We're being watched while we shop ....

[Baggywrinkle]

Had a spooky experience last week.

On Friday, around lunchtime I shortlisted about 9 online chandleries to supply a Chartplotter and a DSC AIS VHF. The prices were all pretty close so it came down to delivery costs.

I live in Germany so these can vary considerably when ordering from the U.K. - yes even with the strength of the pound I've saved approx €100 by ordering from the U.K.

Anyway, delivery costs can be a bit hard to come by, only being quoted on some sites at the final payment stage of an order (plus any hidden credit card charges) - so I started filling virtual shopping baskets and 'proceeding to the checkout' on various web sites to get a final price - then abandonig the order without actually placing it.

Anyway, about 4 sites in I get a direct e-mail from the sales manager at Storrar Marine Ltd. (marinechandlery.com) in Newcastle. He politely informs me that the items are in stock and available for immediate delivery and supplies a phone number and contact details.

After checking a few other sites there wasn't a huge amount in it and I was down to 3. I added a remote mic, and a flush mount kit and due to his cheek I placed the order with Storrar Marine.

After lunch I wondered if the MIC and flush mount kit were also in stock - too late now, the order was placed - so I phoned him up.

The conversation went along the lines of ...

Me: "Hi, it's Mr. X here I just placed an online order for a CP300 and a GX2100E .... "

Storrar: " Ah yes Mr. X, I noticed ... thank-you for the order."

Me: "I was just wondering, do you also have the MIC and Flush mount kit in stock"

Storrar: "Yes, we did. The order is dispatched - you should be receiving a tracking number in the next couple of hours."

Me: "Oh, ... that was quick .. thanks!!!"

Sure enough the tracking number came through and I watched its progress 'till it arrived all present and correct on Tuesday. All for a delivery cost of £16.99

I'm used to Amazon getting stuff through the letterbox in record time, but this was a bit out of the ordinary in that the company are obviously monitoring browsing habits and sending out e-mails to potential customers - the virtual equivalent of shop owners asking if they can help you I suppose.

Anyway ... very pleased with Storrar Marine (marinechandlery.com) - and with the Standard Horizon kit.

 

[Mirror Painter]

Do they sell flags?

 

[elioti]

Do they sell flags?

 

[Lundylad]

I was looking and comparing boat insurance on the net when I had a call from one of the companies I had just been looking at.
The call went something like this, we see you have been looking for insurance can we help you in any way.
What I should have said was yes I liked your policy but they were a little expensive, what can you do for me.
A work colleague did that with car insurance, said he had found a cheaper policy and they said they would better it.
Big brother is not just watching us.

On that note has anybody had a passport interview recently, they almost know what you had for breakfast that day.

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

Good reason to never post your phone number on the Internet until you place an order.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Good reason to never post your phone number on the Internet until you place an order.

...or never ever at all for any reason at any time to anyone never ever at all. Ever.

 

[Magaz97]

Storrar Marine are my local chandlery. Always get excellent service from them.

 

[Salty John]

I had an email from someone looking to buy our Tiller-Hand. I replied that it was discontinued and explained that we had lost our injection moulding tool and had decided not to invest in another. Since then I have been inundated with spam from China trying to sell me a moulding tool.
I know 'they' watch our browsing but I didn't think they could access private email!

 

[ffiill]

Sure everyone realises they are being watched when they Google.
Google automatically checks and back tracks your ISP details so as to promote sites in your locality.
In my case of course they never get it right-only once ever did they get as far as Inverness .
Usually its Glasgow or Edinburgh;occasionally Skipton in Yorkshire and once only Los Angeles!
Far more annoying is that Google used to promote sites internationally so if you looked for sailing gear you were just as likely to get a US dot com site.
More recently UK sites dominate -you can access Google Australia;Germany;NZ etc easily but even now that Google will allow UK users to again acess google dot com some UK advertisers still dominate the searches.
You are effectively having your search manipulated by the advertisers.

 

[Neil_Y]

I was advised by an insurance company to fill in a random phone number in the online request for quotation form if I didn't want to be phoned up emmediately after (if I was just price checking) trouble is some other poor person would get the call and the form needed a number to continue the quotation.

