Finding Home Address From Email

[Luzzly]

My friend emailed Heinz complaining about one of their products. She did not post her address, yet they sent her a complimentary coupon through the post. How can they find her address like this?

[Jomlett]

Google or Hotmail won't know but If your email is provided by your ISP then your ISP naturally knows your address and phone number, but they will not divulge that information to just anyone. Thing is, ISPs will only provide the information related to email or IP addresses in response to legal action or a court order. So how long after emailing did they reply by post?

[Buenchico]

Because some people fraudulently complain to manufacturers and stores about products which had nothing wrong with them (or which they never even bought), seeking to get freebies, those manufacturers and stores keep records of all complaints and often share their databases.

So your friend's email address will have been entered into such a database to check that she wasn't, for example, making hundreds of complaints every month. Simply entering '[email protected]' will then have shown that that email address was used by Mrs Agnes Bloggs when she made a complaint to (say) Asda last year, resulting in Asda asking for her postal address so that they could compensate her for her loss. Her postal address will then have been added to the database.

[Luzzly]

She emailed on the Sunday, they read it Monday and the voucher arrived on Tuesday!

[jno]

that's very interesting, thanks, Buenchico.

Good for Heinz, anyway.