Mahala v Barclays **WON**

[mahala]

Sending the DPA letter today. I closed my account last year and moved banks due to poor service and excessive charges I received from them. It will be nice to get some money back from them for a change. *fingers crossed*

[jonni2bad]

Best of luck - keep us posted on events

[mahala]

received a response to my DPA request this morning:

 

 

Dear Mahala

 

DATA PROTECTION ACT - TRANSACTIONAL INFORMATION

 

We refer to your letter of 26 April concerning access to certain information under the terms of Data Protection Act ("the DPA").

 

Please be aware that the Bank is not under an obligation to present information according to any particular format. Therefore, your request to assemble a schedule of charges is turned aside. You may of course obtain this data from copy statements and these will be supplied to you shortly without charge on this occasion. In the circumstances your cheque is returned herewith.

 

As regards your mention of "manual intervention", the DPA does not oblige the Bank to comment about internal policies and procedures. Furthermore, in the context of managing transactions arising from out of order accounts, the Bank does not hold the information you have requested in a form that would be covered by the DPA. Whilst aggregated information is retained for statistical purposes, this would not constitute "personal data" under the DPA and therefore would not be covered by a s.7 DPA subject access request. For the avoidance of doubt, the fact that we do not record information in a way that is cauht by the provisions of the DPA, is in no way an admission that there was no such manual intervention.

 

Notwithstanding the above, the Bank is of course entirely willing to supply the general information thyat should be disclosed due to the DPA. To initiate the process Barclays will require payment of a £10 fee per individual which should be provided by cheque, payable to Barclays plc, directly to this department. Upon payment of the fee(s) the relevant information will be supplied as promptly as possible.

 

Yours sincerely

Peter Townsend

Manager, Barclays Data Protection

 

well, my first reaction was to get my red pen out and fill in the missing word in the first sentence and return the marked work , but I shall resist.

 

So, I'm getting copy statement FOC, which is a result I think. However, I'm not happy to leave the manual intervention bit there - I don't believe telling me whether someone has manually intervened on my account constitutes telling me internal policies etc and since he's said not supplying the info doesn't mean there isn't any to supply, I want that info!

 

Will a DPA request for full disclosure be appropriate here, or do I need to ask for something else and say that I don't believe that telling me about manual intervention constitutes divulging internal company procedures?

[jonni2bad]

The thing to remember with this response is that, if your case was 'the one' that they took all the way through court, they would struggle to explain why they could offer such evidence at that point, but not be prepared to offer it earlier.

 

They, and you for that matter, are under an obligation to do all they can to resolve the matter out of court. Showing you that evidence (even though we know it doesn't really exist!) would go some way to explaining their costs.

 

So I wouldn't worry about trying to force them to do something which we all know they can't, rather than won't do.

 

Since they are now providing copy statements for free, you've got a result. But do check the info very carefully, making sure you get every last detail you need

 

John

[mahala]

OK, I'll take that advice. I may still send a full disclosure request though, simply because I had a Professional Studies Loan and a Graduate Loan with them and got into difficulty with them. Want to see what I was charged on those and completely forgot about them before. Don't have the account numbers for them now, so hope a full disclosure will help me.

[jonni2bad]

In that case then yes, looks like a good option.

[mahala]

Had a reply from my request for a full disclosure. Interestingly, this time the reply did not come from Peter Townsend, but from Sharon Caffery, who is Subject Access Officer. Not seen her crop up before - have we created a new job?

 

 

Dear Mahala

 

DATA PROTECTION ACT - REQUEST RECEIVED 03/05/2006

 

My purpose in writing is to acknowledge recipt of your letter dated 2 May 2006 and enclosed cheque for £10.

 

With reference to your subject access request under the above legislation, we are pleased to inform you that your request is currently underway. In consequence, any material that qualifies for disclosure as your "personal data" will be sent to you within the stautory 40 calendar-day period.

 

If you wish to get in touch with us, please contact the undersigned.

 

Your sincerely

 

 

Sharon Caffery

Subject Access Officer

 

I'll be interested to see what comes of this. I asked for full information for "any and all" accounts held with them in the past by me, to include loan accounts etc too. I also stated that this was to include a full schedule of charges and transactions for each of these accounts. Since I've seen elsewhere that Barclays have claimed that charges and transactions don't constitute personal data, I wonder what they will send.

 

I shall wait and see, and if the 40 days runs out and they didn't send all of that info, I'll have a word in the IC's shell-like.

[mahala]

Statements from the first request arrived today. This was for the last 6 years on the Graduate account I had. Total comes to £750 (much less that I had expected - it seems they didn't bother to charge me for bounced cheques much of the time).

 

Prelim letter going today.

 

Awaiting the information from the 2nd DPA reques to see how much was levied in charges on my Professional Studies Loan and Graduate Loan.

