Illegal or just skeezy?

[lurkyloo]

Last week I filled out an online form to request a quote for a particular product at work. Got the response the next day, wasn't up for either the price they quoted or the 30-day period they claimed to need to fill the order (if it's not in stock, you never know how long it'll actually take!) Thought no more about it...until this morning I got an email from a different company, offering to undercut the first company on both price and timeline (28 days).

This was a very specialized single inquiry; analogous to searching for a particular book on Amazon and then getting a targeted email from Barnes & Noble offering to sell me the same book at a discount off Amazon's price. It's clear from context that the second company was spying somehow--I'd guess they read the email response Company A sent, since they knew not only the product I wanted, but the price and time points I'd been quoted. WWYD? (I forwarded the Company B email back to Company A with a note that they might want to revisit their internet security.)

Remember, when they tell you not to send credit card info, etc over email because it's not secure--they're not kidding!

[ty]

I would stay with the original person you started out with, but the fact that someone from another company is spying on your computer means you need to do some computer clean up, and get some kind of Anti-Spy program so people cannot steal your personal information and start selling it to a third party or even use it for themselves.

Whenever I decide to make an online purchase, if they have no address or telephone number to call so I can place my order over the phone, then there is no sell at all going to transpire.

This isn't just sleazy, but from the way you tell it, it scary and somewhat criminal if they gained access to your personal info when you are on the internet.

[Pants]

Could be the second company is actually the same as the first company, or has a sales lead arrangement with them. It isn't necessarily that there were internet shennanigans occuring, (but could be that too).

[Wisconsin Beth]

I'd mention it to your own IT dept. and tell them you want to doublecheck your computer for spyware, after cleaning out your cookies and Internet history. See what they have to say. For example, we don't permit users to install .exe files here and we do run spybot on most of our boxes. So we'd be inclined to say that's it's likely on the other company's end too.

[alabamagal]

I'm with bschool, thinking that they may just be from the same company....or some other type of arrangement. If you don't go for the first deal, they will lower the price and disguise it as from another vendor.

[lurkyloo]

I'd assumed they were tracking the first company--that's their direct competitor. But, it's quite possible that there's a link in between, and probably a good idea to have IT check my computer for spyware (unlikely, but doesn't hurt to check). Thanks for the responses!

[lurkyloo]

Oh, and either way I'm not going to buy it--30 days leadtime means they don't have it in stock and have to make it; that's a slippery slope. Could be 30 days, could be several months.