Shop Direct Financial Services (Littlewoods Catalogue) default removed following their inability to provide any SAR data, no court/ ICO involvement required. See thread: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/data-protection-default-issues/125106-littlewoods-shop-direct-financial.html While I'm here; does anyone know how long the CAG small claims procedure books (by P Pearl) take to arrive when ordered through the website?

BIG thank-you to everyone who helped me as I have had a letter today from Holly Parr (SDFS complaints management team) stating that.. ..We have made a full investigation & can confirm our findings as follows: As previously mentioned, both of these accounts were opened on 23rd January 2001. Due to the passage of tie unfortunately I am unable to provide details of any orders or payments made against this account. Due to the circumstances surrounding your account, I can confirm that we have removed the default marker from your credit file. I will get another copy of my credit report just to make sure but I am pleased to have this result. If only London Scottish Bank would do the same!!

I'll take a look at that thread thanks its a p*** take that the ICO can fob people off with replies like that!

Here is the letter I received today from the Information Commissioners Office. Seems like they can't be bothered reading the complaints properly or writing individual replies; this letter reads like a leaflet! (My own comments are in red font) Dear Ms H Complaint to The Information Commissioners Office about unfair penalty charges ( I didn't complain about unfair charges but never mind!) and your subject access request to London Scottish Bank Plc for information held as part of credit/ bank account statements. Is a subject access request necessary in order to reclaim any unfair penalty charges? No. Information from credit card/bank statements should not be needed in order to reclaim any unfair penalty charges from a financial institution. Following an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ruling about 'unfair penalty charges' relating to credit card accounts, the number of individuals making subect access requests under the Data Protection Act 1998 for information held as part of credit card statements has increased significantly. Although the OFT ruling only relates to credit card accounts a number of individuals are also making subject access requests for information relating to other financial services befrore attempting to reclaim any penalty charges associated with them. Many financial institutions are struggling (my heart bleeds for them- not!) to respond to these S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) within the 40 calendar days permitted. We are aware of this and are monitoring the situation closely. Whats the best way to reclaim penalty charges? The Financial Ombudsman Service is the most appropriate organisation to assist you when seeking to settle disputes about unfair penalty charges with London Scottish Bank Plc. The FOS can be contacted on 0845 080 1800 Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. The FOS was set up by Parliament as an independant, free service for settling disputes between businesses providing financial services & their customers. Complaints about unfair penalty charges fall outside of the remit of the Information Commissioners Office. This is why we are unable to assist you in seeking the repayment of these charges. (I didnt ask for help reclaiming charges I asked for my SAR data as the default is unlawful!!) What will the Information Commissioners Office now do with your complaint about the failed SAR? We acknowledge that in pursuing the unfair penalty charges a valid SAR was made to London Scottish Bank Plc & although the information requested may not be needed to recover any unfair penalty charges, financial institutions are still required to provide it. From the information you have provided to us it seems unlikely that London Scottish Bank Plc have complied with their obligations under the Data Protection Act on this occaision as they have failed to provide you with the information to which you are entitled. We will therefore be writing to London Scottish Bank Plc with the details of this complaint. We will ask them to ensure that they provide you with the information that you requested as a matter of priority. Furthermore we will ask them to take any steps necessary to ensure their further complience with the Data Protection Act. What happens next? We would now recommend that you contact the FOS if you wish to begin the process of reclaiming any unfair penalty charges. If when we contact London Scottish Bank Plc there is any doubt that they received the SAR you sent to them we may need to contact you again. However in most cases & certainly where you have been able to provide us with proof of postage or receipt for your request (which I have provided), we would not expect to need to contact you again & you should await the receipt of the information to which you are entitled from London Scottish Bank Plc in due course.(I've been waiting for SAR data since September; how much due course do they want?) If you require any further clarification please call our Helpline Yours Sincerely Charlotte Ashworth Customer Service Officer I'm not expecting London Scottish to be able to come up with any further SAR than what Robinson Way sent me (that dated from Oct 05; over a year after the default by London Scottish) & I'm pleased that I've had a response (albeit a lame one) from the Information Commissioners Office as I feel that this will show the court that I have exhausted all other avenues to resolve the default issue before bringing it to court. I'm not going to waste any more time waiting for London Scottish to send me anything as a) I'm pretty sure they haven't got anything b) It'll take me a while to do my court forms with POC's etc so I might as well make a start on them Time to do some more reading methinks... Have read a lot in defaults/ legal but cant seem to find successes against London Scottish/ next directory re default removal I'm doing so much reading on CAG forums that I'm considering claiming for eye strain in my damages!

