I'll ask the reciever if he signed up for anything, but somehow I doubt it.

Flash foreward to Thursday night. I check my ground mail and find a priority express mail envelope containing another brown envelope with six MoneyGramExpress international money orders worth one thousand each. All of them were made out to the (partial) name I gave to the email _and_ also had my ground address which I never gave to the email. Somebody paid five dollars to send me six fake money orders through priority mail with absolutely no request for me to send them anything at all. The back of the money order even said by where you endorse it to be weary of mail from unknown people and that _only_ the bearer will be pursued in the case of a fraud. And the envelope even had a return address written on it. No name only initials.

Anyways they were fake all you have to do is call MoneyGram toll free, hit '1' for verification of money orders and give the lady the numbers. They don't even ask your name although they do record the call. She asked me to read her the red numbers. There weren't any. They were black and did not begin with the 'correct' or valid number.

What I'm wondering is:

1) how did they get my address

2) what would a scammer have to gain from sending me those?

All I can think of would be a possibility for blackmail but that would require the money orders to be real and me to have cashed them and recieved money.

Moral of the story being do not cash strange money orders from people who you do not know personally. If you do then you could be guilty of a federal crime and you will be the _only_ person pursued in such matters.