Personal info compromise/misuse
 

I received an unsolicited email from In Residence Bangkok Sukhumvit 13 hotel offering me discounted stays for this year and recognizing a stay with them in February. I've never stayed with them nor contacted them. This email came on my second day in Thailand. My best guess at this time is an employee at one of the two hotels I stayed at is selling guest information. I had a stay at a different chain in February but cancelled it when my trip was postponed so that hotel could be the culprit. The only other source I can think of would be when I registered for the free AOT internet service at BKK. Anyone received a similar email?

Not sure we have the same information-privacy standards in Thailand you may have come to expect elsewhere. The phone company themselves sells your numbers to telemarketers - which you have to opt out of, so they can continue to sell it to a new marketer. :mad:

So you've stayed at two hotels so far? Which ones?

They could be part of the same company (as In Residence), family, organization, etc., and thus sharing contact info for direct marketing.

I fully expect that any email/telephone/contact info. I provide here (Immigration, DMV, post office, banks, phone co., etc.) gets re-purposed, so I usually use a fictitious/sole purpose email, phone.

Information privacy standards aside, is it typical in Thailand for a hotel to sell guest information to an unafilliated competitor? Doesn't seem to make much business sense to me.

The two USA chains owned chains are not related to In Residence and that doesn't explain the claim I stayed with them in February when I was still in the USA. I agree with entities like AOT etc. a throwaway address is ideal. I'm going to wait and gather a bit more info before putting out any names.

The two USA chains owned chains are not related to In Residence


Meh. These (USA chain) hotels are owned/operated by local Thai franchisees. What was the (third?) hotel you cancelled in February?

As the unsolicited email references that planned/cancelled stay, it seems like it must be related?

I can't see a single email address being worth more than 10 baht, so question your initial theory. The lasses on the street generating leads, for condo/time-shares, probably make a tad more?

Spam happens. Too many potential sources to consider. If you can mark it as spam with your email provider do so, otherwise ignore and delete it.


SL

You've never had spam from any US source before? Shocking!

Are you sure your email address plus other information wasn't hacked through your mobile phone.Maybe you had Bluetooth on there are plenty of sniffer programs being used all around the world.