I keep receiving emailed receipts from shops that I haven't visited - should I be alarmed?

Christabel

Well actually its only happened twice, both today, that I've received an email receipt from different shops where purchases have obviously been made but not by me. I deleted the first one but now a second one has arrived for clothes purchases totaling £44 about an hour ago. It shows the last four digits of the card used and luckily its not any of mine. But still, why would someone use my email address to have their receipts emailed to? Is it a scam do you think?

D3xt3r5L4b

It depends.
what shops and what are the displayed email address they are from?

Shakin_Steve

Your email address won't be associated with the card being used, someone is giving it to the shop assistant when asked, in order to provide a digital receipt. Who knows how/why? 

Mnoee

They probably just have a similar email address and gave the wrong one by mistake. Could be as similar as dot com instead of dot co dot UK - or an easily misheard letter when telling it to a cashier. (B instead of P or similar). I can't think of anything someone would gain from having a receipt emailed to the wrong person. 

phillw

It could be a mistake, or they might be trying to get you to reply because someone has racked up charges on your account. All you need to do is provide all your personal details so they can investigate (and steal all your cash).
You could find contact details for the shops and ask them (don't trust anything on the email itself)

Mnoee

It's clearly not the OPs account though, there's no mention of them trying to get them to go to a site and enter information - and whether it's a scammy email or a mistake the advice is the same. Delete it and forget about it. 

cymruchris

I keep receiving receipts - it's only happened twice. 

It's likely someone with a similar email address has either mis-keyed it - or a shop assistant entered it wrongly.

Unless you have some wild email address it might be very similar to someone else's.

john.smith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@acb.co.uk
john.smith@abc.com
johnsmith@abc.com

[Deleted User]

I used to have the farfetch UK domain related to the character name of a game I played (not pokemon lol) and still have the a private free email account, I regularly get emails for the farfetch company and every so often I reply and tell them it's a private email address not the company one (not that it shouldn't be obvious a major international brand doesn't use gmail or hotmail addresses...). If it really bothers you, email customer services and mention they are sending you private data and see if their GDPR people pick it up

Christabel

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice.

StephenM_2

cymruchris said:

I keep receiving receipts - it's only happened twice. 

It's likely someone with a similar email address has either mis-keyed it - or a shop assistant entered it wrongly.

Unless you have some wild email address it might be very similar to someone else's.

john.smith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@acb.co.uk
john.smith@abc.com
johnsmith@abc.com

john.smith@gmail.com and johnsmith@gmail.com are the same address. So is j.o.h.n.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com
gmail addressing ignores the dots.

EarthBoy

StephenM_2 said:

cymruchris said:

I keep receiving receipts - it's only happened twice. 

It's likely someone with a similar email address has either mis-keyed it - or a shop assistant entered it wrongly.

Unless you have some wild email address it might be very similar to someone else's.

john.smith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@abc.co.uk
johnsmith@acb.co.uk
john.smith@abc.com
johnsmith@abc.com

john.smith@gmail.com and johnsmith@gmail.com are the same address. So is j.o.h.n.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com
gmail addressing ignores the dots.

That would reduce the likelihood of confusion, but it must limit the number of email addresses available on Gmail. I don't know of any other email provider that does that.