Also, if you go on the Information Commissioners Office website you can order the booklet detailing the data protection act & your rights/ how to complain etc; I found this useful for reference about which part of the act to quote etc

I read up about the 6 year period; apparantly there is no section of the data protection act that says it is 6 years; apparantly the 6 year period was in existance from 1971 and has been adopted as standard industry practice. The information commissioners office apparantly supports the Credit reference agencies in their practice of using 6 years as what the Data Protection Act describes as a 'reasonable' time period. I know this from reading other threads where people on CAG have challenged the 6 year time period as being unreasonable & the info. commissioners office have not upheld the complaints (as far as I am aware). On these grounds you could challenge the credit reference agencies and either take them to court or complain to the ICO that they are processing your data in excess of the recognised 'reasonable' time frame of 6 years. I have my own complaint currently with the ICO over a default issue; I sent the form in early December 07 & when I phoned to enquire re; progress I was told that due to the ICO's workload it probably wouldn't be looked at by the relevant team until 6 months after submission! Apparantly court takes about 4 months from submission of forms to hearing. Either way you could issue them with a formal notice under the data protection act to cease communicating your data & include a notice period whereby if they've not complied (and confirmed this to you) you will begin court proceedings or complaint to ICO. good luck & let us know how you get on

to be honest i'd be willing to offer settlement if i thought they'd remove default; i have a reasonable wage now but cant get reasonable rates for mortgage or car loan so settling would save me a lot in the long run. However, without the SAR data I'm not sure how much of the default amount is charges (I estimate it to be about £450 for received goods & £200 charges) & I think it'd undermine any future court action against london scottish if I started offering payment. any thoughts on this? also can anyone point me to threads that cover defaults removed as a result of ICO intervention?

Thanks for the input everyone. I finally got through to someone when i called ... I was told that my account was cleared so summons has been withdrawn without charge & a letter was being sent out to me to inform me of this i will believe it when it actually arrives but will post on here 2 let you all know, if only to actually write SETTLED on one of my threads as the rest of em seem to be going nowhere lol!

has anyone actually visited their milton keynes address? They also own the sellyourproperty website & the other office supplies website all of which are registered to same address which looks like a residential address

i got the same response initially from protx but when i politely asked them if they were concerned about their continued association with a company that were subect to police, trading standards & a consumer tv programme they seemed to sit up a bit. maybe the tv person who's recently posted on here could be a good person to have on your side?

Do callcredit have the same default date as the others did? Sorry I'm no expert but... I'm sure they're in breach of data protection act if they're showing information that is innacurate & or may cause damage to the data subject? I think thats section 12 of the act but i couldnt tell you where it says they can only keep your default on record for 6 years; but its in there somewhere! I'm in the process of writing to all the ref. agencies to instruct them to stop automatically processing my data. Maybe you could do this with callcredit until you get to the bottom of it? I've got a link to the thread about this if you need it

I had a difficult time financially in Dec 2007 (like most people!) Payments for council tax are due on the 6th, I get paid around the 18th every month so I'm usually a week late but have paid before they have to send reminder. Someone crashed into my car & wrote it off at the end of november so I had a lot of expenses with taxis etc as my kids nursery is in the opposite direction from work & not on a bus route. I got a rubbish settlement from the Insurance and had to put my own money into buying a clapped out punto (thats broke too now but hey thats another story- welcome to my world!) Anyway I didnt pay Decembers until 6th Jan, I got a reminder from them on 7th Jan telling me to pay the remainder of the years bill; 3 months totalling £192 by the 10th Jan. This included the December payment which they hadnt yet 'processed' even though I'd paid by debit card. I tried phoning them which is impossible as they are constantly engaged at lunchtime so I emailed them on 8th explaining my difficulties and telling them I would pay the remaining Jan & Feb payments as soon as I got paid on 18th Jan & would they stop any plans for court action etc as the account would be clear soon. I got an automated response saying thay would deal with my enquiry within 14 days. I got paid yesterday (18th) & was straight on the internet to pay them (at 5:30am!!), i cleared the 2007/2008 bill. When I get in from work there's a summons with £65 court costs for 7th February Whats my chances of getting the costs removed If I attend in court? I'm dubious as I remember going to a council tax hearing with my ex boyfriend and he wasnt even in front of a judge; just some admin woman from the council tax dept Is there any way i can make sure i can get in front of a judge as i think i'd have more chance if it was a more independant person. I can understand why so many single mums give up & claim benefit; I'm struggling with no maintenance for 3 kids & this system seems to love generating money from people like me!

monty have you complained to protx?

