USwitch = SPAM

ddm18

Hi all,

Just a quick heads-up (I hope this is the best place to post this), I did a car insurance comparison on the sites recommended in the car insurance page here, and have since been getting rather a lot of spam on an email address that I only gave to USwitch.

I use a rather cunning (well, a little cunning, anyway) system to avoid spam, using my own domain name, so can be 100% certain that the spam initially came from USwitch, even though the emails are all from different companies. It's quite clear that USwitch are selling on lists of users' email addresses, even though I'm confident that I didn't give them permission with the little tick-box.

I've complained to USwitch's customer service team, as well as their 'privacy' and 'data protection' departments; they've ignored me completely.

If any of the MSE team are reading this - perhaps you could add a warning on the page that it's worth using an email address that you don't care about.

Cheers,
Dave.

superscaper

You may want to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

superscaper

How long ago did you sign up? I've just signed up and will see what happens.

wonka

What we need is a high-profile financial journalist to investigate this, and give Uswitch a good grilling.

Anyone know of one?

ddm18

superscaper wrote: »

How long ago did you sign up? I've just signed up and will see what happens.

It was about a week ago, and I think I've had 4 emails so far, all from different companies. OK - that might not sound like many, but to someone who's extremely careful not to get spam it's a terrifying number

I emailed customer service as soon as the first one arrived (the day after I signed up), and haven't heard anything, then yesterday I emailed every address I could find on their site (including 'data protection' and 'privacy'), asking why they were ignoring me - still nothing yet...

Information commissioner is next

Dave.

ddm18

OK, just to semi-clear uSwitch's name... I've had a reply.

I actually ended up getting copied in to a bit of a back and forth between all the people I'd emailed, who all seemed surprised that I'd be getting spam which is a good sign (unless it was all a clever trick to make me feel happier), and it seems as if they're genuinely looking at my complaint - they asked me to forward whatever spam I get, to help them figure out which of their insurers is being dodgy. One email between themselves actually said something like 'if one of our suppliers is doing this, it will have to stop asap'.

So yeah - uSwitch are in my good books again

wolfman

It's a system that'll work via sending details to different insurers etc... to get back the quotes, some of which will probably require an email. Hence it'll just be a matter of them tracking down who is being naughty.

Good to hear they're acting on it.

superscaper

wolfman wrote: »

Good to hear they're acting on it.

Certainly is. I think it's happened to me about three or four times and only one seemed to take it seriously. The others either never went anywhere or just completely ignored me. The company that took me seriously investigated and actually found one of their email servers was infected and sending out spam to all their customers. So needless to say they were appreciative I was able to bring it to their attention.

svds

A similar situation using a unique email address.

This address started getting spammed about a year ago when I unsubscribed myself from their email list. I reckon the email is passed on by their email list manager software.

Bad stuff!

BTW: similar issues with Camerabox, Globespan (rip), Kuota

Robisere

I have found that it is best to inform whomever you believe to be the source of the problem, in your case Uswitch. No company likes to think that they are driving custom away. At least, no company except Toys r us, which is the most frustratingly difficult to unsubscribe from. If you contact or buy from them online, please do not sign up for the Newsletter. You will receive loads of emails from them, every single day.

If you have a Microsoft Hotmail or Live Mail account, mark it as a phishing scam. Ms will look into it. For a Webmail account, use "Block Sender" when you have the offending message checked (NOT opened). For Google Mail, inform Google. They will check it out. Any of these will find the culprit and black - list them.