Have Eon lost customers' data? Or are they running a scam?

Crabman

Received a call from Eon, they were able to quote the account holder's details.

They claimed someone had entered a competition for an iPhone at www.vofferu.co.uk.

I can recall doing no such thing and have never provided address details to anyone except parties with whom there are established and agreed contracts in place.

They wanted confirmation of the details and frankly it sounded like this was an attempt at identity theft - why would they confirm your details if they already hold them?

They offered a quote for energy supply. We actually had a call not long ago where they claimed that Martin had endorsed them as the cheapest company for energy supply and also referred to an alleged entry on VofferU.co.uk. Clearly these two phone calls are linked.

My questions to the EON representative(s) on MSE are

1) Have EON passed/sold customer details to a third party company in breach of the Data Protection Act.

2) If the answer to above is no, has their database of customer details become partially or wholly compromised with or without their knowledge?

Their response would be appreciated prior to my complaint to the ICO. I mentioned the ICO to the caller who promptly hung up on me. :rolleyes:

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi Crabman,

Let me look in to this for you, I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks

Helena

Premier_2

What's the betting on the answer to question 1 coming back as NO?

Answer to question 2 will probably be NO too.



On a more serious note, are you sure whoever called you really were from Eon??
Remember, they called you so they should be pleased to answer any questions you have to acertain they say who they say they are.
Or you call them back (using the number you always use for Eon), but that might cost you money.

dmg24

E On have had an issue with employees accessing accounts without authorisation, and in at least one case, there has been fraudulent activity. I know that this has involved sharing account details with external parties, but I do not know the scale of the activity.

Helena, if you are not aware of this, it has occurred in (at least) one of the Nottingham offices.

Premier_2

Just checked that competition website.

It belongs to a company called "RH International Ltd established in 2007, widely known as “RH”, offering Digital and permission based Direct Marketing Services."

They also operate under the name Fivelead. "FiveLead is one of the growing Lead Generation and Online Marketing Network. It’s a leader in online Digital marketing which makes it easy to turn every online communication into a powerful business generation tool."

RH has an office in India (as well as the UK).
Eon used to use Indian based call centres (but I think they've pulled all the business back to the UK now)


Edit: the actual competition promoter appears to be either Myoffers Limited or Interactive Prospect Targeting Limited (not to be confused with IPT Limited which they refer to themselves as but which appears to be a totally unconnected company). Both companies are registered at the same address and both are stated as the competition promoter ... depending which T&Cs you read.

The entry asks for name, address, email, phone number etc plus name of current supplier(s) for gas & electric and normal form of payment.

Is this perhaps what they gave you and then asked you for the account number?

Edit2: RH International Limited was only incorporated 29-Apr-2009 according to Companies House

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi Crabman

I'm trying to find out a bit more about this offer now and will get back to you as soon as I can. What I can tell you for now is that this is a competition that vofferu is running, where if you enter your details to get a quote from us you will be entered into a draw for an iphone.

We haven't shared any of your info with them and I confirm the only third parties who we do provide details to are debt collection companies, if necessary and credit reference agencies sometimes. We do not share details with marketing companies or websites.

Do you have a family member or friend who may be trying to win the competition for you? Is it possible that a son or daughter, for example, may have entered your details to try and win the iphone and that this has resulted in someone from E.ON calling to give you a quote?

dmg24 – we don’t have an issue with people carrying out fraudulent activity, but like all big companies (we employ over 17,000 people) sometimes you get a rotten egg. We take any instances of fraudulent activity very seriously and will always push for prosecution if we find that this has happened.

Premier – we pulled the last of our Indian call centres in 2006 and all of our operation has been entirely based in the British Isles since then.

Helena

Crabman

Premier wrote: »

On a more serious note, are you sure whoever called you really were from Eon??
Remember, they called you so they should be pleased to answer any questions you have to acertain they say who they say they are.
Or you call them back (using the number you always use for Eon), but that might cost you money.

The Caller ID states: 08451550228

I've been extremely generous and spent a few pennies on calling this number which indeed appears to be a missed call message from EON.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Do you have a family member or friend who may be trying to win the competition for you? Is it possible that a son or daughter, for example, may have entered your details to try and win the iphone and that this has resulted in someone from E.ON calling to give you a quote?

Absolutely not. Nobody I know is naive enough to risk entering a competition where the amount of information needed is sufficient to find out a) where you live and b) maliciously open a credit card account in that person's name, as is the case with this webform.

I asked the EON caller if he wouldn't mind providing me with the IP address of the individual whom they claim has submitted details on this "Vofferu" website. That and a mention about the ICO and a complaint made him hang up on me. Does this appear legitimate or slightly suspicious??

Anyway, thanks for looking into this Helena, I'll await your further response

Premier_2

Crabman wrote: »

...I asked the EON caller if he wouldn't mind providing me with the IP address of the individual whom they claim has submitted details on this "Vofferu" website. That and a mention about the ICO and a complaint made him hang up on me. Does this appear legitimate or slightly suspicious??...

If, as seems likely, the call did come from Eon, they almost certainly wouldn't have the IP address of the computer that entered the competition.

I suspect the best they get is a list of contact details as per the application form (perhaps not even everything on that)

If you wanted the IP address, I suspect you would need to contact RH International Limited, Myoffers Limited or Interactive Prospect Targeting Limited. Its difficult to work out which.
Of course, you would have to give them your name & address at least though ... and they may not have kept a log of all the IP addresses.

dmg24

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

dmg24 – we don’t have an issue with people carrying out fraudulent activity, but like all big companies (we employ over 17,000 people) sometimes you get a rotten egg. We take any instances of fraudulent activity very seriously and will always push for prosecution if we find that this has happened.

I would suggest that there appears to be more than one rotten egg. To date, four people that I am aware of have been dismissed or asked to resign, and several are pending disciplinary investigations. That seems a pretty widescale problem to me, perhaps you should be reviewing your security measures?

Bartimus

I also had the call from an e-on representative. A very charming girl who was extermely helpful in offering me cheaper energy etc. etc.

The one drawback is that i did not enter any such competition to win an iPhone any anything else ! So begs the question how did my details get into the hands of e-on ? regardless of how much cheaper e-on was i would not have signed up for the companies services as the have either :-

1) lied about the fact i entered a competition to win an iPhone
2) obtained my personal details, which i guard dearly, from another source which i did not agree could be shared with any other companies (i slaways insist on this)

Which ever of the above it is i would not trust e-on with my account. Sorry if this sounds stupid but i dont like my personal info being traded in this way !

... and no a family member did not enter a competition for me. I doubt my 4 year old or 2 year old sons would know my email address.

Premier_2

To be fair to Eon, I guess they are receiving the leads in good faith from the competition company.

As you can get 35p cashback from cashback kings for entering the competition (as mentioned elsewhere in this forum), I guess there might be a temptation for people to enter, even with false details.

If they know your name, address & phone number (available from lots of sources, not least many people are in the BT phone book), they'll probably call you.