Think I will wait for the ICO to deal with it as the ICO told me that if I start court action I need to inform the ICO as they will not deal with the case if it is also being heard in court. Is it worth informing London Scottish that it has been referred to ICO?

Thanks for the pointers I just phoned the ICO as I submitted my complaint to them about London Scottish Bank on 13th December & haven't heard anything. Apparantly the team that will deal with my complaint are about 4 and a half months behind on their caseload so I have over 3 months left to wait before its even looked at. I suppose my options are now either wait or court. Am a bit apprehensive about court as I'm assuming its a lot of paperwork; can anyone advise as to approximately how long it takes to actually get a case up in court? If its going to be as long as the ICO I might as well wait

sorry to have to bump this up but I need some help here please!

I got my money back after I called police (who were actually v good) and then told protx I had done this & was taking it to watchdog tv prog. Protx emailed me saying they TOLD gamesgadgets to refund me & sure enough it was in my bank next day. moral of my story- dont listen to protx when they say its out of their hands! This has also taught me not to pay by debit card as you cant chargeback

anyone got time to comment on this as I'm not sure what to do next?

Have moved my Littlewoods Shop Direct thread now: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/data-protection-default-issues/125106-littlewoods-shop-direct-financial.html From now on will just use this thread here to deal with my Next Directory/ London Scottish Bank/ Robinson Way problem. Quick refresher on this thread; I have default on my file from London Scottish Bank for £650. I sent them a SAR in September 2007. They failed to acknowledge this & after a few more letters from myself in December 2007 I reported a complaint to the Information Commissioners office for non compliance with SAR. The Info Commissioner has not yet acknowledged my complaint however I received this letter from Robinson Way... Further to our letter dated 3rd December 2007 & your request for information under the Data Protection Act, we write to advise you that we are now in possession of your original letter. We apologise for the delay, however your letter was addressed to our parent company London Scottish Bank plc, and contained no reference numbers. As a goodwill gesture we are returning the £10 fee and now enclose a full copy of the data we hold on our files. Please note we are only able to supply information from the 10th October 2005 and any information required prior to that date should be requested from Next directly. We trust this is satisfactory & if I can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours Sincerely Hayley Felton Complaints & Compliance Manager Enclosed with the letter is data from October 2005. This is where I need some help as I want to be sure that I am dealing with this correctly... My credit reports list London Scottish Bank as putting a default on my file therefore I was correct in SAR them, not Robinson Way or Next Directory. Therefore my communications should be with London scottish Bank not Robinson Way and my complaint to the Information Commissioner still stands as London Scottish are the data controllers. Was thinking perhaps I should reply to Robinson Way & tell them the same & chase up the Info. Commissioner to let them know my complaint has still not been resolved by LSB. Any thoughts on this?

did you refer this to the information comissioner? I sent a complaint to them about next directory in december; does anyone know how long this takes to receive a reply?

Sorry for my delay in replying I've not logged on over xmas but it's back to business now... Thanks for that car, will get on the templates and put something together

