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Travelodge investigates customer data breach

The hotel chain is looking into how customer email addresses were compromised and used by spammers
Written by Tom Espiner, Contributor

Hotel chain Travelodge is investigating how spammers obtained customer email addresses.

Travelodge

Hotel chain Travelodge is investigating how spammers obtained customer email addresses and sent emails. Photo credit: Ell Brown/Flickr

Customers who had registered email addresses specifically to communicate with Travelodge received spam on Wednesday, a Travelodge spokeswoman told ZDNet UK on Friday. The number of customer email addresses that have been compromised is not yet known, but the company has narrowed down the number of customers that have been affected, the spokeswoman said.

"A small number of customers on Wednesday evening received a spam email," the spokeswoman added. "We're carrying out a full investigation."

The company was alerted to the breach by customer complaints, said the spokeswoman, who added that the investigation would seek to determine whether Travelodge customer databases had been compromised.

Travelodge sent out a letter to customers (PDF) on Thursday warning them of spam.

"Please be assured, we have not sold any customer data and no financial information has been compromised," Travelodge chief executive Guy Parsons said in the letter.

The spam email advertised a "career opening".

"The company is seeking for self-motivated people in United Kingdom to help us spread out our activity in the UK area [sic]," said the spam.

Travelodge informed the Information Commissioner's Office — the UK data protection authority — of the breach on Thursday, said the spokeswoman.


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