"I need to travel to city regularly to visit my doctor for treatment," she wrote. "I want to bring to your attention the traffic issues at Barton Highway, as it is unbearable traffic (sic)."

Except there is no resident in Goodwin Aged Care Centre called Judy Smith – the Goodwin centre in Crace doesn't even provide aged-care services.

Community groups and media organisations in Canberra have been bombarded with emails from angry Gungahlin residents in the past week, none of whom appear to exist.

The emails, which were sent to community councils and several media organisations, claimed to be from Gungahlin residents fed up with the traffic in Crace among other areas.

None of the emails contained contact information or verifiable personal details and or responded to requests for a phone contact.

In addition, none of the names appear on the Australian Electoral Commission's electoral role.

All emails were sent from obscure but free servers, such as usa-11.com and .ausi.com.

University of Canberra Centre for Internet Safety director Nigel Phair said it would be "absolutely" odd to receive a large number of emails from addresses not registered with major providers such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo.

"There's a lot of obscure free email accounts, they're very easy to register for and then you can copy and past text or do whatever you want," he said.

"If someone wanted to get [the media] or whoever else to get their complaint vocal about Crace traffic, you'd do it a bit more legitimately."

A Crace Community Association spokeswoman said the organisation had also received the emails from largely anonymous concerned residents.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Goodwin centre said she was unhappy their business name had been used on the emails.

Gungahlin Community Council president Ewan Brown said the group had received an increased number of his emails over the past month but his perception was they were from legitimate Gungahlin residents.

"I think our vice-president has been responding to them and getting some feedback," he said. "There has been quite a bit of traffic because of the Crace situation...

"There's still a big issue about getting in and out of Crace, it's an absolute nightmare.