Unfair treatment by Aviva in fraudulent application

[Titchytitch]

Aviva opened an insurance policy because of my brother making a fraudulent application by claiming to be my "husband" the call handler didn't feel comfortable setting the policy up and referred it to the manager who gave permission for her to set it up , a credit agreement was set up in my name with no knowledge of mine and neither did they speak to me but a policy was set up .

 

The policy was set up as me being the main driver brother being the named driver, his email address, his bank details,  his phone number.  He had a claim on the policy the whole policy was contolled by himself with access to avivas portal no correspondence came to me, once he cancelled the policy the portal was locked I started getting default notices in January 2020.

 

Our relationship broke down in Sept 2019 due to inheritance issues and out of spite he put an indemnity claim into Aviva via the bank and reversed all the premiums he had paid . Aviva were made aware of this policy being fraudulent they still happily returned the money back without challenging the sibling or the bank and are now pursuing recovery from myself for the money stolen by my brother.

 

He was arrested on 21/09/21 and is currently being questioned and investigated by the police.

 

This complaint was taken to the ombudsman who confirmed the whole policy was controlled by my sibling, and that aviva have followed a "process" and have done nothing wrong they have set up the policy in accordance with their procedures.

 

@BankFodder

[BankFodder]

Did you send Aviva an SAR?

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder yes they sent me a whole bundle but of general correspondence of their changes to policy renewals none of this info came to me it was going directly to the portal by the looks of it 

 

Through this bundle I got call tapes which were only my recordings,  litigation details , details of the solicitor firm handling case as apparently their was a trial date, his wife on 20th Jan 2020 pretended to be me and confirmed my details and then the phone was given to the brother who then cancelled the policy and claimed the money back , this has been passed to the police its in the paperwork 

Dec 2017 he was stopped by the police and the police rung insurance 

 

Other than that nothing else really stood out 

[BankFodder]

But they provided you with data relating to you? This despite the fact that you have never any dealings with Aviva and you have never given permission for them to hold your data?
Is this correct?

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder yes that's correct I've never dealt with Aviva the details they've used are my name address and date of birth that's all they hold the rest is details of the sibling 

[BankFodder]

Okay this is excellent.

This means that we have a pretty will open and shut case in terms of inaccurate data processing.

I can imagine that this is an extremely distressing experience and by coincidence, breach of data protection rules is one of the very rare areas where you can claim against a data processor to recover damages simply for distress.

I think that we can begin this campaign against Aviva by suing them under the data protection act. How does that sound to you?

[Titchytitch]

Let's go for it ! At no point have they spoken to me as the ombudsman had put in her findings the whole policy was controlled by the brother they haven't even completed basic data protection never spoken to me until the default notices started arriving 

I gave them authorisation to speak to my sibling at that point as I had no idea what this policy was about 

I'm happy to follow your lead @BankFodder

[BankFodder]

Okay, have you ever sued anybody before?

I can imagine that they will start off by trying to settle your claim out of court. Normally speaking if you refuse to accept their offer then you would be at risk of having to pay their costs even though you would win your judgement because the court would take the view that there was no point in going to litigation because everything you had asked for had been put on the table.

However in this case, because first of all it would be a statutory breach – and secondly, because I would expect that the storage of your personal data would continue even after they settled, I think you would have a reasonable basis for continuing the action and the cost rules are that if there is a reasonable basis for refusing an offer and continuing the claim then the court can decide not to award costs against you.
However it is a risk – albeit a very small one.

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder only in employment for unfair dismissal but its always been settled out of court .. but nothing on this level 

I'm happy to follow your lead 

[BankFodder]

Please will you start off by reading up the steps involved in taking a small claim. It's pretty straightforward but you need to know the steps in order to be confident about what you do.

Secondly start reading up about data protection. Don't worry about the Act for the moment. Start reading up on the information Commissioner's site and you are looking particularly for references to the necessity for authority to store and process data.

Start understanding the differences between a data holder and a data processor – and what they are allowed to do and what they aren't allowed to do.

I think you need to be fairly comfortable with the vocabulary in order to move forward confidently

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodderI'm.due to fly in 3wks for 3wks would it be worth waiting till I get back or to press on? As whilst the police have been investigating I've not received any further letters from aviva 

[BankFodder]

It's up to you.

