Lloyds bank refuse to cancel duplicate payment and hang up on customer

[Intrepid]

Version 2

 

Quote

Reference: Claim XXXX
 

Dear Mr Dyke

Your payment is not accepted, please provide me with details on how to return the payment to you.

Despite making no reference to the on-going claim against Lloyds Bank PLC ("Lloyds Bank"), you will be aware that the evidence regarding your breach of the Data Protection Act as well as your admission means my claim is likely to be successful.
 

Your failure to provide me with the data you admit Lloyds Bank failed to disclose is on-going and no assertion has been forthcoming as to when I can expect to receive the missing data.

Please advise me whether you have provided the Information Commissioner’s Office with the reasons as to your failure to meet your data protection obligations as requested by them on 10th January 2022 and if so provide me with a copy of your submission to the ICO.
 

The FOS has been requested to investigate your level of service regarding the handling of my complaint as well as the telephone conversation with your customer service team on 7th October 2021.
 

I am willing to accept the payment only as payment for the poor level of service you provided when I contacted the customer service team on 7th October 2021. In particular referring to when your employee “Carol” was willing to make misleading statements to their customer over the phone and the false statements made in your response to my complaint dated 13th October 2021.
 

Please let me know if you wish for the payment to be accepted as such.
 

As much as you would likely prefer to conflate the two issues to your benefit they are very much separate and for the avoidance of doubt any payment for settlement of your breach of the Data Protection Act is not accepted.

Your letter will be submitted to the court as evidence in support of my claim.

Yours,

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Intrepid

[Intrepid]

Final version

If there are no further comments by @BankFodder then this will be posted Monday.

 

Quote

Reference: Claim XXXX

Dear Mr Dyke
 

Thank you for your letter dated 15th February 2022.

Your payment is not accepted, please provide me with details on how to return the payment to you.

Despite making no reference to the on-going claim against Lloyds Bank PLC ("Lloyds Bank"), you will be aware that the evidence regarding your breach of the Data Protection Act as well as your admission means my claim is likely to be successful.

 

Your failure to provide me with the data you admit Lloyds Bank failed to disclose is on-going and no assertion has been forthcoming as to when I can expect to receive the missing data. Despite the complete lack of response in this respect I do expect and look forward to receiving the missing data in due course.

Please confirm whether you have provided the Information Commissioner’s Office ("ICO") with the reasons as to your failure to meet your data protection obligations as requested by them on 10th January 2022 and if so provide me with a copy of your submission to the ICO.

 

The Financial Ombudsman Service has been requested to investigate your level of service regarding the handling of my complaint concerning duplicate payments including the telephone conversation with your customer service team on 7th October 2021.

 

I am willing to accept the payment only as payment for the poor level of service you provided when I contacted the customer service team on 7th October 2021. In particular referring to when your employee “Carol” was willing to make false statements to their customer over the phone and the false statements made in your response to my complaint dated 13th October 2021.

 

Please let me know if you wish for the payment to be accepted as such.

 

As much as you would likely prefer to conflate the two issues to your benefit they are very much separate and for the avoidance of doubt any payment for settlement of your breach of the Data Protection Act is not accepted.

Perhaps you would be willing to explain why despite making no reference to the incomplete disclosure in the complaint you have referenced you are now attempting to include this within the complaint.

I think this will appear to the court to be exactly what it is, an attempt by Lloyds Bank to settle the claim brought against you without my agreement and if your solicitors present it as such this will be highlighted to the court.

Your letter will be submitted to the court as evidence in support of my claim.

Yours

 

[Intrepid]

Lloyds Solicitor's response to the letter above.

 

Lloyds - CAG - Letter 07.03.22.pdf

[Intrepid]

My proposed reply.

 

Quote

Dear Ms Lee,

 

Reference: Claim XXXX

 

I refer to the above claim and your letter dated 7th March 2022.

 

We will see what the judge makes of it.

 

You may wish to discuss in more detail with your client the outcome of the investigation Lloyds Bank PLC ("Lloyds Bank") refer to in their letter dated 15th February 2022.

 

Failing any amendment to your witness statement and signed statement of truth I will point out to the Court the false statement(s) contained within the defence you filed after the courts deadline accordingly.
 

Lloyds Bank's breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 is an important matter of record, particularly when weighed against the considerable responsibility they have in managing the personal data of millions of their customers and their financial records.

I appreciate that this was not the outcome Lloyds Bank was expecting when defending the claim but I wanted to bring to your attention that defending this claim in circumstances where it is unlikely to succeed is a waste of your client’s costs. You may therefore wish to advise your clients to seek alternative legal advice.

