Bizarre email - is it junk?

VH

Can anyone help me with this? I received this email earlier today:

"I've got into massive problems with my ebay account that I need to rectify as soon as possible..

After losing track of my ebay due to a family member dying and me having to be in another country for the last month to sort out all the funeral expenses costs, etc I have been cut off from ebay and have no idea what I have and have not paid for multiple items dating back to Jan 16th

Once again I profusely apologise for any inconvienience I have caused you, but if you could e-mail to let me know whether or not I have paid for the items I have commited to buy from you and to also e-mail ITEM NUMBERS I can pay for them today.

Also some of my Playmobil sets have not been posted because the items are in my home country Spain and I have had to relocate at short notice to England for reasons stated above so please let me know if you have not recieved any goods and I can let you know the earliest I can have them posted.

Thanks again for your understanding on this matter"

The email address of this guy doesn't match anyone I've done business with on EBay and his name certainly doesn't ring a bell. I do have a non-payer at the mo but they're not the same person. The email was addressed to about 30 other email accounts. I checked a couple at random and they are registered to EBay users.

Is this just junk mail??? If not then how did they get my address?

RACHIE77

VH - If it was me i'd ask him his ebay ID and then if thats not the non-payer send him back a 'sorry not me' email.... A few questions spring to mind... if he doesn't know what has been bought/sold then how has he got your email address? he would have got it from the original item only wouldnt he?? secondly, what is he trying to achieve? If he knows his ebay ID then he can look up all the past items and check on payments individually... if he doesnt know it then how is he expecting to log into ebay anyway??

Second thoughts, scrap emailing him back, I think you should forward the email on to ebay to see what they think and hold fire and see what happens... maybe just ask him for his ebay ID but i wouldnt do much more than that at tho mo??

Anyone else??

JonSimmonds

could well be a scam, once someone emails him the items he "apperently" owes money on, he will pick the most expensive one, then start the whole western union "oops i sent to much money by mistake" scam...

Id say report it to ebay

humbug_4

I agree - I'd forward the message to Ebay. Looks very suspicious to me - you shouldn't reply to unsolicited emails - if you do you will only be confirming that your email is a live account - this could have been sent out to millions of poeple.

HairyHatMan

I'd go and set up a hotmail account to reply to him with and string him along for a while to see what happens.

VH

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I checked out his email address on EBay and he does come up as a user.

To do this you go into Advanced Search and click on Find User ID. This allows you to match an email address to a user. It confirmed that he was an EBay member but did not give his ID. Just said that he had 46 feedback and was NARU.

I think this may be a case of mistaken identity but God knows how he got my email address!

I have also forwarded the mail onto spoof@ebay just in case this is some kind of scam or email harvesting technique.

RACHIE77

Got you a hotmail account if you want one?

VHwon@hotmail.co.uk

I'll PM you the password

RACHIE77

was busy typing while you replied

VH

Cheers for the offer, but I already got 2 hotmail accounts! Plus 1 Gmail. Just greedy I guess!!

RACHIE77

LOL!! Anyone want a hotmail account --- going going gone!!

Maybe I should auction it on ebay?? grin!

No worries

pug_in_a_bed

it could be a kind of crossed line...i have actually had a few times replies to questions from ebay sellers which are nothing to do with me whatsoever, relating to items i've never heard of, and addressed to ids not associated with me...never occurred to me if it was a scam or not, esp. as mundane answers like postage costs for fluffy slippers!