UPS

[seekermeister]

While checking the tracking on a package I'm expecting via UPS, I saw an offer to register for an system, which sends an alert the day before delivery. That sounded like a good idea, but at the end of the registration, it asked about the relationship with an estranged brother of mine, with which I haven't had contact with for years. It also asked about streets that I had previously lived on, before I ever became a UPS customer.

I found it quite unsettling that UPS has, uses or needs such information to accomplish their normal business? It also makes me wonder how the information might be used otherwise? Has anyone else run into this before?

EDIT: Odd! Right after posting this, I received an email from UPS acknowledging my registration, though I had not finished the page with the questions that I mentioned. It certainly appears to be an integral part of registration, but if so, I shouldn't have received the acknowledgement yet.

 

[fseal]

The amount of information about you out there for anyone to access with just a little bit of money is frightening. There are several on line services which for a few dollars will allow you to look that information up about yourself or ANY ONE ELSE.

All current and former addresses, marriage status, income, birth date, relatives names and in a lot of cases several of your on line aliases, links to forums and websites you go to. All that information and much much more is available to anyone that wants it for as little as $15 or so and there is nothing anyone can do to stop or block it.

People should be insanely up in arms about this... and they might be if they only knew...

[Edit] Places you currently work or have worked in the past... it goes on [/edit]

 

[seekermeister]

Yes, I am aware of the ability to find information on people, but I still don't understand UPS's need for this info. The page says:

Maintaining the security and integrity of your shipments is extremely important to UPS. To prevent others from fraudulently redirecting your packages, please verify your identity by answering the following questions.

That statement makes sense in itself, but for anyone to redirect a package, they would have to know about it in the first place, and I doubt that is possible. One of the streets that it listed for me, which I never lived on, is the street where some people who had stolen my identity had lived, but that was ~ 7 years ago, and I would be very surprised if they were continuing to use my name to ship/receive packages with UPS today.

 

[fseal]

Ok what's even scarier is that they have WRONG information about you :/ How does one get that fixed in the thousand databases of information about your scattered around the world?

I can easily see them wanting some secondary authentication info from you for a web transaction. What's scary is how much info they already have and worse that there are consumer services selling that info back to the public at large :/ And of course the more people that have it, the more likely for it to be hacked into the open.

 

[seekermeister]

What is even more odd is the fact that I have two estranged brothers, but it only lists one of them and not the other. I suppose that he could be dead, but it did list his address.

 

[arkhi]

I don't ever remember getting this big of a breach when registering with UPS. The most they asked me was my address and that's it.

 

[seekermeister]

I don't ever remember getting this big of a breach when registering with UPS. The most they asked me was my address and that's it.

Things change.

 

[maxseven]

I found it quite unsettling that UPS has, uses or needs such information to accomplish their normal business? It also makes me wonder how the information might be used otherwise? Has anyone else run into this before?

I'm registered with UPS, and needed to confirm my info earlier this year (because I hadn't logged-on in a while) but they've never asked such odd questions of me. Very interesting.

But I would say that "alerts" are not a good enough reason to register with them, what with online tracking being as accurate as it is these days. At least, not unless you get many multiple packages, or do some considerable shipping with them e.g. you run an eBay business out of your home or something. Otherwise it's simply enough to enter the tracking number and see that it's "Scheduled for delivery Dec 1" or "On truck for delivery today" etc.

 

[seekermeister]

I delayed submitting the information requested while pondering the situation. When I decided to go ahead, it continued to say that there was an error of some kind. I guess that it would be necessary to go through the registration process again, but at this point, I'm not inclined to do so.

 

[fseal]

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if when you went through the questions again that they don't feed your "confirmations" back to the company that they got the info from in the first place for them to strengthen their database :/ They may get a $$ kickback for providing even more info about you to them.

I was initially kind of down on the draconian EU privacy policies, but these days... I'm not sure they go far enough.

The fact is, no company of any kind, any where, should be allowed to store, handle or use your information in any way without /specific/ consent. And that consent should be PER USE. Companies that deal in nothing but personal information should not and could not exist. Any info you give to one company by consent should /by law/ not be shared with ANYONE else.

All the behind the back buying and selling of personal info has gotten way out of hand.