I own a company, and every once in a while i’ll receive an invoice in my email (nothing uncommon about that) then i look who i’m supposed to be paying and have never heard of them in my life…so i just ignore them…haven’t been sued yet 
I get all manner of receipts, reminders for vet appointments, customer service emails from ISPs, sports club newsletters and so on and so forth, all of which are supposed to be for people with the same name as me who think that my Gmail address is theirs. None of them is a scam, they are just annoying and further proof that email confirmation should be a required step.
Someone has even put my email address as the contact for their eBay account, so I get all the correspondence regarding their purchases!
I just pulled up two known to be legit e-receipts from Best Buy.
Both are from <bestbuyinfo@emailinfo.bestbuy.com> with the subject line “Your Best Buy Receipt”. Then some boilerplate thanks followed by an electronically generated receipt identical to what you would get in the store.
Mousing over the “View Web” link gives the emailinfo2 URL in your earlier email.
Looks to me like it’s legit, and whoever bought the phone entered the email address incorrectly.
One possibility is that some people would respond and say they didn’t order the supposed merchandise. And the “Best Buy” representative would offer to refund the money.
At this point, some people might think that they had been charged for the purchase and want their money back. And other people might think “Hey, they’re willing to give me money back that I never paid. This is a perfect opportunity for me to rip off some faceless corporation.”
In either case, the person says to make the refund. And the “Best Buy” representative says that they just need the credit card account information in order to put the money into it.
Here’s how the scam works. For more detailed info and actual examples, check out Jim Browning on YouTube. Search for “refund scam”.
Since you are worried, you call up the number given, which isn’t Best Buy, but a scammer in (usually) India pretending to be Best Buy. They seem genuinely concerned and promise to fix it so you don’t get billed. After you give them your details like card number, name, DOB, and address, they tell you the problem is fixed, sorry for the confusion, have a nice day.
Immediately they use the info you gave them to charge new purchases up to your limit. (Or sell the info to some other crooks.) They turn these into cash using various ways of money laundering. If you then see some new charges on a statement, your only recourse is to contact the REAL Best Buy and explain how you fell for it.
The moral of the story is never trust anybody. Never call a number that’s not on your credit card or statement, and supply minimal info to any party you haven’t verified. Your bank doesn’t need to know your password for any purpose whatsoever, but the scammers do.
Okay, but all email passes through random servers (well, routers and switches mostly, but sometimes a next-hop mail server) on the internet. I’d also be willing to bet that many of your non-receipt emails include your name.
But I think maybe you don’t want random bad actors to associate your name with these purchases. Is that right? Or are you more concerned about government surveillance?
A black-hat hacker has more profitable things to do than sift through literally billions of emails, hoping to blackmail someone who, say, bought fifteen five-gallon tubs of lube and a Big Bird costume.
I routinely get emails that are not meant for me. An organisation for Vietnam vets used to send me stuff so regularly that I tracked down the helicopter pilot they were after and told them his email address. I get lots of stuff for some woman in Canada whose son is a hockey goalie. Recently I started getting all the retirement financial details of some guy in the US. Another guy inadvertently sends me his travel booking confirmations.
I have this in my email and now it’s in Trash. LOL
This is why I’ll track down the .edu’s IT department and forward the spam to them.
I just received one supposedly from Amazon. It would have been more believable had it not come from “Costumer Service”.
It came disguised, didn’t it?
I’ve lived here for 8 years and STILL get snail mail for the previous tenant. About a year ago, I got something that was definitely some kind of government business, and contacted our local courthouse to tell them this. The person I spoke to asked me, “And where does this person NOT live, again?” and I told her.
But the payment was made in cash. **jaycat **would have no reason to be concerned that jaycat’s credit card was charged.
BTW I wonder how many times people buy a $1100 phone with cash. That in itself seems a little unusual.
Not at all. All my non-online transactions are cash, after an unfortunate incident years ago where a clerk saved a copy of my credit card.
It might not be unusual for you, but it’s unusual in general.
“…cash is used for approximately 10 percent of payments $25 and higher.” This number drops to 6% for purchases over $100 (same source).
I am guessing that once you are over $1000, you get an even lower rate of cash transactions. Unfortunately there is no way to know the percentage of cash purchases of cell phones at Best Buy.
(Although I respect your decision not to use a credit card, there is minimal-to-no risk to you in doing so. Your liability in the situation you described is $0. Even if you drop your card in the middle of Times Square and don’t report it as lost, your liability is limited by federal law to $50.)
Phishing spam would also be more believable if the same address doesn’t get used for three different companies within an hour.
Bought my last 3 vehicles with cash. Tends to flip people out when you pull out several bundles of $100 bills.
There are several people with the same first initial and (fairly uncommon) last name as me, and I get their e-mails sometimes. I even found the correct e-address for one of them and corresponded a few times with her. She lives in the same neighborhood in Los Angeles as I once did. We agreed to do lunch someday if I’m ever back that way. Sadly, in the ten-or-so years since, I haven’t been.
I get e-mails apparently intended for someone in Texas, and in Wisconsin, and in Germany (in German) – all, it seems, with same first initial and last name (much more common in Germany).
Not that there would be any reason for you to be concerned about it, but cash transactions over $10,000 have to be reported to the IRS by the business.
Yup, and never had any issue because the money in my bank has a track record of being inherited by me, taxes paid all the way through the various transactions =)