Received message to send items, notifying authorities and Ebay. What should I do?

[mozartbach1971]

I received a message from a person who asked where I obtained their fathers personal letters. I sent a message back saying I bought them from another dealer. They then said they were part of the family estate and not to be sold and they are notifying the authorities and Ebay because their dad's social security number is on the return address for the world to see and to please send all the letters to them for  safe keeping, and they bid on two separate ones to keep them from going to strangers and will pay $15 each for my troubles, and if I can give them the name of the dealer I bought them from it would be helpful.   Does anyone know what I should do regarding this situation.  I have more of the letters listed right now, do I need to take them down?  

[skatefool]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

There was a time when you could "go on the internet and get a dead person's SS#?

Sorry -- I find that difficult to believe.  And what would be anyone's purpose in doing that? 

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Well, to determine if a person is living or not is one reason... 

https://socialsecuritydeathindex-search.com/

[msha3839]

Why seller have to waste time playing Colombo?

[broto_64]

Instant block.

[gurlcat]

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@msha3839 wrote:

Unless letters written by famous person, it becomes irrelevant to general public..not worth an effort unless some emotional connection…🤷

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Major misconception, in fact estate sellers who believe that are perfect inventory sources for the OP, because old letters (from "nobodies" to "nobodies") can actually be very profitable on eBay.  If you look at the second link in message #11 ..... the OP made around $1400 on the letters that family members were trying to get back.  

[sin-n-dex]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

There was a time when you could "go on the internet and get a dead person's SS#?

Sorry -- I find that difficult to believe.  And what would be anyone's purpose in doing that? 

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This was in 2000-2001, I was using the Social Security Death Index to do some genealogy for a friend in California. I don't know if that's still public though, this was a long time ago. I'm not sure what other people's purpose was, but we were trying to find out if people had passed away or were still alive and could be contacted.

C.