Anyone using the Ashley Madison website can input any email address as the site does not require verification.
Wouldn’t you get notifications to the email you used?
Yeah, she didn’t notice all the spam from “AshleyMadison” about guys wanting to hook up with her? Suuuuure...
Nope. The only time AM sends an email to your account is for retrieving a lost password.
Anyone can use any email address; fake, real or someone else's to simply sign up. You can sign up as ted_cruz@cruz.senate.gov or barack_obama@whitehouse.gov or neighbor_i_hate@yahoo.com and no verification is necessary.
As long as you remember the password you used, those actual account holders will never know (though they might see an increase in dating and sex spam coming into their junk email box).
It becomes a different story when your credit card is involved.
A lot of people claiming innocence here might actually be telling the truth.
If its like regular dating sites, periodic e-mails will come through (”You’ve been matched with user NNNNNNNNN”, or “check out the new members”; stuff like that). In other words, you would know something suspicious was going on if “you” never signed up for the site; free or otherwise.