personal info might have been stolen

1socrates1

I received an email today from a reputable firm from whom I had bought some gold coins in 2011. In order to complete the transaction I had to create an account on their website. Today they say that because of a sophisticated form of fraud some of their clients information has been compromised. They say this is the person's name, address and telephone number (does not include financial/ card details as were stored offsite).

Unfortunately only retrieved email late this afternoon. I have sent the company an email to find out more information. In their email they have said that the incident was immediately reported to the police and investigations are under way by both West Midlands and the Metropolitan police. The only thing that they suggested I do was to change me password online (which I did immediately) and that if I wanted to contact they I could either phone or email them (I elected to email they).

I did not feel that it was my place to mention the firm's name as yet and would rather for the moment be a cautionary tale of not keeping an online account open with personal details (I only did one transaction from 2011).

Now I am just wondering whether I was one of the people that did have my info stolen and all the worst possibilities are going around in my head.

DCFC79

How can anyone on here tell you if you are 1 of those who had information stolen ?

daytona0

Well...

Name, address and telephone number aren't necessarily going to give much scope for fraud to take place! It will almost certainly amount to spam calls/mail trying to sell you stuff. If it was much more serious than that then you'd be looking at them probably going after your money instead! They aren't going to sit on your card details for 4 years and do nothing!

Also, personal information breaches are easy in many companies! The IT setup can sometimes be poor, allowing internal and external breaches. Also, it is easy for a person to make a note of customer information and smuggle it home. As for the frequency of these, I really couldn't speculate. The point is that this may not be the first time that you've had your data breached, and unfortunately it won't be the last. We shouldn't stop using technology, but be mindful of what he have online (as you said in your post!). Ultimately, though, this is probably not something you should lose sleep over (especially seeing as you haven't been arrested or lost money any time since 2011!)

1socrates1

DCFC79 wrote: »

How can anyone on here tell you if you are 1 of those who had information stolen ?

They may be able to tell me as they stated in the email that some of the accounts had been compromised. Anyway I will wait for their email reply and post a reply here.

meer53

1socrates1 wrote: »

They may be able to tell me as they stated in the email that some of the accounts had been compromised. Anyway I will wait for their email reply and post a reply here.

Your details might not have been compromised. No-one knows. I would stop worrying, if the Police are now involved you won't be given any information anyway.

Thunderbird4

Its extremely frustrating when companies don't look after your data. I wouldn't be happy about this at all! On the plus side there isn't much they can do with this data so hopefully you will not be too exposed by this breach!

paddyrg

They sound like they're being responsible, giving a warning. I use my own domain to give each company a different email address (eg boots@mydomain.com, moneysavingexpert@mydomain.com, etc), so each address is only used by one company ever. You'd be alarmed how many of those addresses start receiving spam suggesting just how many sets of account details have been stolen in the past!

Luckily, just spam so far, but it's pretty rife.

mr_fishbulb

1socrates1 wrote: »

The only thing that they suggested I do was to change me password online (which I did immediately)

Unless you already use a unique one for every website, you will also need to change the password for any other sites where you have used that same password as the one that was stolen.

It is safe to assume that whoever stole the details will also have your email address. That, along with the stolen password, will at some point be used to attempt to log into to sites such as eBay, paypal, facebook, etc.

If I was being paranoid, I'd also want to make sure my home security (locks, alarms, etc) was up-to-scratch. Wouldn't take too much imagination to guess what someone might do with a list of addresses of people who have purchased gold coins.

Sooler

1socrates1 wrote: »

They say this is the person's name, address and telephone number.

Nothing more than any telephone directory! BT have made public this sort of information for years.

Helix

1socrates1 wrote: »

They may be able to tell me as they stated in the email that some of the accounts had been compromised. Anyway I will wait for their email reply and post a reply here.

Normally if they know who then they only email those that have been compromised.

meer53

Helix wrote: »

Normally if they know who then they only email those that have been compromised.

When a card issuer receives information about a possible compromise, they receive a list of numbers/information. It's standard practice to contact all the customers on that list as they have no way of knowing which details may be used.