meandmymoney.co.uk halifax scam?

fitzpm01

Got one of these "From Charlotte Thu Mar 17 09:08:56 2011", With no full name ("Dear :")addressed to a difficult/impossible-to-guess email address related to my RBOS MasterCard account; wondered how they could have got hold of the address. The language used suggests to me that it was written by a non-native-English speaker. The web address in the email (N.B. not a link, just an address in text, i.e. no (useful) phishing attempt) led to a blank page, which didn't surprise me but peaked my curiosity.
So, bobsmoneywatch reckons this is being sent by a US company, which might imply that our personal data has been sent to the US. Is that legal under EU data protection laws? I'll try to check up.

percy_veer_2

I also received one of these emails from 'Charlotte'. I've sent an email to [EMAIL="'esecurity@halifax.co.uk'"]'esecurity@halifax.co.uk'[/EMAIL] and asked for a response. I'll post the details of the reply when I receive it.

expertfour

From reading this forum it looks like there are two emails floating around. One is genuine (possibly), one (which I got) is totally fake. They have made every effort to hide the URL in the source code of the email.

My email was from "Charlotte" and read:

We proudly invite you to be a member of our Customer Advisory Community. This unique opportunity to participate is being extended only to select individuals – to help shape the future of the products we offer so that they are most useful to you.

To be a Community member, we ask that you plan to participate about 15 minutes a week, and at least once a week. Whatever you have to say – positive or negative – we invite you to speak freely in the Community. The topics we discuss will center on how you currently or plan to use our products, and new product ideas.

You will also have the ability to direct the conversation in the Community by suggesting your own ideas of topics to our team of moderators.

To join our Customer Advisory Community, just go to the URL below and register. Then, feel free to explore the Community, and speak your mind freely.

www. meandmymoney.co.uk

We welcome you to join our Customer Advisory Community, and hope you take us up on this unique opportunity.

Total scam, do not click!!

If in doubt, contact your bank immediately.

bux_uc

I got the email too and wondered the same about international data regs.

Wikipedia has a page on 'International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles' that implies it's permitted if the company they send the data to is certified. You'd think someone would have checked that before signing the contract right? Like people normally check emails before hitting send?

bobsmoneywatch

Dizzyduck wrote: »

This is legit.
I'm a BoS customer and have been using it for a while, also had a telecall about it.
It's a reasonable idea- you sign up (if interested), complete surveys (if interested) and they get feed back!

The genuine site may be legit, but this is almost certainly a mock-up to phish for details, as has been noted the emails definitely do not source from LBG.

bux_uc

bobsmoneywatch wrote: »

The genuine site may be legit, but this is almost certainly a mock-up to phish for details, as has been noted the emails definitely do not source from LBG.

For what purpose? The link goes to a site that LBG controls, so I don't understand what a phisher would have to gain by sending that email out.

If it points to a LBG site, and has been sent to addresses that LBG have, occam's razor says it's a LBG email, albeit one they shouldn't have sent.

Doc_N

Genuine, it seems (http://www.halifax.co.uk/HelpCentre/meandmymoney.asp) but a bizarre way of doing business, for a bank - that's nothing unusual, though!


Me and My Money

We’ve teamed up with Verve, an independent research company, to give you the opportunity to tell us what you think.
Registering for the panel will be quick and easy and once you’ve joined up, you’ll have the chance to tell us about how money affects your life as well as feeding back on our products and services.


Questions and concerns
Verve are an independent market research company and abide by the principles of the Market Research Society Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct ensures that your rights under the data protection act are observed.
If you want to check that Verve is a genuine independent market research agency, you can contact the Market Research Society on 0500 39 69 99 - open daily from 9am -11pm.
If you have any queries or concerns regarding the legitimacy of the Me and My Money panel, please see www.addverve.com or you can contact Halifax on

Jigga

I thought I would give it a go to see the questions asked, so using a false email address at the start you go through about 10 pages with the following questions:

Email Address

What region do you live in?

In what year were you born?

Gender?

What is your current working status?

Which of the following best describes your current relationship status?

Please state which of the following categories your home falls into. (i.e. renting/ownership/etc)

In total, how many people live in your household, including yourself?

Can you describe your personal role within your household?

The one below is a classic, given the way they have introduced themselves:

We know that some of these questions can seem quite personal, so please rest assured that we treat your information and privacy very seriously.

Which of the following brackets best describes your annual personal income?

Which of the following ethnic groups would you consider best describes you?


Please tell us which of the following financial products you currently hold - please select all that apply, regardless of whether you hold these with us or not:


Please tell us how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements: (various questions about attitudes to money and spending)

Where do you go to find out about: (News/travel/technology/prices)

And finally, if you had more money to spend each month, what would you spend it on first?

After a few seconds you'll be asked to enter your username and password. Once that's done and you have clicked on register, please make yourself at home on the site.

You then go through to the second section to register with the panel, but it appears to only accept email addresses from its database as I was told

‘Sorry, this is a restricted community and the credentials you provided were not authorized. If you feel you’ve reached this message in error, please contact your community administrator that sent you the invitation to join the community.’

On this page it asks for your invitation email address, name, and creating a password.

[FONT=&quot]So all in all, I’m sure that we would all be happy to provide the information above following an unsolicited email wouldn’t we? :T[/FONT]

dodger1

greenphotos wrote: »

Same e-mail received by me:

Dear :

We proudly invite you to be a member of our Customer Advisory Community. This unique opportunity to participate is being extended only to select individuals – to help shape the future of the products we offer so that they are most useful to you.

It was sent to an address I only gave to LloydsTSB, customer services didn't know anything about it and tried to fob me off with excuses.
Ok so perhaps it's a fault in a customer survey program that sent the e-mail before it was finished, but really bad show Lloyds - really bad indeed.
Note: My current preferences on my account state to not provide my e-mail address to 3rd parties.

What with the world and it's dog getting spam/scam bank e-mails LloydsTSB have really messed up here...
:mad:

I'm not a select person so I deleted it:rotfl:

SD1_2

I've just published a report on this (but can't tell you where due to forum rules)

I spoke to the Press dept at Lloyds Banking Group who confirmed that the meandmymoney.co.uk site is genuine and is controlled by them.

They also confirmed that the email was sent by their marketing agency in error before the branding and copy was complete.

They apologised for any inconvenience this has caused to their customers and reinforced that they are committed to helping customers prevent phishing attacks.

I'm not totally satisfied with this explanation as it does not clarify why an outside agency had access to their customer email database or why they have sent emails that, whilst not asking you to log on to your account, do ask for significant personal data which can be traced back to an individual.

Whatever the intention, the choice of email as an invitation mechanism was ill advised. They should have sent out a letter.

If anyone finds this report via Google (not that I'm suggesting a particular keyphrase), please feel free to post a link.