Thailand Elite membership details leaked?

[euroflash]

I have received an email from a company that trades memberships of services such as Thailand Elite. The email was sent to my registered email address at Thailand Elite and clearly states that they know I am a member of Thailand Elite.

 

Since this is not public information, I would really like to know where they got my personal information from. This is pretty disturbing I think.

 

Below is the content of the email. I wonder if anyone else has received it as well?

---

 

Greetings from Clubresell.

 

Clubresell is a unique, simple and trusted platform providing Membership Resale Services and we have facilitated more than 100 over membership transfers globally. We specialised in reselling memberships for owners quickly, legally and easily and we always have an extensive list of buyers ready. Our resale service for membership type ranges to many different types of membership and some of our top memberships include ChindAsia Club, Singapore Island Country Club, Thailand Elite Privilege Club and many more. 

 

We noticed that you hold an old Thailand Elite membership and we would like to sell it for you. Clubresell has facilitated several Thailand Elite membership transfers and will be happy to assist you further in expediting the resale. Being one of the top transfers that we facilitated, we may have potential buyers already waiting. Kindly get back to us if you are interested as we will need to request several details before proceeding to match you with a suitable buyer. Should you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact me at +66 (0)61-584-9202.

 

Kindly reply to acknowledge receipt of this email. Thank you.

 

Regards,

Mr. Marcus Soh
(Broker and Sales Management Officer)

Clubresell.com
Mobile     :    +66 (0)61-584-9202
https://www.clubresell.com

Edited October 27, 2018 by euroflash

[canopus1969]

Simple - Thai Elite sells members details  

[euroflash]

2 minutes ago, canopus1969 said:

Simple - Thai Elite sells members details  

I certainly hope that is not the case.

[CharlieH]

Either they "traded" or "sold" email details, or their system was hacked and the info obtained without consent or permission.

 

Ask Thailand Elite ? if they claim no knowledge, its possible they were hacked and should be made aware.

[NCC1701A]

1 hour ago, euroflash said:

I would really like to know where they got my personal information from.

send a text to that phone number and ask them. see how they like it.

[euroflash]

12 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

Either they "traded" or "sold" email details, or their system was hacked and the info obtained without consent or permission.

 

Ask Thailand Elite ? if they claim no knowledge, its possible they were hacked and should be made aware.

I have forwarded the email to Thailand Elite. Will update if they provide information.

 

UPDATE: Received a very fast reply from Thailand Elite that they take this very seriously and are looking into it.

Edited October 27, 2018 by euroflash

[Esso49]

10 minutes ago, euroflash said:

I certainly hope that is not the case.

Why be surprised ? Thailand currently does not have a date protection act according to this recent article.

 

https://www.dataprotectionreport.com/2018/08/overview-of-thailand-draft-personal-data-protection-act/

 

Everything has a price  and I would suspect that them selling your data,  being an affluent TE member would be more attractive to a purchaser than say selling data of someone with only two buttons to rub together.   Banks sell your data too you know.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Esso49

[euroflash]

3 minutes ago, Esso49 said:

Why be surprised ? Thailand currently does not have a date protection act according to this recent article.

 

https://www.dataprotectionreport.com/2018/08/overview-of-thailand-draft-personal-data-protection-act/

 

Everything has a price  and I would suspect that them selling your data,  being an affluant TE member would be more attractive to a purchaser than say selling data of someone with only two buttons to rub together.   Banks sell your data to you know.

Yes, now you mention if, I do remember receiving calls from "financial advisors" who apparently knew I had an account at Bangkok Bank when I lived in Thailand.

 

But now I am not an "affluent TE member" anymore LOL. I bought that TE card many years ago when I arrived in Thailand and still had some funds to spend ????

Edited October 27, 2018 by euroflash

[Esso49]

39 minutes ago, euroflash said:

Yes, now you mention if, I do remember receiving calls from "financial advisors" who apparently knew I had an account at Bangkok Bank when I lived in Thailand.

 

But now I am not an "affluent TE member" anymore LOL. I bought that TE card many years ago when I arrived in Thailand and still had some funds to spend ????

Yes but they don't know that.  The annoying thing for me was when I first started working in Thailand, within two months I started getting calls from "financial advisors" . Obviously the HR department sold them !! And that was a French company.   Same happened when I worked for a British company. The only country in the world I have worked for an employer where this happened.  But still forewarned is forearmed.

[kekalot]

I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case, I got an email mentioning something about Bangkok Bank on my email a few days ago.

however my BKK Bank email is NOT the same email as this particular one, but the place where I get my Thailand Elite emails IS

one interesting thing you can do is setup a website and get custom emails with it setup with a catch-all

so, "thaivisa at youraddress.com", "thaielite at youraddress.com" or "transferwise at youraddress.com" .. or ANY email @ your address would ALL get funneled to your email

does not need to be setup firsthand, just any email that comes in to any address will all get sent in to the catch-all address.

then if you get spam.. you know EXACTLY who sold, shared or lost your info

it's not free but it's cheap.

Edited October 27, 2018 by kekalot

[HampiK]

5 minutes ago, kekalot said:

I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case, I got an email mentioning something about Bangkok Bank on my email a few days ago.

however my BKK Bank email is NOT the same email as this particular one, but the place where I get my Thailand Elite emails IS

one interesting thing you can do is setup a website and get custom emails with it setup with a catch-all

so, "thaivisa at youraddress.com", "thaielite at youraddress.com" or "transferwise at youraddress.com" .. or ANY email @ your address would ALL get funneled to your email

does not need to be setup firsthand, just any email that comes in to any address will all get sent in to the catch-all address.

then if you get spam.. you know EXACTLY who sold, shared or lost your info

it's not free but it's cheap.

This system I use since a very longtime. and sometimes you would be surprised which company sold emails… But till now no thai company sold any email of mine for spam reasons!

But happened 2 times with a website which I not was expecting that they sell them...

[clokwise]

I'm a TE member. I got a spam email from a different company a few months ago, it was clearly targeting me as a TE member. I just sent it to my spam folder and forgot about it until now. In fact come to think of it, I may have received several of these from various businesses over the years thanks to TE.

 

Last month I got a "free membership" card in the post for some sketchy sounding "VIP" service in BKK. It was sent to the same postal address I used for TE.

 

Honestly this hasn't bothered me, as I figured Thailand has no regulations about reselling personal data (perhaps I'm wrong). Anyway, it's so infrequent that it never really crossed my mind to get upset about it.

 

TE is probably selling our membership data to whoever is willing to pay for it.

[KittenKong]

On 10/27/2018 at 6:00 PM, canopus1969 said:

Simple - Thai Elite sells members details  

I think it's more likely to be a staff member who has copied the data and sold it on without Thai Elite knowing about it. I doubt that there is much in the way of security to stop that happening.

[farang62]

Suspect Banking staff selling personal info. for a long time!

[toolpush]

On 10/27/2018 at 7:17 PM, euroflash said:

Yes, now you mention if, I do remember receiving calls from "financial advisors" who apparently knew I had an account at Bangkok Bank when I lived in Thailand.

 

But now I am not an "affluent TE member" anymore LOL. I bought that TE card many years ago when I arrived in Thailand and still had some funds to spend ????

Want to sell it?

[Elkski]

Is a TE visa transferable?  

[toolpush]

42 minutes ago, Elkski said:

Is a TE visa transferable?  

Some of them are. TE takes a 20% transfer fee though. I believe the 20% fee is based on the original cost of the visa. I do not believe that they pro-rate the value because of diminished length of the visa over time.

[euroflash]

4 hours ago, toolpush said:

Want to sell it?

Maybe I should ???? No, I am quite happy to have it although I don't use it often these days.

[euroflash]

6 hours ago, farang62 said:

Suspect Banking staff selling personal info. for a long time!

Yes, I think that is definitely a possibility.

[Ctkong]

On 10/27/2018 at 7:12 PM, euroflash said:

I have forwarded the email to Thailand Elite. Will update if they provide information.

 

UPDATE: Received a very fast reply from Thailand Elite that they take this very seriously and are looking into it.

I think thailand elite do not sell or trade members info as a company but I wouldn’t put it pass their staff. 

22 hours ago, KittenKong said:

I think it's more likely to be a staff member who has copied the data and sold it on without Thai Elite knowing about it. I doubt that there is much in the way of security to stop that happening.

This practice is rampant in the financial world of credit cards, property developers, whereby a couple of thousand $ would buy you a list of potential customers.. even happened in Singapore and Malaysia. I am always harassed with phone calls from real estate agents who somehow got my mobile number from somewhere... but at least it shows you are a high net worth person that warrant unsolicited attention. 

[mike324]

Thai staff who works in phone companies and real estate industries are known to sell mailing lists to potential buyers such as advertisement companies.