Looking for Günter Oertel

17 February 2017

If you are googling your own name and that it is: Benjamin Oertel, you may end up on this blog post. I’ve been receiving e-mails from a person called: “Gunter Oertel” for more than a year now.

Screenshots of gmail showing a list of emails

These e-mails are in German. With my 9 years of German study in school and Google Translate (one more useful than this other, I let you guess which one), I can understand that it’s a grandpa writing to his grandson which I assume is also called Benjamin Oertel and his e-mail address must be similar to mine. I tried to answer with my broken German telling him that he got the wrong e-mail address, and ask a German friend to do the same with proper German. But unfortunately no luck so far :(

I’m publishing this on Internet now. Just in case somebody can help a grandfather to sent sweet e-mails to his grandson asking for vacation pictures or wishing him happy birthday.

If you feel like you can help, please, contact me at: benjamin.oertel@gmail.com

Danke schön.

First Update (February 19)

This weekend, I tried to go one step further by sending messages to some Benjamin Oertel  I could find on social networks. Here is the content of the message:

Hi,

My name is Benjamin Oertel, I’m French but living in San Francisco. I’m contacting you because for the past year, I’ve been receiving few emails from a grandfather named “Günter Oertel”. I tried to explain to him with my broken German that I wasn’t his grandson but he keeps sending my e-mails. So I decided to be on the lookout for his grandson, which I assume is also named “Benjamin Oertel” and have a similar e-mail address as mine: “benjamin.oertel@gmail.com”. I’m kind of sad that his grandson doesn’t received these emails and also that he is not receiving any answers from these emails.
If by any chance, your grandfather is Günter, please reply to this message so one grandfather can finally sent e-mails to his grandson.

Thanks,

Ben

Waiting for answers now…

Second Update (5 minutes after sending bunch of Facebook messages)

I FOUND his grandson. Here is his answer:

Hi Ben, thanks for contacting me. Günter is my grandfather and I am already in contact with him since I was born. He got a tablet a few years ago, but still has some problems using it sometimes. Sorry for that

We had a nice chat on Facebook (we actually both work in IT) and now, the plan is to forward Günter’s e-mails to his grandson since I’ve got his e-mail address now. No more e-mails lost in the wild for Günter.