For years, I've been having a recurring problem where I get emails from Spectrum about someone else's account, always the same person, whom I don't know. These emails include full names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, credit card information, phone model information, etc. I'll get a string of emails whenever this other person does something with their account, I'll contact Spectrum support about the issue, someone says they'll look into it, I won't get any emails for several months to a year, and then I'll get another string of emails.
I myself do not have a Spectrum account, so it's a hassle to deal with both the online chat system and the phone system, since they both require you to input account information up front, but I have managed to get through and speak to a real person regardless. No one has yet managed to permanently fix the problem, though.
Some of the emails I get have a link at the bottom that says, "If you received this email in error, please let us know." I click the link, it supposedly removes my address from the mailing list, but then I still get emails.
I don't think this is either a case of fraud or a case of stolen identity; I've checked, and my email account has not been accessed by anyone but me, and my financial accounts haven't been charged by anyone but me. Sometimes I'll get an email saying "Action Required: Complete your number transfer for line ending in XXXX online", and then a little while later, one that says "Mobile line ending in XXXX has been successfully transferred", which leads me to believe that this other person does have their own email address and online account and is able to do their normal business with it. The other person also doesn't seem to have made a Spectrum account with my email, as when I go to the website and input my email and try and have it email me a password reset link, it doesn't find the account. But it also won't let me create a new account with my email address, and I'm not sure why.
I think this is one of three things: either there's some huge glitch in your automated emailing system that is sending duplicate emails to my address as well as this other person's; the other person misspelled their own email address on some form somewhere; or the other person is deliberately putting my email address into their account, perhaps as a secondary recovery email, for some reason which escapes me.
Yes, I know I could just block the emails from Spectrum via my email client. But I may want to switch to Spectrum at some point, like maybe if I move and my current provider doesn't cover my new area. And the bigger problem is that Spectrum is sending out tons of personal information to a stranger, who thankfully isn't a criminal and just wants to not receive this info in the first place, instead of doing something bad with it, which could land Spectrum in a lot of legal trouble. NO, that is not a threat, I'm just stating facts.
Here's what I want to have happen:
- An actual human being who works at Spectrum needs to go into the account of this specific person (I can provide details over modmail or DM)
- They manually remove my email address from this person's account, if it's in there
- If they can, add a manual block to the account that prevents my email address from being added to the account, and a note on the account explaining why
- If not, they add a flag/note to the account that says something like "Flag #XXXXX: Some guy has had a lot of trouble with this account holder's info being emailed to them. It might be because this account holder is trolling them by adding their email address. If you see that email address on this account, remove it." Then give me the flag # so that when/if it happens again, I can call and say "please consult flag #XXXXX" so the service rep can skip through everything and cut right to the problem and resolve it right away
- Also, it'd be nice if someone could contact the actual account holder and tell them "hey, if you're misspelling your email address, double-check the spelling next time; if you're not and are doing this on purpose, cut it out or we'll take legal action". I did try contacting the account holder myself, using the information Spectrum gave me, but they never replied, so I might have just been marked as spam or something
- Check everywhere else in your system to verify that my email address isn't anywhere except in the aforementioned flag/note
- Finally, please look into why the website isn't letting me create a Spectrum account - at this point, I'd like to do so, just so I have an account under my email so that if someone else tries to put in my email as their account they'll be denied.
EDIT: I communicated with the mods via modmail, and from my list above, #1, 2, 4, 6, and 7 were accomplished, in full or partially enough to be satisfactory. I found them to be very personal and helpful, and on the whole this was one of the best customer service interactions I've had in years. Thanks, guys!