Anonymous email address

[#1]

When I first registered at Plusnet I was given an email address that simply consists of my first and second names e.g. christianname@christiannamesurname.plus.com.
as far as I can remember I was given no choice in this matter. I might add that my surname is very uncommon.
I recently received an email from someone I haven't had contact with for 40 years. Someone I would rather not have contact with for very practical reasons.
When I asked him where he had got my email address from he said it was easy because my names were in my email address.
I have asked in the past if I could change my email address to something anonymous such as is offered by BT,  I was told this was not possible.
I am reluctant to switch to BT as my provider but I may have no choice.
Any ideas ?

[#2]

use Gmail

[#3]

When you sign up with PN isn't part of the process to create your own email address which you can select?

[#4]

That isn't relevant here - it is the username which is the problem

[#5]

I've thought about Gmail but the more I read about it the less I like it.
There seem to be many people worried about lost messages and unwanted adverts.
It appears to give Google yet more opportunity to learn all there is to know about us.

[#6]

I agree about not wanting google to know everything about us, that said i do have a gmail account and as far as I know have had no problems, likewise with outlook.com which is also free and they claim not to scan messages. Another option is to purchase your own domain from one of the many domain providers (I use www.lcn.com/) and use the email forwarding or webmail that usually goes with the service, you then have complete freedom of choice with the name.

[#7]

Buy your own domain name
For example theoldgeezer.co.uk is available so you could be thegrumpyone@theoldgeezer.co.uk - for example!  🙂

[#8]

Quote from: oldgeezer

When I first registered at Plusnet I was given an email address that simply consists of my first and second names e.g. christianname@christiannamesurname.plus.com. as far as I can remember I was given no choice in this matter

To be precise, you did have a choice - at the time of sign up YOU can CHOOSE to make YOUR USERNAME to be anything you want so long as it has not already been used.  Your default email address becomes username@username.plus.com - this is not quite the same as the statement above.
You appeared to have made your username christiannamesurname - whilst you can mask this by buying your own domain name you cannot change the underlying PN address.  Anyone knowing @christiannamesurname.plus.com will be able to send emails to you.  Black listing their email address might be helpful.
If it is a major issue to you, you could ask PN how you could get a new user name (complete change of account) - that is take over your existing services under a new (obscure) identity.  You'll be left with the challenge of tell everyone / where you've used your email address, but that sounds like it is on your cards anyway.  If you do decide to go down this route, then getting a domain name at the same time and only publicising that domain name would be a good strategy, as should you change ISPs in the future, if done properly, you just transfer the domain name and thereby avoid need to tell everyone of your new ISP based email address.

[#9]

It's a long time ago now but I set up the account over the phone and according to the woman I spoke to the only choice I had at the time was the bit that went before the @ symbol.
I queried the need to have my actual name as my username at the time but was told it was necessary.
I've made several enquiries over the years of  PN but have been told each time that a change of username was not possible.
It looks like BT is the way to go and my sports-mad wife will appreciate BT Sport.
oldgeezer

[#10]

I agree with Townsman. My name is not part of my email address.

[#11]

Back in 1999 when I migrated to personal email and took out a freeserve address my naivety led me to be gratified that my full name was still available. As it happened I'd also planned on getting at least two domain names at the time so never actually used the freeserve one - and soon realised the benefits of being able to be relatively anonymous if I wanted to be. When I switched to PlusNet I used a username for my account I've been using elsewhere that doesn't include my name - even though I'm still using my domain name addresses for everything.