Just had someone set up an M&S account using my email

kinger8938 · 2 Jan 2019 at 22:40

Got an email come through from M&S welcoming "John" (I'm Matt) to their new account.

I thought it may be a dodgy email so check Google, and then went to M&S and selected forgot password to see if it would email me a link to reset it etc, and it did. So I reset it so I could sign in and potentially lock them out. They used the name John Wick (like the film I guess)

Why has this happened

I rang M&S and got through to someone saying this has been happening a lot. They asked what name it was under, I said John "something" and he followed up with Wick, so I guess its a legit thing that's been happening.. but he did sound a bit off.. God knows.

He can't close it directly, said he would flag it up with my email address and it will get sorted.

Anyway just ranting really, and wondering why they do these things? What's the benefit?

Semple · 2 Jan 2019 at 22:45

I've had this a few times with some sites. All I do is a password reset so whomever tried to set it up no longer has access to it.

Why they do this... Who knows, unless they're trying to defraud M&S in some way and just have your email registered to the account.

kinger8938 · 2 Jan 2019 at 22:47

Semple said:
I've had this a few times with some sites. All I do is a password reset so whomever tried to set it up no longer has access to it.

Why they do this... Who knows, unless they're trying to defraud M&S in some way and just have your email registered to the account.

Yeah I'm not too concerned as it's just an email essentially, they don't have any of my details etc but it does give me a slight bit of anxiety about internet security and what not

Glad it's happened to others then ^ and sounds like changing the password was the correct step too

Pawnless Endgame · 2 Jan 2019 at 23:55

A few years ago, I had an email from O2 saying that an iPhone was on its way to me, but to a London address. I live 120 miles away in Stafford. I went to the Stafford O2 shop to have that email checked and I was advised to cancel all of my cards, so I did that. Then 2 days later, I had a call from O2 to say that the email was actually legit and the person ordering the iPhone had the same name as me and used my [email protected] address by mistake. Sounds like it's a similar issue to the OP.

itchy · 3 Jan 2019 at 00:05

Hacking is rampant at the moment, not sure why but use different email addresses set up different accounts. Change passwords all the time and use either a VPN or TOR.

I am using two sim cards at the moment as I use my internet through my phone.

LeeUK · 3 Jan 2019 at 10:45

I get people signing up to things using my GMail address all the time. Best one was someone used it for some gym membership, so I reset the password and logged in. Turns out they had their credit card details on file so I booked them in for $500 worth of classes. Needless to say the emails stopped after a few days.

Mujja · 3 Jan 2019 at 10:55

I see this a lot on my old hotmail accounts. I log in a couple of times a year and the inbox is full of order acknowledgements and receipts. I usually reset the passwords and login to see the profiles have real addresses and sometimes shipped orders.

Most sites will send a verification email to complete the registration but online shops just let you create an account without verifying the email address.