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My loan lender accepts emails from their customers. They share their contact details including their customer service email address on their website with the public. So, they apparently regard incoming emails (from their customers) safe but outgoing emails (from their customer service) not so safe...However, this does not make sense to me.

In the past, I have sent several emails to their customer services but they almost always (except on one occasion) responded via post. However, since I kept getting their letters very late in the post, I asked them why they do not answer email enquiries by email. Their explanation was that outbound emails (the ones from their side) were deemed to be an insecure method of communication as they contained sensitive information.

In what ways is sending an email with personal information to my lender regarded as a safe method of communication? Surely, if my lender accepts emails with sensitive information from their customers, they should be able to respond via email, right?

schroeder
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Tanonymous
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  • I'm confused. You ask if your lender is lying. Did they say that *sending* emails to *them* is safe? All you have said is that they said that it is not safe for *them* to send emails *to you*. – schroeder Sep 18 '22 at 23:08
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    It says on their website customers can email about their enquiries at blablabla@blabla.bla but they would only respond via post due to security reasons. So, apparently sending emails to their customer service is safe according to the lender. The mind boggles... – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 00:29
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    That's a logic error. You can't conclude that, and they are not saying what you are claimingthey are. – schroeder Sep 19 '22 at 08:43
  • Thank you for your response. If someone's logic is faulty here it should be my lender's, don't you think? I had to disclose some information in every email I have sent to their customer service, such as my full name, address, account number etc. Without such details I don't think they would ever process my enquiries. The lender is well aware their customers' emails contain sensitive information. I think it is a bad business practice to accept emails from customers and send them a delayed response letter weeks or months later. – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 18:14

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All emails are sent over the internet, so are NOT SECURE. Even if your lender is 100% secure, your email goes through multiple public routers, gateways and your email server, and who is your email through? How secure are they?

Anthony Cox
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  • So, you are suggesting that emails whether they are inbound (from me) or outbound (from the lender) does not matter, they are not a safe method of communication. Am I correct? – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 00:32
  • @Tanonymous Yes, see https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/13217/how-commonly-are-ssl-tls-or-s-mime-used-by-e-mail-providers – Martheen Sep 19 '22 at 02:44
  • @Martheen, thank you for the link, much appreciated. – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 18:56
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They have no control over what you send them. They never stated, according to your wording, that sending personal details to them over email is safe. Contacting them is fine, but the content of the email needs to be considered.

Since the reply contains personal information, then their rules say that email is not secure enough for that. In fact, they may be technical rules on the email server that identifies personal information and automatically blocks the emails from being sent.

So, your logic is faulty here. Just because they have an email address does not mean that they think that all possible data sent via email is a secure thing to do.

I would consider what info you send over email and try more secure options, like calling them...

schroeder
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  • Thank you for your response. I don't think it is my logic that is faulty here. If someone's logic is faulty here it should be my lender's. They state on their website for customer enquiries whose accounts are up to date please contact us at this xxx email address. – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 17:35
  • Yes, this is a classic logic error. – schroeder Sep 19 '22 at 17:41
  • So, you are saying sending emails to my lender is not a safe way of communication and my logic was faulty to think otherwise. I am not a security expert unfortunately. The point here is that my lender should not allow their customers to email to their customer services unless they are 100% sure that receiving emails from their customers is safe. Now I have been told that emails are not a safe method of communication. Thank you for your responses and patience. I will refer to this page in the future, great community and helpful people... – Tanonymous Sep 19 '22 at 18:39