You could spend the weekend reading up and then send the letter of claim on Monday – and then issue the claim shortly before you go.

It depends whether you have access to your email et cetera while you are away.

I would be amazed if they failed to respond – but if they did, then you would put in for a default judgement immediately and then enforcement. However I would imagine that they would respond with an acknowledgement of service giving them a full 28 days to file a defence.

This means that you would receive the defence roughly when you returned.

However you would have to be able to keep in contact with the court system by means of email and also with us.

Of course if you wanted then you could leave it for the full six weeks and we can start then.

You decide

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder would you mind if I left it till when I come back I just literally want this break to be a recharge mentally,physically emotionally I've had to go through a lot of distress and not to mention I've not been able to grieve my fathers loss , so I want to use the time away to break off from all of this so I can mentally recharge ready to fight when I get back hope you understand x

[BankFodder]

Of course. However I do think that you should spend the next few weeks reading up on the County Court process and also data protection.

No need to go to the data protection act – but lots of summaries around the Internet – and the information Commissioner's website is a good place to start

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder the subject access request generic documentation was posted out no documents are present with my signatusignaturesm so I can't even check how hes forged my signatures 

 

Can I still sue Aviva as I have a feeling Z had been forging my signatures but I haven't given them any authorisation to process my data .

 

 

[BankFodder]

Well presumably if they had documents which bore your signature then Aviva would send them to you as part of the statutory disclosure. The fact that they haven't tends to suggest that he hasn't even been forging your signature and that the whole thing is an outright lie.

If he has forged your signature and if Aviva are holding documents which they believe are signed by you then by not disclosing them to you that puts them in breach of the SAR.

What date did Aviva provide the disclosure to you?

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodder they sent me the paperwork 22nd July.  Could it be hes referring to the litigation paperwork and the solicitors holding my signatures again I had no communication with the solicitors and there's nothing in the documents other than the litigation script and details of the solicitors that were used 

[unclebulgaria67]

For 99% of general Insurances, there would be no signatures required. It would all be done remote via Internet or phone application.

 

Sounds like their defence is that you knew what they were doing arranging Insurance in your name and now you are denying you consented to this.  Trying to make it a case of one person's word against another's, hoping the Police will not be able to continue.

 

[Titchytitch]

@unclebulgaria67 yes I've asked the police to speak to my husband as well in line with their enquiries as hes using my eldest brother who will give a false statement. 

 

I actually felt sick to the stomach last night, he's known for forging signatures im wondering whether he's forged signatures with the litigation and solicitors 

 

Its actually sickening he's bought my late father into this the fact he'll go to any lengths to save himself is just a cule and disgusting reflection of him as a human 

[BankFodder]

36 minutes ago, unclebulgaria67 said:

For 99% of general Insurances, there would be no signatures required. It would all be done remote via Internet or phone application.

 

 

 

Yes but presumably 98.99 of general insurances are taken out by the policyholder and not simply by a named driver.

I wonder how many policies are taken out simply by name driver apparently on behalf of the principal policyholder.

Here by Aviva's own admission, they opened a policy in the name of a person who was not present and who had not directly given their permission and they had basically simply taken the third parties word for it.

32 minutes ago, Titchytitch said:

 

... he's known for forging signatures  ....

 

 

Have you any evidence that he has forged signatures in the past?

[unclebulgaria67]

Yes agree that Aviva should not have issued policies without gaining consent of the person who was going to be the policyholder.

 

Aviva staff would have been trained in data protection and fraud prevention, as well as the processes they have to follow.   They don't seem to have followed the correct legal processes.

 

 

[Titchytitch]

@BankFodderyes he forged my sisters signature for her banking abroad 

[BankFodder]

Can you tell us what form that evidence is in please?

[Titchytitch]

He did it at the bank abroad when my dad split his money into everyone's accounts ik sure she could give a statement 

[BankFodder]

I'm sure that the statement from your system would be helpful, but that's not exactly "evidence".

Evidence would be a copy of the forged signature and also something in writing from the bank or from the police force from some other authoritative source that confirmed that the signature was a forgery.