Banking: UK banks resort to unsolicited e-mail to market their services

Amongst the marketing companies is TheCleverZone.Co.UK (news@cleverzone.org.uk or sales@thecleverzone.co.uk) which is marketing NatWest mortgages ": 2.19% Natwest tracker mortgage | Loans from 7.5% APR"

A few days ago, the same company was promoting balance transfer for Barclaycard
Another marketing companies is askfind.co.uk (balancetransfers@askfind.co.uk or info@askfind.co.uk). They claim in each of their mails "You have received this email fromAskfind.co.uk because you registered to receive third-party email advertisements from one of its partners" - and invites the victim (for all recipients of spam are victims) to contact them "learn more about this" - when to do so merely confirms that the spam has been delivered.

"This email was sent to you by Askfind Incorporated of 64 Borough High Street, London Bridge, London, SE1 1XF, which is an affiliate of Nationwide, rather than by Nationwide directly." Nationwide Building Society is, apparently, offering "Nationwide gold credit card offers a competitive balance transfer rate, plus a great range of benefits too:
- 0% on balance transfers for 15 months
- 0% on all new purchases for 3 months
- Commission free purchases abroad**
- Peace of mind with Nationwide Fraud Watch"
- Free extended warranty on many gas and electrical products

At the end of November, certifiedtop.co.uk (eggcard@certifiedtop.co.uk ) mailed with the sender's name shown as Egg Card and, also, offering zero interest on balance transfers. The spam says "You have registered to receive our emails through one of our partners with IP address on . This email is brought to you by an independent marketing company, not from the advertiser directly. We only send authorised communication." They did not quote an IP address nor the date that the sentence appears to imply should be there.

Their address? CertifiedTop - 64 Borough High St, London Bridge, SE1 1XF. A spam in similar terms had been despatched just a week earlier.

The UK's weak anti-spam laws provide, amongst other things, that spam sent to a commercial e-mail address is not to be regarded as spam. However, the reasoning behind that is that to ban all unsolicited marketing communication between businesses would harm the B2B trade. However, all of the products currently being marketed are consumer products and even if strictly within the law, certainly outside the spirit of it.

Of course, it is possible that the banks are themselves in some way a victim and have not authorised this method of marketing.

There is one saving grace: unlike the phishing scams the e-mails referred to above do not carry malicious payload nor to they take victims to a website where either a drive-by virus attack or a phishing action takes place.

And it's not just in the UK: a spam from South Africa says "This email is compliant with the Electronic Communications Act. You are receiving this email as an OPT-IN Subscriber of Secrets2Success." Absolutely not: info@familycover.co.za but using a server at marulamail.info suggests "Get up to R50,000 Funeral Cover with ASSURE by Momentum!" and says "Momentum is an authorised financial services and credit provider." Available only to residents of South Africa where this group of companies has no people.