To be honest I do not know exact details there. All I know is, that I do not have to send my passport, just the scan of the biometric page (which is already in my application and unless something unexpected happens that page does not change). My husband however has to send his passport. So when the time will come I will see how is it done. I think there were some applicants from UK posting their letter that was requiring that last step.
What I think will be longest are the BG check. His country is kind of from your region (so I am awaiting "very fast" answers from their side)
And I did not get any ghost mails from my account. But I was requesting my UCI, so I got answer for that.