Following on from my previous post…
I received a letter yesterday from my credit card company, the letter a pretty much standard mail merge letter informed me that my credit limit had been increased. Well so what, I hear you say, I get those letters as well!
As I worked through my pile of morning post (mostly junk, I have to say) I discovered that I had also received two more identical envelopes from the same credit card company, but addressed to two other individuals at different addresses. Now I can only surmise, as I did not open them, that these additional envelopes also contained letters with similar information that these individuals had had their own credit limit increased as well.
So what does that mean to someone phishing for financial information, well my letter contains, my full addresses details, the name of my credit card company, my credit card limit and the last four digits of my credit card. Can someone work out the rest, I bet they can!
Concerned that I was in position of other peoples’ potential personal financial information, I rang the customer support number in my letter and ended up after the usual automated phone machine with a customer service agent. Telling him about the fact that I had received two envelopes in addition to mine, solicited the reply that this was not his companies fault but an error with the Royal Mail who delivered the letters to my address and I should talk to Royal Mail not him!
Part of me would agree with his comment, but part of me does not, as I assume that the onus is really on the credit card company to ensure that mine and other peoples’ financial information is protected as much as possible and if they are using an agent to deliver letters like the ones that I received, then they have to be sure that the agent is doing their job correctly, which in this case, it was not.
I then asked him a question as to what assurances could he give me that all previous letters addressed to me containing personal financial information had in fact been delivered to me and not to other people – at the end of the day, I am not to know as and when a credit card company will send out mailers like the one I received. He, (representing the credit card company) refused point blank to give me any kind of assurance that my personal financial data was safe when any agent is used to delivery letters to me from the credit company!
Kind of makes you wonder what the Data Protection Act is for, why we have Chip & Pin and what all the discussions are about with regards to protecting ‘your’ personal financial information, when the credit card company, which by the way is CITI cannot give ‘you’ any kind of assurance that it will protect your personal financial data.
Guess I’ll have to quit this credit card company and find another, but there again maybe their all like that!
Tags: Royal Mail, Credit Cards, CITI
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