[mahala]

Have received a response to my prelim letter. At least I think it's a response to my prelim letter - makes no mention of anything in my letter, just the standard complaints leafelt and some waffle about looking into it:

 

 

Dear Mahala

 

We are sorry you have had to contact us about the level of service you have received from Barclays. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to do so.

 

We are looking into yout concerns and will let you have an answer or update as quickly as possible, but no later than 13 June 2006. In the meantime if you wish to discuss this matter further please call us on 0845 609 0806. If calling from overseas please call 0044 113 389 8065.

 

I have enclosed a leaflet explaining hoe Barclays works to resolve complaints. I hope you find this useful.

 

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Paul Molyneux

Customer Relations Advisor

 

 

 

well, where to start. Obviously their standard template letter, to the extent that they can't even be bother to work out if I'd be calling from overseas or not. No mention about my claim. Do you think this is their new stalling method - to completely ignore everything in your letter in the hope you'll lose heart?

 

Not here I'm afraid Mr Molyneux. Oh, and fyi, your deadline for response is up in 10 days.

[jonni2bad]

...Do you think this is their new stalling method - to completely ignore everything in your letter in the hope you'll lose heart?...

 

Yes.

 

It's a cheap and easy way to test the waters with a possible claimant.

[mahala]

Received 2 envelopes stuffed with statement print outs today, in response to my request for all info on all accounts.

 

What I got was information on the current account going back to July 1999 when it was opened. I already had the info for this account going back to Feb 2000. I was able to add £10 to my existing claim, which was taken in Jan 2000.

 

What I had really wanted from this request was information on the loan accounts I had with them - Professional Studies Loan, Graduate Loan. None of that information has arrived. So in effect they have charged me £10 to send me the same info that they sent FOC last week and did not send the info I paid for.

 

Will write back asking for the info I am entitled to. The deadline is 12 June.

[mahala]

copy of the letter I'm sending tomorrow:

 

 

Peter Townsend

Manager,

Barclays Data Protection

Radbroke Hall

Knutsford

Cheshire

WA169EU

 

19 May 2006

 

 

 

Dear Mr Townsend,

 

I am in receipt of the documents that you have supplied in response to my Data Protection Act information request dated 2 May 2006. The disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that at least the following documents are missing:

 

• You have failed to supply a complete list of charges and transactions for all the accounts I held with you. This was to include all loan accounts, of which there were four.
  
• You have failed to supply any notes, or documents relating to instances of manual intervention on any of my accounts since I began banking with Barclays in July 1999.

I had previously requested a full schedule of statements and charges from my current account; these were gratefully received. You stated in your letter to me dated 27 April 2006 that this service was free of charge and that any other personal information I requested would be subject to a £10 fee. I did send a cheque for £10 with my request dated 2 May 2006. It seems this cheque has been cashed, although no new information has been supplied – you have simply sent duplicate information.

 

Therefore, please supply the requested information without any further delay. You now have 23 days left to comply with this request. Should there be any further attempts to delay compliance, I will be left with no alternative but to escalate this matter into an official complaint to the Information Commissioner and/or County Court action under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Mahala

 

[Movingon]

By the way; the following passage from the DPA should be informative regarding their refusal to disclose manual intervention data:

 

7. - (1) Subject to the following provisions of this section and to sections 8 and 9, an individual is entitled-

 

© to have communicated to him in an intelligible form-

 

(i) the information constituting any personal data of which that individual is the data subject, and

 

(ii) any information available to the data controller as to the source of those data, and

(d) where the processing by automatic means of personal data of which that individual is the data subject for the purpose of evaluating matters relating to him such as, for example, his performance at work, his creditworthiness, his reliability or his conduct, has constituted or is likely to constitute the sole basis for any decision significantly affecting him, to be informed by the data controller of the logic involved in that decision-taking.

So - basically if they are making decisions significantly affecting you, then they ARE REQUIRED to produce evidence of their logic for each and every decision. i.e. they must provide you with details of every manual intervention.

[mahala]

Today I received Barclays second attempt to comply with my full disclosure request.

 

They still didn't manage it. Lots of info - reams of it - but not anything with transactions or charges on. I did manage to fish out the account numbers of the accounts though, from the middle of a huge pile of nonsense.

 

So, I've written again asking for the information again.

 

One thing that did concern me was the front sheet of one section of the information. At the top it showed the details of the request - who had requested the information, the date they needed it by, along with other details of the request. The rest of the sheet identified my primary accounts as far as I can tell. One is a loan account which is still running, and it had a column with "Last night's balance". In that column was the debt left on the loan.

 

The next was my primary current account, which I closed last year. According to that sheet "Last night's balance" was some £1500 in credit - quite impressive for a closed account!

 

Now I realise that it doesn't represent what was actually in the account "last night", however it is on a sheet showing a request for info made this month. I need to write and ask them when exactly that information is from, because the details for the other account seemed quite accurate.

