A utility company sends me reminders when my bill is ready to view online, and I can't make them stop. The email contains...
- My name and home address
- My account number
- My balance due
- A link to go view my account
Only that last item is needed, if a stranger gets into my email account they don't need to see the rest.... but it gets worse.
If I click the link I only see a "soft" account page. It shows me my home address, account number, balance due BUT I AM NOT LOGGED IN. They are just trusting the fact that since I clicked the link in the email I must be the account holder. Since I am not logged in you don't see my payment info, I have to actually log in to see that, thankfully...
but it gets worse..
On that "soft" dashboard which doesn't require me to be logged in I am presented with three options, or you can log into the site and get a 4th option of giving them your info directly for a one time payment which I don't want to ever have to do, lol.
- make an immediate payment
- sign up for automatic bank payments
- sign up for automatic credit card payments
Clicking on any of those leads me to an agreement form, WHICH I DONT HAVE TO BE LOGGED IN TO ACCEPT, where I can provide the data to a third party company and pay through them(with 1.5% surcharge). It's like my own utility company site is an affiliate site, and they have 360,000 members in my area who have no choice but to use them.
Thankfully banks allow you to make one time payments directly to avoid using these options.
Scammer sites do this stuff and this is a legit utility company. They didn't do this until about 6 months ago... is anyone else seeing the same lack of concern from their own utility company?.This one doesn't want to hear about it either.
Edit: This is a legit site, I confirmed via phone when I asked them to stop emailing me the reminders or to reduce the personal info in them, to no avail. It's maddening in 2022.
