I was looking into booking a rental car for an upcoming (overnight) mileage run in Atlanta, and after booking a rental car online, decided to sign up for Hertz #1 Club...
I was using my home computer like usual... This was not a public computer, and I'm the only person that uses this computer.
I put in all my information - name, address, credit card info, picked a password, etc, and was given a membership number...
I then decided to check if there was anything else I needed to fill in, so went back to the main page... On that page, I suddenly realized that Hertz was welcoming SOMEONE ELSE...
That was when I went to change settings and found all of the other person's information... All the information on the page was his except the password and hint, which were mine...
The person lived in Florida, not California, and the only thing we had in common was our first name...
As soon as I realized how screwed up the whole thing was, I sent off an email to the person (since I knew what his email was...) telling him what happened, and how his privacy had been violated... I gave him my phone number if he wanted to talk to me to discuss what happened... He hasn't contacted me since... He may be away for all I know... I might give him a call tomorrow to make sure he is aware of what happened...
I also called Hertz to tell them about what happened, and the reservations person I spoke with actually GASPED when I told her.... She transferred me to the web support person, who on the other hand sounded like I was an annoyance... I was told that she would fill in a report and send it to her boss...
I explained just how major a problem this could be, but she really didn't care at all... It's scary to realize that I set up a reservation online with all of my information minutes earlier, and she couldn't find any record of it... God only knows it if my confirmation went to someone else's mailbox..... Cuz I never got the confirmation email EVER...
The web support person seemed to think I was a crank call, and seemed to think that it was a total fluke... It's scary that they put no importance on this potential security problem....
She put me on hold so often, and sounded so disinterested, that I finally hung up... I figure I at least alerted them.
If they aren't even interested enough to take care of it, they're going to set themselves up for a lawsuit when someone dishonest gets into another person's account...
KevinB