 

The fact Lloyds Bank chooses to instruct, as you claim, disproportionately costly solicitors is an entirely unrelated matter as to the claim brought against your client and should costs be the primary concern of both you and your client I expect that you will advise them accordingly on how to proceed.

For example, an application to strike out is likely to unnecessarily increase your clients costs and where it is clear there is no agreement between us, these unnecessary costs could be avoided by simply allowing a judge to hear the claim.

 

No detail has been given as to how to return your clients payment and I look forward to receiving this from your client within 7 days.

 

The only abuse of process taking place is Lloyds Bank's attempt to wriggle out of their obligations as laid out in the Data Protection Act 2018 as well as attempt to settle claim XXXX by way of reference to an unrelated complaint and without my agreement.

 

Your letter will be presented as evidence to the Court in support of my claim and in any reference to costs.

I remain available to you if you wish to reconsider your position.

Yours

 

[Intrepid]

1. On 18th May Lloyds Bank indicated they wanted to settle the claim brought against them but without providing any detail as to their proposed Tomlin order (attached below).

 

2. I replied on 27th May (attached below) indicating that I may require legal advice to consider their consent agreement and they should pay for the advice.

3. On 6th June Lloyds declined to pay for any legal consultation and provided a copy of their proposed Tomlin order (attached below).

There are a number of outstanding issues.

 

1. Lloyds Bank continue to withhold missing data from their data disclosure.

2. It appears that they care far more about keeping things confidential (which I have never agreed to) than they do about the data protection rights of their customers.
3. Lloyds bank sent me payment in response to a complaint I made about their service.

4. Lloyds later attempted to intertwine the two very separate issues and attempt to insist that the payment they have made is towards the claim and not in relation the complaint I made.

Lloyds Bank's original position was that they had not breached the Data Protection Act 2018.

Lloyds Bank have moved on from that position and in keeping with both my opinion and that of the ICO that they did not comply with their data protection obligations, and now only appear to dispute that their unlawful action caused any distress. A defence that will have no chance to succeed at hearing.

As Lloyds Bank have declined to cover the costs of seeking legal advice I was hoping one of the site team could review their proposed Tomlin order and help me decide as to whether it is something I should agree to and how to respond.

Lloyds CAG 06.06.22.pdf

[BazzaS]

Propose an almost identical Tomlin Order (except your proposal has no requirement of confidentiality on you, and leaves out them not making an admission of liability). Highlight that your proposal is an equally valid attempt to settle (avoiding a court hearing), and that if the matter did proceed to trial the outcome would also be in the public record.

 

That would show that them (but not the court, until any costs hearing, as on a ‘without predjudice save as to costs’ basis) that the only issues remaining between the parties (despite them saying there is no admission of liability) are

a) the confidentiality

b) the finding of liability at court.

 

Depends how much you want to avoid a) and obtain b), against how much you want to be seen as reasonably / not liable for costs in the event of it going to trial.

 

Was this ever allocated to a track? If allocated to or likely to be Small Claims Track, are you concerned about costs or is this ‘sabre rattling’ by the defendant?

Edited June 7, 2022 by BazzaS

[Intrepid]

Thank you BazzaS for your reply.

The claim has already been allocated to the small claims track and Lloyds solicitors previously brayed about the disproportionate costs which was probably more for the eyes of the Court than myself. I responded as above in post #78.

I understand that admission of liability can be a contentious point and am beginning to understand that it is not necessarily unreasonable to reject a settlement offer and to continue a claim should a defendant refuse to admit liability.

I care little about the money and even less about keeping the outcome confidential. Of course everyone has their price but I doubt they can afford it.

I'm not sure that the amount of money offered to pay for the privilege of pretending they did nothing wrong or to keep it confidential should enter into the consideration of unreasonableness. I imagine if it were Elon Musk that brought the claim that finding a monetary amount that he would care enough about to give up his principles would be nigh on impossible as the money would matter so little, so to assess whether a rejection of a certain term is unreasonable based on the amount offered should be an unfair test.

I also think I may be missing the point of the Tomlin order. If the terms are breached what are the consequences? That Lloyds can reclaim their payment or bring their own claim against me, if so for what?

If all of the above then the contract is essentially unfair as I stand to gain nothing I wouldn't otherwise achieve by continuing the claim.

[Intrepid]

Below is my proposed reply to their letter dated 6th June.

 

Quote

Dear XXXX,

Reference: Claim XXXX

I refer to the above claim and your letter dated 6th June 2022.

 

Lloyds Bank continue to withhold missing data from their disclosure which was incomplete.

 

No agreement can be found until I receive the missing personal data.

