What's the scam?
July 31, 2010 2:51 AM Subscribe
I've just had a letter come to my address, but addressed to someone I've never heard of. It confirms sign up to a scammy-ish website. Leave it or do something?
I'm in the UK. The letter is from highcreditscore.co.uk, which is subject to numerous complaints about unauthorised monthly deductions from people's credit cards, and which is suspected of being a front for lots of interlinked scammyish services. The letter confirms sign up to the service.
The addressee is someone who certainly hasn't lived at the address for 2 years, and I doubt has ever lived there - a married couple who aren't the addressee owned the property for the 10 previous years before I moved in. No mail has ever been delivered with the addressee's name before.
So what's the scam? Is someone using my address to sign up for stuff, or is this a ruse to get me to call up and correct matters, i.e. lead generation? And is it best to do nothing?
I'm in the UK. The letter is from highcreditscore.co.uk, which is subject to numerous complaints about unauthorised monthly deductions from people's credit cards, and which is suspected of being a front for lots of interlinked scammyish services. The letter confirms sign up to the service.
The addressee is someone who certainly hasn't lived at the address for 2 years, and I doubt has ever lived there - a married couple who aren't the addressee owned the property for the 10 previous years before I moved in. No mail has ever been delivered with the addressee's name before.
So what's the scam? Is someone using my address to sign up for stuff, or is this a ruse to get me to call up and correct matters, i.e. lead generation? And is it best to do nothing?
I get plenty of junk mail for people I've never heard of. "Addressee does not live here" goes on the front and it goes back in the mailbox.
posted by Magnakai at 4:18 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by Magnakai at 4:18 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]
Why are you looking at or thinking about someone else's mail?
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:13 AM on July 31, 2010
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:13 AM on July 31, 2010
Ignore it. If it was addressed to MuffinMan, 999 Whatever St, Yourtown, that would be cause for concern.
There's no point returning it to the sender. At best, you would be flagging that you are a real live person and perhaps if they send you another 100 letters, they hope that they'll get you interested enough to provide personal details that can be mis-used.
File it in the garbage. Or (the bitch in me insists this is reasonable, YMMV) use it to light a barbecue, take a good clear photo of their junk mail beginning to burn, and mail that back to them. With no return address, obviously.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 5:40 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
There's no point returning it to the sender. At best, you would be flagging that you are a real live person and perhaps if they send you another 100 letters, they hope that they'll get you interested enough to provide personal details that can be mis-used.
File it in the garbage. Or (the bitch in me insists this is reasonable, YMMV) use it to light a barbecue, take a good clear photo of their junk mail beginning to burn, and mail that back to them. With no return address, obviously.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 5:40 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Does the scammy-ish website offer any kind of referral program?
A while ago, my email addy ended up signed up for accounts at a number of different crappy sites that seemed to offer a referral fee. They sent sign-in info in clear text to my email addy, including the passwords used to sign up for the accounts. I was annoyed, so I went to check them out and close them down. The rest of the info on the accounts had nothing to do with me: different name, address, and credit card number (one of which, IIRC, was visible in the clear).
Our guess was someone was grabbing info and combining it to sign up for a bunch of different sites in order to get just the referral fee.
I tried for a while to contact the person whose name was on the account, and couldn't work it out. Finally in frustration I just made sure to cancel the accounts so no one would be charged, and sent messages to the various sites saying that these accounts were fraudulent. I got "please come back, we miss you" messages from two of them for a while; they clearly don't have anything set up to differentiate fraudulent accounts from ones otherwise created, if the messages even got through. (I finally created email filters, so I may still be getting them now, for all I know.)
I still feel kind of bad for not being able to find the person whose credit card was stolen to sign up for those sites. I hope they got it worked out eventually, whoever they were.
posted by galadriel at 6:14 AM on July 31, 2010
A while ago, my email addy ended up signed up for accounts at a number of different crappy sites that seemed to offer a referral fee. They sent sign-in info in clear text to my email addy, including the passwords used to sign up for the accounts. I was annoyed, so I went to check them out and close them down. The rest of the info on the accounts had nothing to do with me: different name, address, and credit card number (one of which, IIRC, was visible in the clear).
Our guess was someone was grabbing info and combining it to sign up for a bunch of different sites in order to get just the referral fee.
I tried for a while to contact the person whose name was on the account, and couldn't work it out. Finally in frustration I just made sure to cancel the accounts so no one would be charged, and sent messages to the various sites saying that these accounts were fraudulent. I got "please come back, we miss you" messages from two of them for a while; they clearly don't have anything set up to differentiate fraudulent accounts from ones otherwise created, if the messages even got through. (I finally created email filters, so I may still be getting them now, for all I know.)
I still feel kind of bad for not being able to find the person whose credit card was stolen to sign up for those sites. I hope they got it worked out eventually, whoever they were.
posted by galadriel at 6:14 AM on July 31, 2010
Do you have a common address, like 456 Main St.? If so, there's a good chance someone who didn't want to enter their real address just filled in a dummy answer which just so happened to be your address as well.
posted by Kippersoft at 8:24 AM on July 31, 2010
posted by Kippersoft at 8:24 AM on July 31, 2010
Response by poster: gene machine, Jaltcoh: because I think there's a scam. The addressee isn't a neighbour. The addressee isn't a former resident. It's not a mistaken street address - there is only one street in London with the name of my street.
If I thought this was just someone else's mail, which I also get, it would get sent back/on.
galadriel: I don't know if there's a referral program, but it's possible - because the company has its fingers in various pies.
posted by MuffinMan at 3:31 AM on August 1, 2010
If I thought this was just someone else's mail, which I also get, it would get sent back/on.
galadriel: I don't know if there's a referral program, but it's possible - because the company has its fingers in various pies.
posted by MuffinMan at 3:31 AM on August 1, 2010
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posted by gene_machine at 4:14 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]