Data Protection

I'm unsure whether my query is consumer, legal or both but i'll start here.....

I received a letter this morning from an online bingo site. It was in a window envelope and the letter inside had my address typed. The address they had typed was incorrect and I knew instantly that the only time i had written my address (wrong county) like this was at the beginning of September when I purchased a ipad direct from the online apple store. The reason I know I had the address wrong was when the delivery driver contacted me to arrange time and directions. I am in an adjacent county and he brought the mistake I made to my attention. The address on the typed letter I received today is exactly the same as my delivery docket.

I have had a quick look at apples privacy policy http://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/ and cannot see in their info about disclosure to third parties where an online bingo site would be deemed as an affiliate but perhaps an eagle eyed boardsie will see something I have missed.

I am almost certain that I have never made an address error like this before as I would have noticed the incorrect address in other mail. Any suggestions on what I should do next would be appreciated.

snubbleste

Eh, contact the bingo site and ask them where, when and on what basis they have your data

Thanks snubbleste, the most obvious route was staring me in the face, d'oh

Got through to the bingo site but marketing dept finished for the day. They asked me if I would like to be removed from their list but said I would leave myself on it until I have resolved how my name got onto it in the first place.

It is possible that I made an error in my address before but I'd just like to be sure.

clint_silver

difficult in retrospect, marketing departments buy bundles of names from online sellers, they wouldnt necessarily have bought directly from Apple, if indeed thats there it originated from.

use a middle name letter coding system when filling out name online, sort of like "Strawberry A milkshake" for Apple, if you get your name sent back like that, you then know where it came from.

antoinolachtnai

Marketing department is supposed to be able to account for where they got the address though.

clint_silver

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Marketing department is supposed to be able to account for where they got the address though.

I agree but my point was they(the marketing dept)could have purchased from online resellers of that data and they (the resellers) don't necessarily track where they get data from, they could have harvested from several sources. The trail goes dead very quickly.

antoinolachtnai

If the address had come from Apple then Apple would have questions to answer. (Of course we don't know if that's the case.)

I have no update as yet. When I spoke to the guy yesterday, I asked him to leave a message for the marketing dept to call me. I received no phone call today so will ring them tomorrow afternoon. I'm just going to ask them where, when and what basis they have my info (as suggested by snubbleste) and follow the trail from there.

I will let you know what they say.

Humour Me

Is it possible they got your address from the delivery company and not Apple?

That is a possibility, if only the bingo people would play ball!

Just rang them there as I had heard nothing, asked for marketing dept but the guy who answered wanted to know what it was about first. Explained my previous call, waiting for callback, etc he then asked me for my name and contact number. I said i didn't mind holding if they were on a call. Then he said he would have to check with his manager first as he doesn't know their number.

So, I am waiting for them to call me back once again.