 

Here's the letter I sent today:

 

 

Dear Mr Townsend

 

I am in receipt of the documents that you have supplied in response to my Data Protection Act informationr equest dated 2 May 2006 (following a second request on 19 May). However I note that, yet again, the disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that at least the following documents are missing:

 

• You have failed to supply a complete list of charges and transactions for all the accounts I held with you. Documents are still missing for the following accounts: xxxxxxx; xxxxxxxx; xxxxxxx; xxxxxxx; xxxxxxx; xxxxxxx

I would have thought that this was a reasonably straighforward request, however this is the third time I have had to make the request.

 

Therefore please supply the requested informaton without nay further delay. You now have 19 days (from the date of this letter) to comply with this request. Please be aware that failure to comply by this deadline will result in the escalation of this matter into an official complaint to the Information Commissioner and/or County Court action under section 7 of the DPA 1998.

 

[NeilP]

Mahala,

 

Here's hoping it's 3rd time lucky. Good Luck and let us know how you get on.

 

Neil.

[mahala]

LBA going off tomorrow for the initial claim of £760.

 

Perhaps one of these days I will be supplied with enough information to decide whether I have another claim to make against Barclays in relation to the loan accounts.

[paccc-man]

I read your post with interest. I think the point you make on the Data Protection Act is wrong though. The quote you put in your post basically says that if an automated system makes a decision for you (ie. automated overdraft charges) then they have to let you know of the logic of that automated system. I think the point about manual intervention is that a real person intervened and the automated system didn't make the final decision. So I don't think this part of the DPA says they have to disclose manual intervention decisions.

 

However, I don't necessarily read that as bad news.

 

Firstly, if they are holding personal data on you and don't disclose it, in whatever form they are holding it, then they have kept personal data from you. I'd be very surprised if they were allowed to use this data later in a court of law.

 

Secondly, most of the responses I've seen from Barclays say that manual intervention data is held at an aggregated level not at a personal level. If that is the case, they can't make any manual interventions about you available. But they also can't prove that they had manual interventions on your account and therefore the charges reflect their costs. Simply, they're saying we don't hold this data on an account by account basis and therefore can't tell you what manual interventions there were on your account. That's good news for you because it means they can't prove their charges are reasonable in your case. If they later find proof of manual interventions, again, I'd be very surprised if that were allowed to be used in a judgement against you given they would have illegally withheld that information from you.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All my statements are given without prejudice. My statements are not meant as and should not be taken as legal advice, they are just my opinions.

[Movingon]

I read your post with interest. I think the point you make on the Data Protection Act is wrong though. The quote you put in your post basically says that if an automated system makes a decision for you (ie. automated overdraft charges) then they have to let you know of the logic of that automated system. I think the point about manual intervention is that a real person intervened and the automated system didn't make the final decision. So I don't think this part of the DPA says they have to disclose manual intervention decisions.

 

However, I don't necessarily read that as bad news.

 

Firstly, if they are holding personal data on you and don't disclose it, in whatever form they are holding it, then they have kept personal data from you. I'd be very surprised if they were allowed to use this data later in a court of law.

 

Secondly, most of the responses I've seen from Barclays say that manual intervention data is held at an aggregated level not at a personal level. If that is the case, they can't make any manual interventions about you available. But they also can't prove that they had manual interventions on your account and therefore the charges reflect their costs. Simply, they're saying we don't hold this data on an account by account basis and therefore can't tell you what manual interventions there were on your account. That's good news for you because it means they can't prove their charges are reasonable in your case. If they later find proof of manual interventions, again, I'd be very surprised if that were allowed to be used in a judgement against you given they would have illegally withheld that information from you.

 

I presume you're replying to me... you didn't say?

 

It's already been established a week or so ago that my point about s7(1)(d) of the DPA was incorrectly made... when I first read it, I missed the "automatic" part of it - I blame tiredness and lack of concentration.

 

Your other points are well received however...

[mahala]

All the DPA info has now been received and shows that there were no extra charges on other accounts, nor was there any evidence of manual intervention.

 

I received a response to my LBA yesterday - the usual "we are sorry you feel that way ... we do not agree .... ombudsman ...."

 

So, a week on Tuesday I shall be filing a claim, assuming they haven't changed their mind by then ...

[mahala]

claim filed online this afternoon - a total of £908.83 including interest

[jonni2bad]

Well done mahala

[mahala]

Barclays acknowledged the claim today. They now have until 17 July to file a defence.

[mahala]

received from the court this morning a copy of the intention to defend all of the claim. Keith Jeremiah has just added to his caseload.

[Movingon]

Apparently you can call him and he'll settle... so I've heard around here. Remember to ask if you can speak without prejudice...

[mahala]

Barclays have entered their defence, and I am completing the allocation questionnaire now (it has to be erturned by Weds 2 August).

 

I don't know what to put in the "other information" area. Can someone tell me what I should write here? I've used the template to complete the rest, but this is the bit I need help with and it doesn't tell you what to put in there!

 

*breathe*

 

any help greatly appreciated.