Store Card opened with my e-mail address

[XJ75]

Over the past few years, the same person has occasionally been using my e-mail address when signing up for stuff. I know it's the same person because it's often to confirm bookings for things and they are all in the same area. I've tried to reply explaining that it's the wrong e-mail address wherever possible.

About 18 months ago I started getting e-mails about an Argos store card, with statement e-mails etc. I called Argos and tweeted them, but they said they are unable to locate the account based on e-mail address alone, but that's all the information I have (the e-mails just have the last 4 digits of the account number and nothing else).

Now I'm getting e-mails saying that the account is in arrears. I don't particularly care because I know there are no other links to me, the account isn't on my credit report, or linked to me in any way other than my e-mail address, but I'd quite like to stop receiving the e-mails, and presumably the actual account owner might find the account owner.

I'm sure Argos must have a way of finding the account, it might not be available to someone in customer services, but someone somewhere must be able to find it? Any suggestions to get this sorted?

[Simpo Two]

When you open an account you get an e-mail asking you to confirm the e-mail address, and a link to click to do so. If it wasn't you, you wouldn't have done that. So does this mean the miscreant can read your e-mails?

[Sheepshanks]

I get a fair number of this sort of thing - I think because I got in early with hotmail and gmail so have addresses that are just initialsurname.

I get regularly get medical insurance invoices for someone in the US, pizza order confirmations, some kind of US friends reunited type of thing etc. The only organisation ever to respond was an outfit in the UK who sent me storage contract.

[nyt]

You can change the password on the Argos site using only the email address - I guess the new password is mailed to you.

I'm not sure that that would be legal - even though it's your email address.

It seems that one logs on to Argos using an email address, so they are clearly lying/mistaken when they say that they can't use that to locate an account.

[Sheepshanks]

nyt said:

You can change the password on the Argos site using only the email address - I guess the new password is mailed to you.

I'm not sure that that would be legal - even though it's your email address.

It seems that one logs on to Argos using an email address, so they are clearly lying/mistaken when they say that they can't use that to locate an account.

I was going to "suggest" that, but likely (hopefully) the store card login is more secure.

[RonnieHotdogs]

I had someone in Australia sign up to a betting site using my email address, obviously by accident.

Best thing about this was they had geo restrictions on the site so I couldn't access it to report the issue ... Without going through a proxy in Australia

[stevensdrs]

You could just set a filter on your incoming e-mail to block Argos e-mails.

[Dave.]

Is your email address a Gmail/Hotmail one?

Years ago you could log in on multiple domains with the same account

[e-mail] and [e-mail] were the same account, same with Hotmail, .com, .co.uk as well as live.com, MSN.com and possibly others all taking you to the same Microsoft account.

[jesta1865]

had something similar with an old googlemail account that my wife and I share.

seems someone else has used it to sign up for stuff for their wedding in the US.

They also now, from the emails we have had, forgotten to pay some of the bills for catering, etc.

[eltawater]

If they're still structured in the way I knew them before the Sainsburys buyout, the financial services side is a separate part of the business.

You need to approach them from a data protection point of view as this will trigger all sorts of compliance protocols once you formally request it. The call centre won't be able to help directly but they almost certainly will have someone in a technical team behind the scenes who can query the necessary databases using your email address as a key once the data protection officer provides them with the necessary compliance remit to do so.

These are the current contact details on the main Argos website:

https://www.argos.co.uk/help/faq/72472

argos said:

But if you still want to make a complaint, there are a few ways you can do this:

Make a phone call… 03456 400 700
Write a letter... Home Retail Group Card Services Ltd, P.O. Box 211, Huddersfield, HD8 1FA

There's a dedicated site linked to from the myargoscard website, I'm not entirely sure how up to date this is but it may help.

https://www.myargoscard.co.uk/en/sitecore/content/...

[xeny]

Point out it is a GDPR breech, and you intend to raise it with the ICO ? Likely to get someone to pull their finger out fixing it.