 

On the condition that Lloyds Bank provide me with my personal data missing from their disclosure then I have provided you with an acceptable draft Tomlin order for your review.

Yours

 

I have attached what I consider to be a far more palatable consent agreement and would be grateful for any comments/review from the site team.

A few notable changes in reference to the schedule.

Paragraph 2 is reworded as I do no accept they have paid part of the claim, nor was it ever accepted.

Paragraph 4 is removed. It couldn't be more indicative of an unfair contract term in an attempt to release Lloyds Bank of any and all future claims/complaints/liability etc and is complete nonsense.

Paragraph 5 - 8 removed as they all refer to confidentiality.

Paragraph 9 reworded. I think I prefer that I retain my right to any claim on indebtedness.

Paragraph 11 removed. Lloyds refused to pay for any advice.

Paragraph 13 is removed. Reference to no liability.

 

Lloyds - Claimant - Draft Tomlin Order - CAG.pdf

Edited June 7, 2022 by Intrepid

[Andyorch]

Quote

If the terms are breached what are the consequences? 

 

Very little in reality in view of the nature of the settlement...I doubt either of the parties would breach the proposed settlement.

[Intrepid]

Two further letters from Lloyds Bank.

They state the terms offered in the Tomlin order are "standard", I think they left out the part where they meant standard for their client.

My understanding is that the terms of a Tomlin order should be acceptable to both parties.

While I could get bogged down in the fact the wording of their proposed terms in their Tomlin order were very wide, and while perhaps not relevant they appear to fit very closely the definition of unfair terms laid out in the Consumer Rights Act, this is probably a waste of time and better saved for the judge should the matter of costs arise.

I'm not sure there is really any requirement to reply if one is 100% certain the claim will be awarded, however there is an opportunity to save Lloyds Bank from further wasting the court's time.

A proposed reply below.
 

Quote

Dear XXXX,

 

Reference: Claim XXXX

 

I refer to the above claim and your letter(s) dated 9th August 2022.

 

I am unsure why you asking to me to provide you with what you refer to as “further information” of which Lloyds Bank is fully aware and should have made clear to you.

 

Rather than a genuine request for further information your letter appears to be nothing more than a disguised letter of intimidation in order to threaten costs.

 

I am confident upon the evidence being heard that your defence will be struck out and you will have to pay the costs of my claim.

 

In order to save the court from having you waste its time further with unnecessary requests, I refer you to the letter produced by Lloyds Bank dated 15th February 2022.

 

I also refer you to the ICO’s decision in case IC-XXXX where it was set out very clearly the data that was withheld by Lloyds Bank and where the ICO agreed that the disclosure provided by Lloyds Bank is incomplete.

 

If Lloyds Bank have lost either of these documents or have refused to provide them to you please let me know.

 

There is now a record of repeatedly having to refer you to information that Lloyds Bank should have made available to you or that you have chosen to ignore. If Lloyds Bank is withholding information from you as they did with my personal data then it is clear who is acting unreasonably.

 

While I am open to reasonable proposals from Lloyds Bank that are acceptable to both parties, so far none have been received. The hearing is upcoming and the hearing fee once paid is non-refundable.

 

In absence of admission of liability, I will seek findings from the Court which will become public record.

It will be clear to any reader that Lloyds Bank is more concerned with protecting its own image rather than its lawful obligation to comply with data protection legislation.

Yours

 

Lloyds - Defendant - Letters 09.08.22 - Redacted.pdf

Edited August 10, 2022 by Intrepid

[Intrepid]

Witnes Statements have been filed (attached below) I am now in the process of preparing counter points for the hearing.

I hope to receive any points or advice that may support my claim and counter their defence.

Lloyds - Witness Statements - Redacted.pdf

[Intrepid]

Following witness statements, Lloyds Bank has provided some of my missing my data along with the following letter.

I am unsure whether to even respond to their letter, the hearing is upcoming.

Their understanding of personal data is of course incorrect and I refute all of their other points.

 

 

Letter referred to above.

 

Attached below.

Lloyds - Defendant - Letter 20.10.22 - Redacted.pdf

[Intrepid]

Claim dismissed.

On the issue of liability the Court found in my favour, that Lloyds Bank did breach the Data Protection Act.

On the issue of quantum the Court found the sum of £125 (which had already been paid) was sufficient compensation.

The claim was for £250.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Intrepid

[Intrepid]

Following the Court's judgment, Lloyds Bank have been entirely disabused of their unfounded position as to what constitutes personal data and continue to withhold my data.

 

Now that the claim is concluded do I write to their solicitors or revert back to Lloyds directly in order to receive my missing data?