timrob40

Back in 2020 I started to receive reservation emails at my email address which were intended for other Hilton guests not known to me. These were all sent to the email address I registered with Hilton and which I use for all my dealings with them. I reported their misuse of my email address immediately to Hilton's Data Protection Team at the time, and after a long drawn-out exchange of emails they assured me that they had resolved the problem, although they never explained how. Things went quiet until July this year when again I started to receive misdirected emails from Hilton, this time providing upgrade notifications for a number of guests staying at a Hilton property in Beirut Lebanon. I received further such emails in August and September this year. Again I emailed Hilton's Data Protection Team using the address provided in Hilton's data privacy policy. I received an automated acknowledgement promising a response but I got no reply so I chased them a month later and again got no reply. I then took to X and have exchanged 15 frustrating messages with different Hilton agents who take no ownership for resolving this at all. They told me that the problem probably lay with the Beirut Hotel who would contact me within 5-7 business days - they didn't. Then they told me to contact Hilton's Data Protection Team - I explained I already did that numerous times and had received no reply. Then this process was repeated by other agents and it's just going round in circles and driving me crazy. I am very uncomfortable that more than 3 years since the problem was first reported to them Hilton is still using my email address to confirm details of reservations made by strangers (and I guess those guests wouldn't be pleased to know that I had received certain details of their stays either). Hilton's repeated failure to grab this matter and resolve it is unbelievable. Of course every message from Hilton comes with the usual words about how they value me as a Diamond member etc, but those words ring hollow and just add to my frustration when all I want them to do is own the problem and fix it once and for all. I don't know if Hilton monitor these threads but if they do I wish they would deal with this thing so I don't need to waste any more hours on it. And if anyone has ideas for what else I might do to resolve this problem they'd be very welcome. I guess in the end I'll need to report this formally to the UK Data Commissioner on the basis that Hilton has consistently refused to engage meaningfully to fix their mishandling of my personal data. More wasted hours and frustration ahead...

Schnit

It's weird that 2 accounts can use the same email address. Does one have a period or other marking that Gmail ignores?

If so, try and do a password reset. Once that other person can't access their account they will be none too pleased and it will become their issue to deal with

timrob40

Hilton thought they had tracked down some of the reservations that were causing the problem and told me that my email address was not associated with those. This doesn't explain how I received the reservations for these guests however. Hilton suggested it may be a problem with mailing lists at the hotel in question, although the mails are coming from Hilton centrally and not from the property. Hilton now seem to have abandoned their investigations so I have no idea what happened, and have no confidence that the problem won't recur. Hopeless.

Tocsin

Sounds like this is one where Hilton Honors Ambassador may be able to help?

Ghentleman

Have you tried contacting the people the emails are intended for? After all you've done so far that would be allowable. They are the ones being most impacted by this, for you, it's just a slight inconvenience...

the810

I would just contact the relevant data protection authority in your jurisdiction and let them deal with it. It's their job, and they will no doubt get more attention from the relevant departments at Hilton than you have.

wantan

1. Is the sender address "[email protected]"

If the answer is no to the first question, then don't bother with the rest.

2. Are the stays for the same hotel ?
3. Are the stays for the same people ?
4. Do the emails contain name/Honors points like a normal Hilton booking ?

htran88

Had this issue awhile back at an Embassy Suite in Chicago. Contacted the hotel about the mistake. I can't remember exactly what was said/done but it was something along the lines of they checked into the same room I did previously or something absurd. Hasn't happened since though.

timrob40

Thanks for the responses. The Hilton Ambassador has now contacted me so I'm hopeful this will finally get resolved. If not then as suggested I will contact the Data Protection Authority in the UK where I am based. Regarding the questions above... I don't have email addresses for the intended recipients of the latest batch of emails I received, just their first names. These were all 'You've been upgraded' notifications from the same Hotel (a different Hotel to the misdirected emails I received when this problem first occurred back in 2020) and the emails were intended for a number of different guests, not just one. They were sent from [email protected]

sdsearch

Perhaps their last or first names were similar to yours?

Since our company was bought by a big conglomerate of companies, and our email list expanded to include people at all of those other co-owned companies, I started occasionally receiving emails that were clearly meant for someone else at a different division of our conglomerate, presumably because the sender was using auto-complete without checking that it auto-completed correctly. Our email system has auto-complete.

I've also received physical mail sent to other people by AAA to my physical mailbox at a local UPS Store, and I think it's the same problem with auto-complete, this time of mailing addresses.

You should ask if Hilton reservation systems at hotels have an auto-complete, because if they do and are using it incorrectly, Hilton should either abolish it or put some safeguards in it so that they can't accidentally send something to the wrong person just because of an auto-complete mistake.

notquiteaff

Post-stay forward the emails to Diamond Customer Service and ask for stay credit and points