant but rejected by many sites.

Email trivia: per standards, the part before the @ is case-sensitive (so technically, [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] are three distinct addresses). I would not advise trying to do so as I've seen many sites that force your email address to all lower or all upper case and treat it as case-insensitive).

 

[willem]

Email trivia: per standards, the part before the @ is case-sensitive [...]

I did not know that. Maybe I could get a job writing email-parsing code for sites.

Many sites reject an username with a plus sign, which I understand is a legitimate character. I know Google will send username+a and username+b to the inbox of username.

 

[PaulM]

Rather than [email protected] or [email protected] you can instead pay a small fee to have [email protected] instead.

I own a domain name myDomain.net that I use for various web apps. Along with it, I have email addresses like [email protected]. I had no idea that was a vanity address. It just made sense to use the domain name.

 

[me_little_me]

It's done because some businesses can't be bothered to comply with standards and reject standards-compliant email addresses. A lot of special characters are standards-compliant but rejected by many sites.

Email trivia: per standards, the part before the @ is case-sensitive (so technically, [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] are three distinct addresses). I would not advise trying to do so as I've seen many sites that force your email address to all lower or all upper case and treat it as case-insensitive).

That may be true but, in fact, the standard allows for case insensitivity:

RFC5321:

Verbs and argument values (e.g., "TO:" or "to:" in the RCPT command
and extension name keywords) are not case sensitive, with the sole
exception in this specification of a mailbox local-part (SMTP
Extensions may explicitly specify case-sensitive elements). That is,
a command verb, an argument value other than a mailbox local-part,
and free form text MAY be encoded in upper case, lower case, or any
mixture of upper and lower case with no impact on its meaning. The
local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive.
Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case
of mailbox local-parts. In particular, for some hosts, the user
"smith" is different from the user "Smith". However, exploiting the
case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and
is discouraged. Mailbox domains follow normal DNS rules and are
hence not case sensitive.

The critical part here is "However, exploiting the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and is discouraged."

So, SMTP (the mail handler program) needs to preserve that sensitivity if it exists as it passes it through but the mail receiver can ignore it as an extension.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I own a domain name myDomain.net that I use for various web apps. Along with it, I have email addresses like [email protected]. I had no idea that was a vanity address. It just made sense to use the domain name.

It sounds like you manage a domain purchased for other purposes with the email address being a secondary consideration, whereas a vanity email would usually be tied to a domain the user does not actively manage that was chosen primarily for appearances. Behind the scenes vanity email functions like any other cloud mail account except for some additional features like filters and forwarding rules. It's meant to mimic what you have with limited effort.