Email Horrors! A Collection of the Best Email Fails

We’ve all been there. You hit send, and just a split second too late, you realise what you’ve done. Your skin crawls, shivers run up your spine, and your heart beats like a drum. A haunted house has nothing on this feeling. Maybe you’ve sent the wrong attachment to the wrong person, or you’ve just sent accidental kisses to your boss. Either way, let’s just hope you’ve never experienced email fails like these guys have…

email horrors tales from beyond the outbox

Ghoulman Sacked

In 2014 a contractor for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. definitely got a fright when it was revealed that they accidentally sent highly confidential and sensitive information to an email address ending in gmail.com instead of gs.com. The snafu resulted in the firm requiring a court case to get Google to delete the email in question.

We can still hear the echoes of the silent screams of whoever sent this email

In 2008, Carat Media Agency decided to “right-size” their company, and emailed the top execs with a plan for letting staff go. The plan detailed how to gently break the news to them, and how to appear caring and considerate… Then they accidentally sent the email to their entire staff, killing the illusion. Let’s just say, the employees saw past the disguise.

McAfear

In 2009, McAfee held a security conference in Sydney. After the event, they emailed the attendees to thank them. Most people who received the email probably thought it was a nice gesture, until they saw the attachment included in the email. It was a spreadsheet with the names, contact details, employment details and even dietary requirements of 1408 attendees. Oops, now that’s scary!

Frankenstein’s Army

Sending an email to the wrong email address can be like a bad dream, but revealing military plans to a Gawker reader really is a nightmare. In 2014 the US military apparently sent an missile agreement with Israel to an erroneous Gmail address. The scariest part? It wasn’t even the first email that they had mistakenly sent to the same recipient.

Sorority No

In 2009, UC San Diego write to 18,000 potential students to congratulate them upon being accepted into the university. The problem, they accidentally sent it to all 46,000 applicants. The blunder was realised a couple of hours later, and an apology was sent to all of the recipients, but by that stage it was too late, and the college dreams of thousands of students could be heard shattering across the US.