Home Depot will send hundreds of emails to wrong customers

Home Depot will send hundreds of emails to wrong customers

Too bad! Home Depot Canada has been red-flagged after sending hundreds of order receipt notices to the wrong people.

"Um. I'm pretty sure I got a reminder email for literally every online order currently available for pickup at Home Depot stores in Canada," Toronto graduate student Spencer Moncton tweeted yesterday (October 28). Over 660 emails." Something is wrong." (This story was first reported by Bleeping Computer.)

"This is a very serious data breach, affecting at least 900 consumers, not just those picking up in stores," tweeted Bethany Frances of London, Ontario. tweeted. 'My online order was sent to 300 people and I received online orders from 43 others. Names, home addresses, order information, and credit card information were all shared :("

As for credit card information, according to Bleeping Computer, only the last four digits of the card number were included in the emails. Many of the emails contained the address of the Home Depot store where the order should be picked up, but some also contained the customer's home address.

Affected Home Depot Canada customers did not face much extra risk as a result of these emails. Fraudsters can't do much with a mere four-digit credit card number. It is possible, but unlikely, that some of the recipients of this flood of e-mails will forward them to spammers who can harvest e-mail addresses.

Still, this was quite embarrassing for Home Depot, and the company's Canadian division quickly produced a boilerplate explanation, if not an apology, for everyone who tweeted a complaint about the e-mail message.

"Thank you for contacting us. We are aware of what happened this morning and can confirm that this issue has now been corrected," said multiple identical Home Depot Canada tweet replies. 'This issue affected a very small number of customers who placed in-store pickup orders. If you have any other questions, please contact us via DM."

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