One thing you can never accuse some people of being is slow to spot the potential money-making opportunities in even the most egregious government foul-up, hence I received this by email, this morning.
Dear …
The latest bungle by government bureaucrats has potentially exposed millions of people’s personal data to fraudsters. To help uSwitch customers who may have been affected, we’ve partnered with Equifax, one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies. They can help you identify quickly and easily if someone has applied for credit using your identity for just £3.99 per month
Talk about chasing ambulances…
Glad to see you back, Unity. Hope your website problems have been sorted now.
As to the point of your post (potential money making opportunities arising from calamity), reminds me of when workers from other banks were leafletting the queues of Northern Rock customers as they lined up outside that bank to withdraw their money. I suppose that made sense: ‘you’ve just withdrawn your money from NR, and no doubt need somewhere else to put it. Here’s the leaflet for the XYZ bank.’
The spammers/phishers have not been slow off the mark either. I’m sure that more people than normal will fall for it when told that their account has been suspended due to suspect transactions – and the spammers know it.