I've been getting emails addressed to me that have nothing to do with me, nor are they even remotely related to my area (e.g. I'm in IT, and the emails are to do with legal).
I have responded similar to this response in the past, as I worked out that there's someone with a similar name to me who sounds like they work in the relevant department. However, that person doesn't work here anymore (and judging by LinkedIn, hasn't for a few years now).
These emails are asking for approval, and often have requests for an urgent response to meet some kind of deadline. I am not the only person on these emails, they are coming from an internal email address, and the emails are asking various people to approve various things in the attachments (I'm not sure what is in the attachments, I haven't opened them). I have looked up the sender and the other recipients, and they are all related to the thing that's being talked about.
I don't know where to start looking for the correct person to approve these things, and nobody in my area has any idea either. The email looks like it contains sensitive information in the attachments, so I also don't want to start CCing random people if they're not the right person.
How should I respond in a professional way to get them to stop emailing me?
To clarify, there are a lot of recipients because the email is asking for approval for things from various satellite offices around the world (one of which was run by my name-doppleganger before they left - the directory doesn't make it easy to find out who the replacement is). Nothing about the email screams "phishing scam" to me. I've received "reply-alls" from some of the other recipients for similar emails in the past, so I'm fairly confident it's a legit email. I haven't called the sender in the past as they're in a different timezone, but it sounds like the best course of action is to leave them a voicemail.
Thanks for all the replies and the warnings to be alert for phishing emails. It never hurts to be cautious.