...to think this is terrible behaviour from a solicitors?

[OneNameToRuleThemAll]

So last month, my wife received an email regarding the sale of a house. This email included personal details in regards to the house. Except, it wasn't meant for my wife - I can only assume it was meant for someone with the same name. We received a follow up email asking us to ignore it. Gave it no more thought.

Today, we've received another email regarding this sale and the purchase of another house, telling us that we are due a MASSIVE payment and asking for instructions on how they should make payment.

Now, it's a good thing we're honest people but it strikes me this is terrible for a solicitor to make this mistake, right? It seems like a complete breach of privilege. Unfortunately we don't have the details for whoever it is meant for because I'd love to let them know how crap their solicitors are...

That is terrible, a huge breach of confidentiality and anti-money laundering procedures.

Is it definitely a real solicitor firm? It does sound a bit like a scam. That or they are shockingly incompetent.

Probably a scam anyway but reporting to the ICO can have pretty devastating effect on any firm

Good.

If they have two customers with the same name and send material meant for one to the other, then they deserve to be punished for incompetence.

However, if they don't have two customers with the same name, there are two possibilities.

(1) They are being scammed internally, in that their systems are weak and an attacker is able to send mail from their computers. Again, they get what they deserve

(2) They are being scammed externally, in that email is being sent to look as though it is from them, but isn't. There are things they can do to stop that, and they should, but the ICO will give them that advice and not punish them.