I've ordered lots of DIY supplies from many vendors over the past few months, and only one was mailed to my boyfriend's work address. That order was from Ecigexpress. I now get lots of junk mail sent to that address, and lots of junk/spam in the email account that I also used to order from them. I've used that email address for about 5 years and it wasn't until now that my junk folder started getting hit on the daily. My boyfriend also switched jobs so his old work place is pretty irritated that mail keeps arriving addressed to an ex-employees girlfriend. ಠ_ಠ
Not sure what can be done about this, just thought I'd warn my fellow DIYers!
Tip: If you use gmail, put "+ecigvendorgoeshere" in your email address.
Example: /u/squirrelzipper+Ecigexpress @ gmail.com
This will put a label on all of your emails that you get from them. Just click labels, ecigexpress and you see all the crap they send you and all the companies they give your email to.
It's helpful when you're trying to figure out how spammers are getting your email address.
Interesting, thank you! Too late for this one, and I fortunately did use an 'old' hotmail address. I try not to use my 'real' email address for any online ordering to avoid all of this in the first place.
Thanks for the warning.
> Not sure what can be done about this, just thought I'd warn my fellow DIYers!
That's exactly what can be done about this. If they sell anything other than DIY supplies, it might be a good thing to X-post this in /r/electronic_cigarette.
Edit: EcigExpress privacy policy seems pretty long, it's quite a read. But boiled down, it looks like your personal information is used for marketing purposes, and is shared with 'trusted' third parties. From TPP: We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential.
So, basically, they say they don't and then they do. And, the 'agree to keep this information confidential' bit sounds pretty sketchy to me.
They also state somewhere in that huge privacy policy tome that when providing any information you can uncheck the box beside it to not allow the information to be shared or used for marketing.
Overall... the whole thing seems really sketchy.
I only ever purchased DIY supplies from them, but it looks like they do have lots of entry-level type devices. I shall x-post. Thank you!
You're welcome. Geeze, these guys seem to want to look like the big-box store of E-Cigs. They have a snazzier website than most, but I have come to appreciate the slightly low-tech approach of vendors who seem to be in it for the love of vaping.
They started as a DIY website. They grew pretty fast due to the fact that they became a "one stop shop" for flavors. They're also one of the few places to get large bottles of Flavourart when FA decided to stop directly supplying the vaping community (since they wanted to make their own Eliquid). The growth was enough they decided to open a retail location, but discovered that DIY by itself couldn't support a B&M, so they branched into entry level items (the bread and butter for B&Ms).
As for the website, the guy that runs it is a vaper, and big on DIY, but started life as a web developer.
Since you're from Canada, you probably won't have much use for them, but there's one section that's decent to look at (though it's not used by most people anymore). http://www.ecigexpress.com/cookbook/
I really liked being able to order several brands of flavoring from one place, and since I live in AK, their flat-rate shipping option was AWESOME as far as saving us tens of dollars (so we could buy MOAR FLAVORS!), but... being spammed makes me unhappy and they also screwed up my second order and it took three phone calls and another week of waiting to get my missing product. (bottle nipples. they sent the bottles/caps... no nipples. was not amused.)
hmmm... well, the trusted third parties to email me today have: "Revealed the first energy generator thats violates all law of physics and humiliates top scientists even after 84 years.."
The mail mail I get so far have been none other than, of course... credit card applications. They come to my name at his address. When we placed the order that was shipped to that address, it came to his name but we used my credit card. It really puzzled us at first, but we boiled it down to them. They are the only ones we had ship to that address at all.
I've ordered quite a bit from ECX, and I have not had an increase in spam or junk mail.
I've said it before, during the credit card issues that popped up, and people naming almost every website. Correlation does not mean causation.
As to Onion's comments on the privacy policy. The first part is standard verbiage. Trusted third parties will have access to the information (ie, webhost) and they have to provide it to others (credit card processor). The check mark for marketing is for internal use (you can opt out of the newsletter and emails on specials).
I believe that we should not "sound the alarm" as this post implies based on one anecdotal account. However, it is worth monitoring.
I totally understand and agree with you. I do not feel like people should steer their purchases away from them based solely on this, but to rather use a 'junk' email account if they order, and if they have any other address they can use to avoid getting hit. I am just one instance of this, and hope to see if anyone else has had the same happen with them, but this is the only company that could ever have EVER put my name together with that address.
My question is, have you contacted them?
You accuse them of selling your information, but what if their website has been compromised, or their payment processor, or their shipping partner. They may be impacted and you're the first to really find out.
Have you run a full scan on your computer to ensure you didn't pick up something.
Have you changed your hotmail password, because you may have been personally compromised. If someone gained access to your hotmail, they'd have the order receipt with the shipping address, so thus, easy to connect the dots.
I don't share ANY clients' information with my web hosts... but then, my web hosts don't even have access to some of my servers. I suppose some transaction somewhere along the line could have been compromised, even OPs box could be compromised.
I promise not to join the witch hunt... but I'm still quite put off by a lot of stuff in that privacy policy.
With as many orders as I have done with as many vendors - the ONE being sent to that address... the odds of that ONE sales receipt being the thing that was lifted from a personal email account for nothing other than spam and junk mail? I feel like compromised email is far far less likely. However, I will log a support ticket with them right now. If I receive any response, I will be glad to update this post with it. If my experience can help them identify a hole in their process, that's awesome. But there simply is no other way to have ever connected my name with that address. I did not just decide to post this on a whim with the first letter received. The mail/email started arriving at the same time right about one month after our order, and it has been a pretty steady stream over the past three months. No, I do not have hard evidence, but how is anyone to ever get hard evidence that their information was given away/sold?
I got the sense of that from your OT, which is why I jumped on the bandwagon in the first place.
Also... I was actually quite put off by the length and complication of that privacy policy. It seemed to me like obfuscation in the guise of assurance.
Still... /u/dthangel is correct, correlation is not causation. Asking them about it is the right thing to do. It will be interesting if you could post about their response.