I have started this as a new thread as I was previously using 1 thread to deal with littlewoods & next directory, it was getting a bit messy so here's my littlewoods story so far.... I have a default for £34 from littlewoods shop direct. I have no idea what the £34 was for but as it has occurred when I moved house 5 yrs ago I can only assume that I had a few quid outstanding on a catalogue & it has been inflated to £34 by charges etc. I sent S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) & £10 fee back in early September 2007 and received this reply; 'I regret that I am unable to trace an account number in your name at the address you have listed. To enable me to commence collating the information for your S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) please contact me by telephone.... from the Complaints Management Team' I then sent the following letter; Dear Mr. xxx, Further to your letter dated 21/09/2007 The address and date of birth I provided in my Subject Access Request is correct. Shop Direct Financial Services have entered data in the form of a default (dated 15/04/01) onto my credit file; therefore I require that you provide me all the data held by your company relating to me . Notwithstanding the above I require any copies you hold on file of the default notice relating to the default that I now find on my credit file. Since I have no recollection of ever receiving a default notice I require this information to enable me to substantiate the data, which your company has recorded on my credit file. If it is the case that you are unable to provide me with the data I have requested then I respectfully request that all entries relating to Shop Direct Financial Services be removed from my credit file Please note that you have 40 days in which to produce this information as from your receipt of my Subject Access Request and payment on 15/09/07. Should you fail to comply with the 40-day time frame then i will make a formal complaint to the information commissioner’s office and in addition I may consider legal action to force your compliance through the county court From this point I require all correspondence relating to this matter to be in writing I look forward to hearing from you shortly, Many weeks ( & a couple of letters from me threatening them with court action) later I received this... I refer to your letter requesting access under the Data Protection Act 1998, for information which is held on file by the company. You have requested information held on our database relating to your account. A full investigation has been carried out, your concerns have been assessed & I confirm the findings as follows; Both of the accounts held above were opened on 23rd January 2001. Unfortunately, our database records only extend back to September 2001. As the accounts were sold to an external debt collecting agency in May 2001, we are unable to supply you with any information. I apologise that I cannot provide you with all the data requested but I hope that my explanation meets with your satisfaction. Yours Sincerely Liam Lloyd Data Protection Unit Am I right in thinking that this is a good response as Littlewoods should not be passing information about me to credit reference agencies if they have no record of any credit agreement, debt or default notification? They mention 2 accounts, yet only one is marked with a default on my credit reports; the other one being satisfied. This makes me doubtful as to their having any information at all about my accounts on file. My question now is do I approach this on the grounds of them not having information to substantiate debt or default therefore default is not valid as has not been executed correctly? Or.. should I take the approach about them acting illegally by passing unsubstantiated information to credit reference agencies when I do not have an account/ agreement with them? Incidently- I have no recollection of any debt collection agency contacting me about this £34 alleged debt. This letter doesn't even mention the name of any such collection agency. Surely if the 'debt' now belongs to collection agency it should bethe debt collection agencywho inform credit reference agencies? Or should I approach Credit Reference Agencies & point out to them that they should not be passing innacurate/ unsubstantiated information onto other parties? Any suggestions please then I can do my homework & put a reply together... or borrow a template if anyone is kind enough to point me in the right direction?! spellchecked it yet but would appreciate feedback as despite working on this for 4 hours (what a way to spend my saturday morning off work!!) am still not sure if I'm barking up the right tree.... Account Number: Dear Mr. Lloyd With reference to your letter dated 10/12/07 You admit that you do not have any records of the above account including credit agreements, consents for your company to process my data ,legal notices or transactions pertaining to the default that you are communicating to Credit Reference Agencies. May I respectfully remind you of the Fourth Principle of the Data Protection Act 1998, which requires that 'Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date'.You have failed to provide evidence in the form of data as per my Subject Access Request that substantiates the default that you have communicated to Credit Reference Agencies in relation to the afforementioned account. As data subject, I dispute your record of default & by your own admission you have no records to uphold the accuracy of any such default. By communicating innacurate information to Credit Reference Agencies you are in breach of your responsibilities as data controller under the Fourth Principle of The Data Protection Act 1998. You also state that you have not had any records of any such account or alleged default since May 2001. Therefore the information that you are communicating to Credit Reference Agencies has not been kept up to date & again this is in breach of the Fourth Principle of the Data Protection Act 1998. I notice that you continue to communicate information that is causing substantial, unwarranted damage/distress to myself as a data subject. Therefore I am serving you with this letter as: DATA SUBJECT NOTICE UNDER SECTION 10 OF THE DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998 As per section 10 of The Data Protection Act, I require you to stop processing information about myself as a data subject. As you have already communicated information that is causing substantial, unwarranted damage/distress to Credit Reference Agencies I require you to take action to prevent further damage/distress by way of you writing to these agencies instructing them to remove all previous reference to the afforementioned alleged default. On doing so, please provide me with copies of said letters of instruction & correspondance from said Credit Reference Agencies showing their acceptance & complience with your instructions to remove all references to this alleged default from my credit file. As per section 10 of The Data Protection Act; you now have 21 days in which you must provide me with a written notice informing me of your intent of complience with this notice. May I take this opportunity to remind you that as data subject I have a legal right to compensation for damage & distress suffered as the result of any contravention of the requirements of The Data Protection Act 1998 by yourself as a data controller under Section 13 of this Act. Should you fail to act upon this notice I shall apply to the Court for an order requiring you to rectify the information you are communicating as per section 14 of The Data Protection Act 1998 along with a claim for damages & distress as per section 13 of this act.This will be in addition to my making a formal complaint to Trading Standards & The Information Commissioner. Yours Sincerely I know this is a long winded response & could really do with some help here as I can't help but feel a little out of my depth & don't want this to be apparant to Littlewoods in my response. Any suggestions?

