Over the last week, I've received random emails from two dating sites.
On 12/09, I received one from CoffeeMeetBagel addressed to "Michael" (but using my email). I've never heard of this site and certainly I am far removed from the dating scene.
It was curious, but I checked my Gmail activity log and there was nothing suspicious; all IPs match my location.
Then today, I received another one from Match addressed to "John".
Again, there's no odd activity for my Gmail account and no confirmation email from either of these platforms.
I'm wondering if this is happening in anyone else's inbox and what the motive is? Why use a random person's email to register accounts on dating sites? Are there other signs I should look for for signals of compromise? What's the scam here?
The origin emails look legit as do the target URLs in the email.
As to what game they are playing, it's probably just a poorly configured or broken spam script. Assume malfeasance, report them, block them and ignore. If you are feeling adventurous, create a throw away email, wipe all cookies and contact the "company" they are spamming but do not give them your email address or name ... but I would not expect to learn anything.
[1] - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/29436?hl=en
[2] - https://www.spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml