Saxo Boy

In the last 2 hours or so my email has been bombarded with offers of payday loans. In each instance the emails refer to my full name and use my email address.

There is however, a little back story to this. In early May I received an email from a guy telling me details about a motorbike he had for sale on gumtree. I scrolled down the transaction and could see that someone with the same name as me had instigated the conversation as a response to the advert and had used my email address. I emailed the seller to tell him I wasn't looking to buy a bike and that he should be vigilant. He thanked me and I didn't hear any more about it.

However, a few weeks later it appears that someone had applied to compare the market and swinton insurance for bike insurance. I probably should have acted at this point but I was busy and otherwise distracted.

Today me email has gone nuts with dozens of payday style loan companies emailing me to 'verify' my email address/account and to accept my loan, etc.

Has anyone had experience of this sort of thing. I'm struggling to gauge how concerned I should be. I can easily block the incoming emails and just ignore it. At the other end of the spectrum, I'm not sure if I should be contacting the police and potentially expending a lot of time resource to get to the bottom of it.

Advice appreciated.

Infected by sti

iTrader: (6)

I'd be inclined to run a credit search against your name and see what it comes back with, I believe it shows everything that has been applied for or is against your name. I wouldn't let it get too far as if it is something sinister and your negligent about that fact your bank may have something to say about that or whoever would be covering the discrepancy.

Saxo Boy

I spoke to Swinton insurance and tracked down the guy with the same name as me who bought a bike and arranged the insurance cover. I just had a good conversation with him and he just made a genuine mistake when buying his bike and arranging insurance.

He also confirmed that he's not been applying for payday loans or mistakenly using my email for any activity that would likely result in the 50+ emails I have received today.

It's good that I've closed of that line of enquiry but it's bad that this appears to be two isolated incidents. Anyone ever had a situation where they have been bombarded with payday loan offers in a short period of time?

CrisPDuk

It will be the insurance company that sold your details on, they and the DVLA are the worst culprits

Saxo Boy

Signed up for free Experian trial and there is no recent activity or strange activity on my credit report. The logical conclusion is that this is some epic email spamming and of limited threat.