I wouldn't take it as gospel that the ombudsman wont intervene, contact the ombudsman yourself. I'd put everything in writing/ tape your phone calls. Have you got all your terms & conditions if so read through; maybe you will have a case for breach of contract if they are not taking all reasonable measures to reach settlement as soon as possible? If so you could remind them of this & look at small claims court (if claim is £5k or less)

Open a paypal dispute asap; they will usually side with the buyer. It's worth asking for the ref. no from the recorded delivery slip as you can see online the signature if whoever signed for this & I think there might be a time on it too. At least this way you can show it's not your signature, then paypal will advise seller to take it up with royal mail but will most likely refund you in the meantime. I had similar situation with ASOS, I got refund in the end as the item had supposedly been signed for while I could prove I was at work 20 miles away! Check out ebay community pages they're usually helpful good luck

Here's my draft letter to littlewoods, haven't spellchecked it yet but would appreciate feedback as despite working on this for 4 hours (what a way to spend my saturday morning off work!!) am still not sure if I'm barking up the right tree.... Account Number: Dear Mr. Lloyd With reference to your letter dated 10/12/07 You admit that you do not have any records of the above account including credit agreements, consents for your company to process my data ,legal notices or transactions pertaining to the default that you are communicating to Credit Reference Agencies. May I respectfully remind you of the Fourth Principle of the Data Protection Act 1998, which requires that 'Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date'.You have failed to provide evidence in the form of data as per my Subject Access Request that substantiates the default that you have communicated to Credit Reference Agencies in relation to the afforementioned account. As data subject, I dispute your record of default & by your own admission you have no records to uphold the accuracy of any such default. By communicating innacurate information to Credit Reference Agencies you are in breach of your responsibilities as data controller under the Fourth Principle of The Data Protection Act 1998. You also state that you have not had any records of any such account or alleged default since May 2001. Therefore the information that you are communicating to Credit Reference Agencies has not been kept up to date & again this is in breach of the Fourth Principle of the Data Protection Act 1998. I notice that you continue to communicate information that is causing substantial, unwarranted damage/distress to myself as a data subject. Therefore I am serving you with this letter as: DATA SUBJECT NOTICE UNDER SECTION 10 OF THE DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998 As per section 10 of The Data Protection Act, I require you to stop processing information about myself as a data subject. As you have already communicated information that is causing substantial, unwarranted damage/distress to Credit Reference Agencies I require you to take action to prevent further damage/distress by way of you writing to these agencies instructing them to remove all previous reference to the afforementioned alleged default. On doing so, please provide me with copies of said letters of instruction & correspondance from said Credit Reference Agencies showing their acceptance & complience with your instructions to remove all references to this alleged default from my credit file. As per section 10 of The Data Protection Act; you now have 21 days in which you must provide me with a written notice informing me of your intent of complience with this notice. May I take this opportunity to remind you that as data subject I have a legal right to compensation for damage & distress suffered as the result of any contravention of the requirements of The Data Protection Act 1998 by yourself as a data controller under Section 13 of this Act. Should you fail to act upon this notice I shall apply to the Court for an order requiring you to rectify the information you are communicating as per section 14 of The Data Protection Act 1998 along with a claim for damages & distress as per section 13 of this act.This will be in addition to my making a formal complaint to Trading Standards & The Information Commissioner. Yours Sincerely Think I should of started 2 separate threads for my next directory & littlewoods default issues; any advice on how to move threads??