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The holiday park company Center Parcs has removed links to its old X account from its website after a man who took over the account was contacted by genuine customers.<\/p>\n
Center Parcs deleted its X account in January, which meant the @CenterParcsUK handle became available.<\/p>\n
Carl Lennon, an IT consultant, registered an X account with this name when he noticed it was available, and said he started getting messages from customers asking to change their bookings.<\/p>\n
Center Parcs removed the link after being contacted by BBC News, and conceded the links “should have been removed” from its website when it stopped using X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“Center Parcs recently deactivated our X channel as it was no longer deemed an effective channel for us to use and our guests have several other ways to talk directly to us,” a spokesperson told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Mr Lennon was looking to book a holiday with Center Parcs but changed his mind after he discovered the company was still linking to the dead X account from its website.<\/p>\n
“I was effectively thinking of handing over my data to them to do a booking, and thinking, ‘Well, hang on, they don’t seem to have very good security,'” he said.<\/p>\n
Companies often use social media accounts as a form of customer support, where people will message them for help.<\/p>\n
He has had requests from customers on a range of topics, including requests to change dates, rearrange payments, and add more people to bookings.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know the legality of replying to their messages,” he said, adding he has decided not to reply at all and only took on the handle as an experiment.<\/p>\n
But he said “someone malicious” could easily respond, asking customers to send payment details or other sensitive information to the X account. <\/p>\n
Mr Lennon says he tried contacting Center Parcs through various channels but had not been able to get a response, except for an acknowledgement of an email he had sent. <\/p>\n
After being told by BBC News that the link had been removed, he said “they didn’t seem to take it seriously” when he contacted them three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
“I’m just a bit gobsmacked that it took them so long to sort out,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said he will now deactivate the X account altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Some companies, including fashion brand Balenciaga, US supermarket Target and newspaper The Guardian<\/a> have left X since Elon Musk took it over in 2022.<\/p>\n In most cases, the accounts are still open but left dormant. <\/p>\n In the case of Balenciaga, the account no longer exists, but cannot be claimed by a new user – suggesting access to it may still held by the company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n