Heart Internet: Concerns as people get wrong emails

The businessman who works with various clients reported, what he termed as a potentially ' huge data breach' the issue to Heart Internet, which provides his email services.

A number of people have been contacting the organisation on X, formerly known as Twitter, with the same issue.

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What a nightmare, @HeartInternet are having major issues with their systems, can't access Dotty's email and another inbox is showing emails from somebody else?! This is a very concerning data breach that I hope is resolved very quickly.

— Dotty About Braille (@dottyabtbraille) November 30, 2023

In response the service provider has been directing them to a statement on its status page.

That states: " We are seeing reports of issues connecting to mail servers and are currently investigating.

"This incident affects: Mailservers."

The Information Commissioner's Office say they will check to see if a breach has been reported by Heart Internet. 

The Bolton businessman says that his clients have reported being unable to receive their own emails and have instead been receiving other people’s.

The source, who does not wish to be identified, said: “It’s a huge GDPR breach, the problem is we’re hosting different sites and they’re all on Heart Internet servers.”

Heart Internet users have reported receiving the wrong emails (Image: Newsquest)

He added: “We’re getting stuff that’s meant for universities, which means colleges will be affected, which means safeguarding goes out the window.

“So this really is a huge GDPR breach.”

Number of people have posted on X that they are having similar problems today. 

They have raised concerns about who else or what other organisations may be able to see their emails.

Some  have said on social media that they have been waiting for advice from Heart but have been stuck in queues for much of Wednesday afternoon.

The business source says that he first noticed the problem at around 1.30pm on Thursday November 30 with clients reporting receiving each other’s invoices instead of their own as well as other sensitive details.

He said: “People are losing their own inboxes and receiving other people’s."

Another said: "Same is happening to me, can only see emails belonging to other people and can't even access one of my mailboxes."

The Bolton News has attempted to get in touch with Heart Internet, but was directing to its status page.

A statement says:” We are currently experiencing issues with our email service. At present, customers are unable to log-in or receive email. Our team is aware of the issue and are actively working to resolve it as quickly as possible.

“We understand how important email services are and we apologise for any inconvenience you're experiencing.”