Anyone else getting Edgars Club Travel spam thanks to Discovery?

morkhans

morkhans

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I recently started creating unique email addresses for each of my registrations. e.g. [email protected] and [email protected]. Today I received Edgars Club Travel spam on my discovery email address. As far as I can tell Edgars isn't a Vitality partner, so I'm curious as to how they got hold of my email address?
 
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morkhans said:
I recently started creating unique email addresses for each of my registrations. e.g. [email protected] and [email protected]. Today I received Edgards Club Travel spam on my discovery email address. As far as I can tell Edgards isn't a Vitality partner, so I'm curious as to how they got hold of my email address?
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Very simple, Discovery sold it to them...
 
ToxicBunny said:
Very simple, Discovery sold it to them...
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They're swearing high and low it wasn't them. They've now opened a case with their forensics department. I've also reported Edgars for spam with their provider Mailchimp.
 
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morkhans said:
They're swearing high and low it wasn't them. They've now opened a case with their forensics department. I've also reported Edgards for spam with their provider Mailchimp.
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Problem is Mailchimp need a percentage of "spam" reports per bulk send to start paying attention..

Granted its not a large number, but still.
 
morkhans said:
Got to start somewhere.
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Definitely...

I used to know the number, but from reading their sites and TOU, it seems they're stricter than the 0.1% spam report number that ISPs seem to adhere to...
 
When you sign up for Vitality, they rattle off over the phone "Discovery is an authorised financial blah blah blah, we will share your details for third party marketing... then more blah blah blah for about 30 seconds". This is when you say "Do not share my details" if you paid attention during all the blah blah.
 
I once read there is a trick when you register by giving your email address in a certain format, for instance myemail"EDGARS-ACCOUNT"@gmail.com where the part in brackets will not be part of the address but will help you identify who are selling your details to spammers. Is the above format correct - using brackets, or is there another way?
 
So I managed to get my query escalated to the Discovery Group Information Security Guidance Officer. He was quite enthusiastic about tracking down the source of the leak. Looks like Discovery do in fact have data leak protection systems in place and track all comms to and from clients. They are also able to query content of data that passed through their mail and proxy servers (spreadsheets etc.). He also assured me that leaking information is dealt with swiftly often resulting in immediate termination. It appears however that my data was leaked via a 3rd party provider being used by the Discovery For Me website. I'm just waiting for final confirmation on the exact details before I post more.

I also had quite a lot of back and forth email with Mailchimp, and while they appear to take spam seriously they seemed a bit non-committal in what kind of proof they would request from their clients that they were making use of opt-in data. The best I could get out of them was to put me in touch with the email campaign admin. I'm still waiting...
 
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I get all kinds of Edgars spam...Don't think it has something to do with Discovery though as I haven't signed up for the Edgards Club Travel crap.

And unsubscribing is a mission...it's like they just change the type of news letter or something...
 
So Discovery have confirmed that my data was compromised by a 3rd party they had contracted to run the discoveryforme website. Edgars is a client of this 3rd party. I have been told my personal data has been removed from their servers and Discovery is reviewing all the services provided by this 3rd party. I've asked for names, but haven't received that information yet.
 
morkhans said:
So Discovery have confirmed that my data was compromised by a 3rd party they had contracted to run the discoveryforme website. Edgars is a client of this 3rd party. I have been told my personal data has been removed from their servers and Discovery is reviewing all the services provided by this 3rd party. I've asked for names, but haven't received that information yet.
Click to expand...

See, one little complaint can do a lot, especially if one has proof.
 
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