We track visits to pages on our website and it is sometimes useful to see which companies are looking at what pages, in some cases we will call to check people are happy with the information they've got. We also get to see the competitors browsing through our pages, how long they stay on each page if they are returning visitors or new.

 

[prv]

I was advised by an insurance company to fill in a random phone number in the online request for quotation form if I didn't want to be phoned up emmediately after (if I was just price checking) trouble is some other poor person would get the call

On the Internet, there are domains which are guaranteed to be invalid for testing and demonstration purposes. One should always use one of these if entering a deliberately invalid email address, as otherwise you may either send spam to a random real account or increase the load on the central master DNS servers as they have to tell every spammer who tries to use the address that there is no such domain. Formally-invalid ones are rejected earlier before reaching the higher-up systems.

There isn't quite the same infrastructure for phone numbers, but there are ranges set aside for dummy numbers used in TV dramas etc. There's a list of them somewhere on BT's site; google for "drama phone numbers" would probably find them. Might be worth using one of these for insurance quotes that you don't want followed up.

Pete

 

[Vara]

Similar thing happened when I was shopping for new leisure batteries.
I had opened a shopping cart but not ordered, got phone call asking why not, I explained shipping charge was too high, it was waived and I got further discount on batteries all done in a pleasant no hassle way, goods were delivered next day.(Tayna).

 

[penfold]

I had an email from someone looking to buy our Tiller-Hand. I replied that it was discontinued and explained that we had lost our injection moulding tool and had decided not to invest in another. Since then I have been inundated with spam from China trying to sell me a moulding tool.
I know 'they' watch our browsing but I didn't think they could access private email!

How do you lose a mould tool? The mould tools I'm familiar with are huge and heavy blocks of steel. Was it lost by a contractor who did the moulding?

 

[alan_d]

I had an email from someone looking to buy our Tiller-Hand. I replied that it was discontinued and explained that we had lost our injection moulding tool and had decided not to invest in another. Since then I have been inundated with spam from China trying to sell me a moulding tool.
I know 'they' watch our browsing but I didn't think they could access private email!

I'm pretty sure you mentioned, either here or on your website, that you had had it nicked, so perhaps your private email is still safe.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I had an email from someone looking to buy our Tiller-Hand. I replied that it was discontinued and explained that we had lost our injection moulding tool and had decided not to invest in another. Since then I have been inundated with spam from China trying to sell me a moulding tool.
I know 'they' watch our browsing but I didn't think they could access private email!

Well, I recall that you did post that on the forum here as well. As this site is well thought of by Google, I'm not surprised!

"They" can access your email if they so wish - but "They" are the likes of GCHQ, not Chinese entrepreneurs. See THIS for some ideas as to how "They" might be doing it.

 

[Salty John]

Yes, I mentioned it on here at the same time I blogged about it, May 2011. I'm talking about the immediate response to an email exchange in the past two weeks. Too much of a coinicidence. The extent of snooping at a commercial, retail, level is greater than I had thought.

 

[GruffT]

There isn't quite the same infrastructure for phone numbers, but there are ranges set aside for dummy numbers used in TV dramas etc. There's a list of them somewhere on BT's site; google for "drama phone numbers" would probably find them.

Ever noticed how all phone numbers in U.S. films / TV have the numbers 555 in them somewhere.......

 

[GruffT]

"They" can access your email if they so wish - but "They" are the likes of GCHQ, not Chinese entrepreneurs.

I'm sure some cryptologist / network boffin will be along in a sec to say I'm talking drivel but as email traffic is unencrypted, anyone who can snoop packets from a major internet switch could, with some effort, listen to most email traffic...

Lesson - email ain't private... If you're really bothered - look up GPG or similar.

Although - that said.... http://www.satirewire.com/news/aug02/encryption.shtml

 

[AndyL]

Thanks Baggywrinkle for the compliments and the business. We don't actually monitor browsing habits except for Google Analytics, but time permitting, we do look at incomplete orders to see if we can help. It rarely works!

Andy
Marinechandlery

 

[prv]

Ever noticed how all phone numbers in U.S. films / TV have the numbers 555 in them somewhere.......

Yes, I think they had the idea first. But theirs is obvious - the 555 area code - whereas BT have various ranges of landline, mobile and premium dummy numbers set aside so it can be more realistic.

Pete