Anyone else on here been messaged privately from @alex922 requesting you give their new beta fintech aggregator a try?
It’s called Unecto (edit: link removed, you can guess it if you want to) – the website is just a form to input your email address. There are some vague statements about SECURE and INSIGHTS. Whatever.
I messaged back asking where the Privacy Policy and GDPR Statement is. Let’s face it, this person wants to make some money from my personal data and getting to see my banking transactions, so I didn’t think it too unreasonable to see how they’ll keep and use it.
Alex replies, saying apparently I can see it in–app when I apply, but that I’d made a
Good point, a link to it should be added to the website.
But apparently my request isn’t important enough to actually give me a link to the policies directly, and it seems data protection might just be an inconvenience because Alex still goes on to ask I hand over all my personal data in a Google form so he can add me to WhatsApp.
Good one! Acknowledge you haven’t given a second thought about my concern and go ahead and ask for my details anyway. Great way to gain my trust and get me to give you all my banking logins Alex! Do you even get why the legislation matters?
Care to reply? Start acting less like a phishing fraudster and more like a fintech startup?
I messaged back asking where the Privacy Policy and GDPR statement is
I was going to do that but thanks for doing it; let us know when (if) you finally get a privacy policy link.
I would’t assume malice right from the start (there are much easier ways to defraud people than DM’ing people on a fintech forum where most will be financially-savvy), but you are absolutely right. In fact, finance or not, if you’re launching a product that collects any kind of data, publish a clear policy on how you use that data and how to opt-out.
Maybe a link will get put up here from the promoter, perhaps?
I didn’t actually think the request was malicious, nor potentially fraudulent. I just thought it was incompetent and about as un–customer focussed as it could possibly be.
I think it’s really just testing the waters, there is no product just yet nor data collected (besides the Google Form you were sent) and he’s just trying to talk to people to figure out what the market wants. However he screwed it up completely; he should’ve just been honest about doing market research for a new account aggregator and I’m sure most of us would’ve been more than happy to help out. Instead, he pitches it as a working product which obviously raises a lot of red flags for the reasons mentioned above.
Hi Jamie, I’m the developer of Unecto. I sent the survey with the purpose understanding who would be interested in participating to the beta of this banking aggregator - for which a link to TestFlight is already available - that is still in development phase (and to then set up a test group). The app does have a T&C and explains in detail how any data will be handled. I will update the survey to explicitly state how the survey data will be used. Apologies for the confusion!
Is the fact that other users are spamming peoples inboxes with these types of requests out side of the community code of conduct?
I feel like the Monzo forum is a fairly open place to discuss all things Fintech, including competitors… So private messaging users about it seems a little sketchy?
Yes, I’d agree with that, and thanks all for bringing this to our attention.
@Alex922 - It’s totally fine to post about your product here and what it’s about and invite people to test it out if they are interested. We’d just politely ask that you do that publicly, rather than sending unrequested private messages to our community members! Otherwise, it can feel like spam, and nobody likes spam!
@simonb thanks for the feedback.
The reason why I chose to write privately is that I wanted to start off with a small number of users before posting on the main threads; I’ve updated the survey URL (https://goo.gl/forms/sMY0y3NVyYtTp0go2). If you would like to participate in the beta, please sign up!
Hey @grant.macgregor, I sent out an invitation email a couple of days ago; can you please check your spam just in case it got lost? I’ll send another one now.
