Re: It'll never happen...
A fellow early adopter here (thanks to a contact inside Google when Gmail was launched) - as I download my mail via Thunderbird I've set up filters to delete anything of the form firstnamelastname@gmail.com (I insist on the dot). I had to set up a special one for some nutty woman in the US who seems to be in some kind of weird passive-aggressive-narcissistic relationship (probably why the guy made up an email address) who used the "dot" form but who I didn't want to have to argue with. I sometimes see random messages on the rare occasions I use the browser to check email, they're mostly medical appointment reminders for some guy in Florida.
In its early days I even wrote to "abuse@pinterest.com" to cancel the subscription of a young girl (I think) using my address, as there was no other way to contact them via their site at the time. After several months, I actually got a (very polite) reply, possibly (from the sound of it) one of the founders.
I'll bear in mind GDPR, though, if I see anything relevant in future (most spam seems to be American/non-EU).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
