I emailed a well-known personality who publishes his contact information on the web, including his email address (say) johndoe@example.com
I received a terse reply from an apparent impostor that used the same contact information in the signature block except that the reply email came from “John Doe johndoemail@gmail.com on behalf of John Doe johndoe@pobox.com”, the email address in the signature block is also changed to johndoe@pobox.com
Thanks, but I still don’t see the connection between the first johndoe[at]example.com on the one hand, and on the other hand the second johndoe with the linked pobox.com and gmail accounts.
How come that my original email to the first johndoe[at]example.com gets a reply from the second johndoe with the linked pobox.com and gmail accounts ?
It may be that one and the same johndoe owns all email accounts at example.com and at pobox.com and at gmail … but why on earth would he publish the example.com account everywhere on the Internet to receive emails, but then respond from different, unpublished email accounts ?
It would make anyone suspicious that the response did not come from the same person.
It also creates the impression that the originally sent (my original) email was intercepted
I think the answer is in the first line of your post; “I emailed a well-known personality…”. If you were a well-known personality you’re hardly likely to make your real personal email address public, you’d use a second (public) email address. You’d also be very likely to employ an assistant to deal with the multitude of emails that would arrive at that public email address and would only pass those of real interest to the well-known personality. I agree that it’s clumsy not to reply with the same email address but I don’t think it’s suspicious.
