Budget Insurance and Spam

[cumbriasteve]

I am probably already preaching to the converted but always worth a reminder.

Like most, I have a couple of Yahoo email accounts for buying on the net, designed to keep my proper email sterile from spam.

In a moment of madness last week when checking car insurance for my Daughter who was yapping in my ear at the time, I supplied my 'good' email to Budget car insurance.

Within 48 hours I was getting hit by so much spam it's unreal, 47 today alone and increasing daily and the trouble is even though it's going to my spam folder I still have to browse through quickly for the occasional genuine mail that ends up there.

PPI, No win no fee's, investments, life assurance, viagra (might keep that one) etc etc ..

So..Budget probably got the grand total of 1p for selling my email addy and I get a headache..

I hope to find some internal mail addys for their sales persons so I can forward all I receive.

Rant over and new account set up time I think.

 

[rtbcomp]

I had a similar thing with Manuals Online, although not so many. I know it came from the because "Manuals Online" appears in the subject line.

 

[MattF]

I know it came from them because "Manuals Online" appears in the subject line.

'Tis a bit of a giveaway when the numpties do things like that.

 

[cumbriasteve]

Thats how I found the guilty party, they used my daughters name in some of the spam...just had 5 more in the last 10 mins.

They must be coming from some sort of spam 'broker' who gets paid by the companies for sending multiple mails, too many all at once for it to be random companies.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Well try Swinton Insurance. I made the mistake of insuring with them by phone. Within a few hours I had a "welcome" phone call to demand an explanation about why I didn't take their 3 month free homecare offer and implying that I was an idiot for not so doing. Since inception I have been beseiged with sales calls and no amount of "please stop" seems to have an effect. The last two I responded to with some abuse. So far I have not been bothered recently.

 

[Fergus]

Well try Swinton Insurance. I made the mistake of insuring with them by phone. Within a few hours I had a "welcome" phone call to demand an explanation about why I didn't take their 3 month free homecare offer and implying that I was an idiot for not so doing. Since inception I have been beseiged with sales calls and no amount of "please stop" seems to have an effect. The last two I responded to with some abuse. So far I have not been bothered recently.

Sadly one of the only ways to deal with these idiots is to get yourself put on their 'abusive caller' list by giving the poor minimum wage caller an earful.

 

[rtbcomp]

Well try Swinton Insurance.......... Since inception I have been beseiged with sales calls and no amount of "please stop" seems to have an effect. The last two I responded to with some abuse. So far I have not been bothered recently.

Wait until you have to claim!

 

[ajlelectronics]

Oh I believe it. Insurance companies seem to be very irritating to deal with. My bike insurer seems to think that sending documents by email is perfectly acceptable. Despite my pointing out that I don't receive it, they continue to refuse my requests for a proper piece of paper.

On the SPAM subject, I deal with that by having a domain name. Everything at that domain comes to me by default, so I can use swinton@domain, bike@domain, tesco@domain etc. If I get SPAM it is a simple matter to see which one passed the address on. I can also forward that particular username to a bit bucket, or sometimes, to the customer service department of the entity that passed my address on.

 

[Dave Sherwood]

I had a similar thing with my Mobile phone. I never give it to companies but fell foul of Sky and had to give it to them for an engineer to contact me. within a week I was inundated with calls not only from sky but other companies trying to offer me services. four from companies trying to offer me Satelite insurance. Now had to change my number to stop calls. Sky deny they pass on your information,well then it must be the engineers passing information on?.

 

[MattF]

Sky deny they pass on your information

Sky would deny the earth exists if they could make money from doing so. **** poor state that we're in these days, with regards to companies & marketing etc.

 

[cumbriasteve]

On a good note: A close relative recently got rear ended by a young driver going faster than his brain worked.

We phoned Aviva ( the lads insurer) and they arranged collection of our car the next day, later that day said it was a write off and offered full market value, we actually accepted 75% and the car back, which I replaced the hatchback door and rear bumper for £200.

Then to top it all they phoned within 4 days asking if there was any personal injury, not being the sort to scam anyone he replied just the normal aches and pains of a shunt which should go in a week or so...instant offer of £1500 was made.

No doubt this was to prevent the no win no fees lot encouraging us to claim all sorts of weird life changing injuries off them but was very nice to have everything done and dusted in 5 days of the accident.

 

[Shox Dr]

Although I use "Anti spam" disposable email accounts. My main email is to my .co.uk domain. I have unlimited email aliases, so when I need to give an email address out to a company I use their name as the email. So Aviva would be Aviva@???.co.uk

If I receive any spam to that address I know exactly where it came from. Never had any in 18yrs of owning the domain.

For the cost of a domain it's worth it.

 

[ajlelectronics]

There seems to be an echo in here. ;-)

Seriously though folks, get a domain name, it is very cheap and it need never change, unlike the ISP specific addresses which you lose when you move to a different ISP company.

 

[the snooper]

just set up an email alias with a fake name and have just got a quote from budget so now just sit back and wait to see if i get bombarded if i do i will report them

 

[hotrodder]

So what's the actual deal? Did you definately check the 'don't contact me' box (or uncheck it if they configured it the other way round) or was there not one? Just been through car insurance renewal (1/10) with the daily and received zero spam from the various companies i got quotes from- received one email for each quote and most of 'em typically send another mail about 11 months later when it's time to renew again

My gmail account that i use for this sort of thing has never been properly spammed, my ISP email account (that i never use) on the other hand gets all sorts of weird nonsense

 

[MattF]

Did you definately check the 'don't contact me' box (or uncheck it if they configured it the other way round) or was there not one?

Another personal gripe of mine there. Any company who uses the opt-out rather than opt-in method, (end of the day, that box should always be unticked by default. One shouldn't have to put in any effort to stop them deluging you with crap), deserves just as much verbal kicking as any other form of spammer. It's a detestable approach to the matter, based on their preference, (and their pursuit of money), rather than common decency.

Plus, if you phone them, how can you select a webform option?

 

[rtbcomp]

With webforms I always take a screenshot of the page before sending it.

I think proper emails should always be used wherever possible so you have a copy of what you've sent.

 

[Shox Dr]

There seems to be an echo in here. ;-)

Seriously though folks, get a domain name, it is very cheap and it need never change, unlike the ISP specific addresses which you lose when you move to a different ISP company.

Good to see someone else doing it

 

[the snooper]

nearly 48 hours and still not bombarded with spam, maybe yours was from a dirrerent source

 

[stuvy]

On a good note: A close relative recently got rear ended by a young driver going faster than his brain worked.

We phoned Aviva ( the lads insurer) and they arranged collection of our car the next day, later that day said it was a write off and offered full market value, we actually accepted 75% and the car back, which I replaced the hatchback door and rear bumper for £200.

Then to top it all they phoned within 4 days asking if there was any personal injury, not being the sort to scam anyone he replied just the normal aches and pains of a shunt which should go in a week or so...instant offer of £1500 was made.

No doubt this was to prevent the no win no fees lot encouraging us to claim all sorts of weird life changing injuries off them but was very nice to have everything done and dusted in 5 days of the accident.

Thats a rare one, my mum had a dope drive into the side of her over 3 years ago and the claim is still ongoing. She has been to countless different quacks to check on her shoulder pains and until the last month its not got any further forward until my dad got his solicitor involved amazingly its jumped forward. Surprising that