A New One For Me.

[Jackdaw33]

Received a call on my mobile today. An Asian (natch) lady asked for me by my first name and said she was calling from some on-line pharmacy, that they had just bought my details and noticed that I was on repeat prescriptions. I terminated the call but my concern is, who sold them my medical details? Surely not the NHS or my local pharmacy. Anyone else had something similar?

[Flonska]

Have a read of this:-

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/phil-booth/is-government-telling-us-truth-about-gdpr-and-your-nhs-medical-data

it may give you some answers . . .

[rowanwitch]

All they need is an age, they can guess most people over 60 are on something on repeat.

[Jackdaw33]

It is the 'bought your details' bit that I am curious about. I don't know what their game is, or how they make money, but if I want a repeat prescription I ring the surgery who forward it electronically to my local pharmacy who within 24 hours will deliver it to my front door. What could be simpler or better than that?

[woofgang]

I don't belive they did "buy your details" from the NHS. The best that Flonska's linked site can scare us with is that it would in theory be possible to indetify a mother of two by her children's birth dates. I think its a new kind of scam. As someone who worked on patient data sharing within the NHS, I'd love it if they phoned me, firstly because I have no repeat prescriptions and secondly because I would want to know more about how they got hold of my data and what they hold....notice she asked YOU for your name, basically she had nothing except a number for you that could have been generated by a random dialler.

[Jackdaw33]

She didn't ask me for my name, she said, "Can I speak to (my first name)? I will make further enquiries, not that I am bothered, as I am very streetwise. I would like to know, though, how they can provide a better service than most local pharmacies.

[retrocop]

I expect it is those sites in Mumbai where you buy those little blue pills,cheap and no questions asked, are the culprits JD? :-)

[Jackdaw33]

...and, as has been suggested above, this is probably targeted towards older and more vulnerable people. There is something sinister about this.

[Jackdaw33]

...also, why would they blatantly admit that they'd bought my details? Even 'Microsoft' are craftier than that.

[ethandron]

I had what I thought was a scam email from amazon today, asking me to do update my payment method as they couldn’t process a purchase I made earlier.
Very suspiciously I didn’t click any of the links in the email but went to my amazon account.
I received a new debit card yesterday, as my old one is just about to expire, and had activated it making it invalid on amazon. Doh!

[woofgang]

do you get catalogues from any stores or websites? Which electoral register are you on?

[Jackdaw33]

Funnily enough, yesterday, because I am disabled, I signed up to Wiltshire Farm Foods. Today I get this call. Umm.

[woofgang]

because in other countries, to have bought the details of customers from a pharmacy where they get their repeat meds would be neither surprising nor suspect.

[woofgang]

That's too recent Jackdaw...takes a while for details to be nicked and sold; also details once sold on are out there for years and just keep getting flogged around.

[Jackdaw33]

...but why would my pharmacy sell on my details and risking my business?

[spathiphyllum]

They may have bought your phone number from a servey that knows your either over a certian age, or part of a prescription/pharmacy thing

[spathiphyllum]

If they call back ask them for details to try find out how much they know about you but don’t reveal any information yourself actually, they're very mischievous

[woofgang]

Jackdaw they didn't, they haven't. She LIED to you. I have had similar phonecalls from people who claim that Sky had sold them my details as Sky are no longer doing Sky Protect and had sold their customers details to other "reliable companies".