Ray White Epsom agent Peter Lee has apologised for an 'unauthorised' use of customer data.
Ray White Epsom agent Peter Lee has apologised for an 'unauthorised' use of customer data.
An Auckland real estate agent is apologising for his “unauthorised” use of a failed business’ database after customers who shopped for jewellery were later sent Ray White marketing emails.
One Silvermoon jewellery customer who received the message told the Herald they were alarmed how easily their personal data seemed tomove between different companies.
Ray White Epsom agent Peter Lee, describing the data use as a technical error, said it wasn’t his intention to email customers from the jewellery store’s database.
Lee owned the then 10-store Silvermoon chain before it went into liquidation in 2024 owing $6 million. The chain is operating again after being purchased by new owners.
Lee retained the company’s customer database and two weeks ago emailed a Ray White “welcome letter” to some people from the old database.
Yesterday, he sent a second email apologising and promising to delete the jewellery customers’ records.
A customer who bought Karen Walker earrings from Silvermoon in 2024, but did not wish to be named, said she does much of her shopping online and the recent incident was alarming.
“Shopping for earrings leading to my personal information being used [for] real estate marketing without me knowing is frightening,” she said.
The shopper said most of her purchases are online where data collection is pervasive and often impossible to avoid as emails, phone numbers, credit cards and other information are frequently put into forms.
She feared it would become more common for details to be passed around between unrelated companies, an issue that privacy laws say should typically not happen.
A Silvermoon Jewellers store in Auckland's Newmarket. The brand has gone into liquidation. Photo / Google
According to the Privacy Commissioner, the law treats companies as separate “agencies” even if they share the same owner.
They “must not disclose the information to any other agency or to any other person” unless they believed the new use of it was in connection to the purpose it was originally collected or they have the individual’s consent, the commission’s website said.
The commissioner has been contacted for comment.
Lee said his use of the Silvermoon database was a mistake.
He said he initially kept the information for “after-sales service” to his former customers to help in case of jewellery repairs or replacements.
He said he mostly had only names and email addresses of customers.
He had never sold or passed on the information to anyone else or profited from the data outside of the jewellery business, he said.
How the customer data ended up becoming part of his Ray White marketing campaign was still under investigation by the real estate company, Lee said.
In his formal apology email, Lee told those on the Silvermoon database that the use of the data was “unauthorised” and the information “should not have been used for real estate marketing”.
He had now removed affected jewellery customers from the Ray White marketing systems and had deleted “any Silvermoon-related data previously held by me”.
“I apologise for this mistake.”
Lee earlier said he had been forced to put Silvermoon into voluntary liquidation in March 2024 because of a “tough economic environment”.
The six-monthly liquidator’s report found more than $6.3m owed to creditors, including $1.1m in unpaid tax and a total deficiency of $5.6m.
However, the Silvermoon brand itself has rebounded under new management after its founder bought it back in August 2024.
Simon Thwaites started the business in 2000, growing it into staple of New Zealand malls before selling it to Lee in 2017.
In buying it back, Thwaites said he wanted to focus on online shopping with a limited number of physical stores.
