Millions of people have gotten a suspicious email from Target in the last couple days informing them that their personal information may have been stolen in the recent data breach. 

The email offers customers a year of free credit monitoring through Experian, which includes identity theft insurance.

That sounds great, except no one trusts that the email is actually from Target. Here's why:

1. The email is from this sketchy address: It's a common practice for scammers to use a company's name in front of their own domain, which often contains inexplicable characters like "bfi0."

 2. Consumers' perception of Target has plunged in recent weeks as a result of the data breach, as we reported last week.

3. Many of the people receiving the email didn't shop at Target during the data breach. Some haven't even shopped there in years.

But this particular email is actually legitimate, as is the domain and the offer of a year of free credit monitoring. Target confirmed the email's validity on a website the retailer is using to log all its communication with consumers.

The reason why some people are getting the email who haven't shopped there recently is because the hackers may have stolen personal information that the retailer had on file, including names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

Target could have retained that information from a purchase you made many years ago.

Here's a copy of the email: 

Target email

Business Insider