thebikeinsurer.co.uk - anyone here been spammed after using them?

Premier_2

Has anyone here used the services of thebikeinsurer.co.uk (Bike Insurer Services Ltd), and then been spammed, or received unsolicited marketing calls???

The site is recommended in the MSE article as a comparison site to obtain motor-cycle insurance.

I used them in the summer to find some cheap motor-cycle insurance. They came up with a good price from an insurer that turned out to be a trading name for the huge BISL Limited. However, I didn't know that at the time (I didn't know who they were) and so when I signed up I used a brand new unique email address. Within a month, that new email address was starting to be spammed.

Thinking this spam was coming via the insurer, BISL Limited having divulged my contact details, I made a formal complaint to them. They have taken two months to investigate my complaint (keeping me informed along the way) and now say they could not find any security breach at their end.

But they did mention that their investigations indicated I obtained the insurance through a comparison site.
Whilst I didn't think I had given the unique email address to any other company other than the insurer, sure enough my investigations do show that I did also supply the same email address to the comparison site as it was all part of the application process for the same motor-cycle insurance.

I still wasn't convinced by the insurer trying to off-load the blame, but having done some more searching there does appear to be numerous complaints of email spam and/or unsolicited marketing phone calls occurring shortly after people have provided details to thebikeinsurer.co.uk (and conversely there appears lack of such reports regarding BISL Limited). This is on the internet in general, rather than MSE.

So I was wondering if any other MSE'er has used the bikeinsurer.co.uk and if so whether or not they have been spammed or received unsolicited marketing calls shortly after using them?

Thanks

Cash-Strapped.T32

Yes.

I did a quick search on there to see if I could beat my current quote (got very close), but then after a day or so I started getting emails promoting all the companies I had chosen not to use, and later, emails with titles such as 1 week left to purchase your online quote "XX-XXX-XX"

For every quote the comparison site brought up, I received an email promoting it.

This is a potential problem, because of course the more sensible among us will simply revert to using a "spammable" email address for registering with companies or sites, which we just use the initial registration email & then it gets ignored forever, and our "real" email address, which we give out to real people.

Quote

What's the problem?

Premier_2

Cash-Strapped.T32 wrote: »

Yes.

I did a quick search on there to see if I could beat my current quote (got very close), but then after a day or so I started getting emails promoting all the companies I had chosen not to use, and later, emails with titles such as 1 week left to purchase your online quote "XX-XXX-XX"

For every quote the comparison site brought up, I received an email promoting it.

This is a potential problem, because of course the more sensible among us will simply revert to using a "spammable" email address for registering with companies or sites, which we just use the initial registration email & then it gets ignored forever, and our "real" email address, which we give out to real people.

Thanks for the response, Cash-Strapped.T32.

Interesting. This was not exactly what I received. The spam I received was totally unconnected, whereas you appear to have received "reminders". I never got these, but perhaps that's because I bought one of the products offered at the time of the search.

Were your emails direct from each company, or all from thebikeinsurer? The reason I ask is according to thebikeinsurer privacy policy, they say the don't actually use your email address when getting quotes - they use a generic one of their own which should prevent the insurers quoting contacting you directly.

Anyway, back to my issue, it appears it could be more complicated. It appears thebikeinsurer doesn't actually get quotes from insurance companies, but a number of insurance 'brokers' who get the quotes from insurance companies; a kind of comparison of comparison sites.

Whilst they may not divulge my email address to only those offering a quote (assuming they abide by their privacy policy), they do obviously disclose it to a company I go on to buy from. If this was via a 'broker' this adds a third possibility on who gave it to the spammers; thebikeinsurer, the actual insurance company and now the broker who also seems to be involved.