karenkay

had a great experience with web support friday night--agent was competent, friendly, understood what i was asking him to do and did it, correctly.

we had pleasant banter during the 20 minute phone call, he learned i was married. ('so, you're traveling with StinkyCheese, is that your son?' no, my husband. etc.) and he mentioned he was 'not yet married.' it was a chatty, friendly conversation. at the end of the call, i asked for his first name again, 'cause he'd done such a nice job, and i wanted to thank him by name. it's a very unique name, at least in the western world, and he spelled it out for me.

i booked two tickets using an e-cert, so he has my all my info.

yesterday, i got an email from someone with the same first name. the subject was 'hi.' and the entire text was 'hi...hows u???' if the agent's name wasn't so unique, i'd just have written it off as spam, but... i googled the email address and came up with a picture and an entry on a dating site, and there are two guys with that name on facebook.

in general, i'm of the 'nothing ventured nothing ventured' way of thinking, and figure he's young and is just sending out a trial balloon to see if he might get a hit. on the other hand, though, he does have all my info and i'm a little creeped out--but only a little. i'm sure united would take a dim view of this, but as long as it's a one-off and my credit card doesn't go on walkabout, i'm inclined to just ignore it.

other than not responding to the email, should i bother to do anything? would you?

snod08

Wow. This is a new one for me.

I would be wary at the very least. Watch your credit cards closely.

If it really bothers you, I guess you could call UA and complain officially saying that their agents are (mis)using your personal data.

schley

IMO it is no big deal. Although I'm a guy and I would think it would be different for a girl, perhaps. If you are curious respond and see what happens.

EDIT: I reread it and found out you are married. This is inappropriate IMO if he knows you are married.

TheBagman

He should be fired, plain and simple. I say this mostly because he will continue to do this and violate the privacy of more women as time goes on, especially if incidents like this go away silently. Any other response (except remaining silent) might make him mad AND still allow him to screw with your account or others. What happens when someone calls him who lives a few miles away? Is he going over to their house? Depends on the individual.

I hope this is a lesson learned. There are a lot of men out there who are socially inept and lonely (or possibly just animals with no respect for women). They will often interpret irregular cheerfulness/friendliness or things like your asking of his personal information (his name and spelling) as romantic interest, despite all common sense. It is an unfortunate reality.

Are women supposed to never be friendly on the phone? No, but they can be more careful. I wouldn't be outside my rights to walk through gang-land LA at 2am on a Saturday night, despite knowing it was filled with idiot, intoxicated predators with machine guns. In the end it would be my own disregard for the real-world reality that left me filled with bullet holes. Edit(add): In the same way, I wouldn't get all chatty with a low level call-center person. I'd keep it simple and professional.

ozstamps

Too many maybe's in the OP for me.

nycvisitor

It is a sad world you are living in...
OP has no proof that the e-mail came from agent in the first place and you are encouraging her to have someone fired. I'd be curious to see you getting fired over a bunch of maybe's

TheBagman

I mistakenly thought it went without saying that an employee should be subject to some form of due process by the employer prior to being fired because of a third party allegation. Consider it stated.

To me, it smells like a duck, so I'm going to philosophize abstractly based on that assumption for now.

FormerAmtrakTraveler

I don't think people are asking for this person to get fired blindly. It would be a short and simple investigation for United to check if this person has the personal email address that sent karenkay the email.

At minimum, I agree with snod08 that you should watch any data United has on you closely, and frankly I would notify United to investigate as precaution. Tell them both sides, the dude was extremely helpful and you're not really sure but there's a chance he sent you a personal email and that's worrying you.

I don't want to freak anyone out, but getting your identity stolen is a massive hole to dig out of. Have not had it directly happen to me but have seen it as close as you can w/o having it happen to me directly. It's little clues that get ignored and before you know it something more nasty has happened.

Also, if (and I understand it's if but again it's a simple short investigation to confirm) this would be a very serious breach of United's privacy policy and the FTC would be all over this if true.

Maxwell Smart

+1 to these comments.

Also, one other thing to consider- while the name may be unique in Western context, is it possible it's a common name in other parts of the world? If it is, consider the possibility that it could just be a coincidence. I, for one, get a lot of junk mail (even things similar to what the OP got) with the 'sender' showing up as a common first name in various parts of the world.

On the other hand, if it is confirmed that the sender IS the web support individual, then in my opinion, just firing him isn't good enough.

sinoflyer

I assume the agent is from an ICC. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt: he is young, probably smitten and meant no harm. I'll assume further that he doesn't understand the seriousness of his action, and how that might affect his job. Therefore, I think it would be enough to just simply not respond to his email. He should get the message and move on. If he sends a second email, then I would report the situation to UA.

He has already done something that is grounds for dismissal, but I'd give him a chance because a job like this might mean a lot to people over there, wherever he is.

OTOH, this says something about OP's personality and communication skills!

honmani2

There's a certain level of naivete on the part of the UA staff. After all, while he does have the OP's personal info (and anyone who works for a credit card company, Borders, etc., etc.), is he oblivious to the fact that the OP knows enough to get him into trouble?

karenkay

thanks to everyone for the advice. were he my employee, and he actually did what i think he did, i'd fire him. since i'm guessing he needs the job, and am hoping it's a one-off, i intend to do nothing, unless i get another email or something goes wonky with my credit card.

there's a reason i'm referred to in some circles as her magnificentness.

this was my thought as well.

i'm going to write it up as a youthful indiscretion and do nothing, as long as my credit card, etc. remain normal. as an fyi, there are currently THREE charges pending on my chase visa for the tickets, rather than two...but until those charges clear, chase can't do anything about them, and they may well 'drop off' before becoming actual charges, according to the chase agent. maybe he wasn't so competent after all.

FlyingDoctorwu

It's a little creepy I must say.. definitely crosses a number of lines/boundaries...

But, you can always use and cultivate this for your own benefit.. imagine having someone at UA who can willingly help you out...

FDW

cfield

Yikes, I would be really weirded out if someone did this to my wife! Keep a close eye on those charges and your other info, and contact United asap if anything odd happens. Thanks for the reminder to always be careful.

snic

UA's web support team, IIRC, is in India. Which makes the OP's experience sound like an episode of Outsourced.