Barclays refused to disclose all data: PLEASE HELP

[AY1000]

Hi

 

After sending my initial £10 to have all my statement dating back to 6 years disclosed they have refused to go beyond June 2004 claiming they not are required to do so after 3 separate letters. PLEASE HELP.

 

------------------------------Letter dated 21 April --------------------------

 

Subjed Access Request

 

Thank you for your letter dated 19 April 2006.

 

With regard to your request that we provide a computer print out of transactions on your account from the period 25 March 2000 to date we are unable to provide the information requested. Out computer systems do not permit us to print such historic data. Neither do our computer systems allow us to search for and identify individual charges applied to an account. It is therefore not possible to provide you with a print out of such charges. I would also add that Barclaycard did not introduce default charges on its accounts until mid-200l. The print out that has been provided to you contains the information that we currently have recorded relating to charges on your account.

 

As I explained in my letter dated 11 April 2006 copy statements held prior to May 2004 are stored on microfiche. These statements are therefore not retained in a relevant filling system and therefore do not fall within the class of documents required to be produced pursuant to a subject access request. Your reference to the case of Smith -v- Lloyds Bank PLC (2005) EWHC 246 (Ch) is puzzling in this regard as that case fully supports Barclaycard's position. In that case Mr Smith made a subject access request to Lloyds. Lloyds did not disclose all the documents that it held as it took the position that a number of documents held loosely in boxes were not contained in a relevant filing system and therefore were not required to be produced. Mr Justice Laddie agreed with Lloyds and dismissed the court application of Mr Smith to have the documents produced. As with a box of documents the copy statements held by Barclaycard on microfiche are not held in a relevant filing system.

 

You also state that other customers have been provided with computer print-outs of transaction information covering "this period", which I understand to be the period prior to May 2004. As Barclaycard do not hold transaction information prior to May 2004 on computer I do not understand what you are referring to in this regard.

 

Accordingly we are unable to disclose any further statement documentation to you pursuant to your request under the Data Protection Act. As previously advised you may contact the Customer Services team for copy statements. There is a standard charge of £3 per copy statement. The telephone number was provided to you previously in order to assist you, but if you choose you may also write to the Customer Services team.

 

Barclaycard is not attempting to obstruct you or delay you. We are however ensuring that all subject access requests made to Barclaycard are dealt with in the same way, whether or not they relate to default fees, so that all requests are processed fairly and properly. Barclaycard have made it clear to customers for many years that copy statements held on microfiche are not required to be produced pursuant to a subject access request.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss the above issues with me.

 

Yours sincerely

Simon Walker

Head of Data Protection & Legal Counsel

Data Protection Team

Legal & Regulatory Compliance

DeptLRC

[CrispDust]

Have a look at No.2 son posting. Seems to be the relevant letter.

Barclycard are bull****ting on this.

 

If I have a patient who requests their dental records for past 6 years I have to supply all of them, including any plaster models kept in boxes or filing cabinets - they are all "relevent filing systems".

X rays I have to keep for 50 years!! Thank goodness the're small and I have a large loft!

 

Where do the banks get off on this procrastination?

[BankFodder]

medical records have always been a special case. Don't compare them with bank details.

However, I think that the microfiche argument is nonsense and it needs someone to take it to the County Court

[dave]

People are welcome to quote me if they want - I received the full 6 years and will provide them for proof if need be in a court.

[mahala]

I wrote to Peter Townsend, Manager of Barclays Data Protection dept, asking for data going back to March 2000. I sent the letter on Wednesday and I got a reply this morning telling me that copy statements are being prepared FOC and will be sent shortly. Perhaps try writing to him and getting your info?

[AY1000]

Many thanks guys for your kind input

 

But what course of action shall I take?

 

1-Take them to court and if so on what grounds?

2-Or alternatively shall I quote people whom have had all their statements disclosed.

 

If I take the first action, is there a template letter which I can follow. And furthermore if I should quote some colleagues then where shall I get their case details from. Please kindly help

[rogerebaker]

I think that barclays bank and barclaycard are dealing with the issues seperatly. Ive had no problem getting statements from Barclays but barclaycard are a different matter. I did notice however the statements from barclays have microfishe references on the top right hand corner which would indicate that at some stage they have been stored as microfishe.

[Natasha]

Take them to court and if so on what grounds?

 

well correct me if I'm wrong but it would be on the grounds of failing to comply with the data protection act 1998!

 

Just because they store their information on a certain system that should make them exempt from complying with the law!

[AY1000]

Many thanks for the helpful information

 

On the basis of what I have been told, I think I should wait for the 40 days to lapsed before writing to them a final letter stating my intension to make a court proceedings against them on the grounds as mentioned by Natasha. Should that fail to materialise I should then resort to court action in which case I will need some names or court cases to make reference to.

 

Hopefully this will be the right course of action rather than wasting my time and writing letters back and forth.

[Dave J]

I've been thinking about this for some time.

 

I think your angle is as follows.

 

In your letter you have offered me copy statements for £3 per statement, the very fact that you can provide this data for this amount tells me you can get hold of it with minimal difficulty and suggests it is kept in a relevant filing system microfiche or not. Profiting from your responsibilities as the data controller is not acceptable as you are effectively declaring you can provide the data easily but for a certain price which grossly exceeds that of the statutory minimum.

 

You could then go on to comment on microfiche as in this page; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfiche

 

Alternatively, I don't know how easy it is to claim back the £3 per statement charge if you were successful in a claim could someone advise?

[Robertxc]

I think the claim to recover charges and the issue of microfiche statements are completely unrelated. They may also point out that for £3 per statement it is worth their while sending the YTS down into the basement to print them off. I agree however that it is all a load of BS. I even had one bank suggest to me that the Microfiche statements are "kept in cardboard boxes, and not sorted in any way".

 

I think the important distiction to make is that you require details of 'transactions', not necessarily 'statements'. What you're really interested in is the information contained within the statements, and this will most certainly be recorded elsewhere in the bank for their own accounting purposes.

[Movingon]

Quite... also I would not consider someone who held my financial data from within the 6 year period, on unsorted, unstructured "boxes of documents" to be a "fit and proper person" to hold fiduciary responsibility on my behalf, and would report them to the relevant authorities in that light.

[james141]

I got them to cough up the ammount of charges on my account by saying I am taking you to court for what I have calculated to be £1756.

 

The next letter I got back said the total charges on your account are £1080.

 

Which I have been taking at face value, but now I have looked in to it a bit more I am very dubious. I am going to file the DPA today to see exactly what is going on.

[Robertxc]

Soooo....maybe we're all missing a trick here! The banks have definitly changed their tactics in the last couple of months. I went after Abbey in January, and they sent me a large box filled with DPA stuff going back years. Recently however part of their strategy seems to be to make it as hard as possible for people to get at the data they need to recover their charges, which in turn makes it harder to recover the charges.

 

BUT, what happens when you you start an action based on an estimated amount? Answer: the bankcounters by saying that the actual amount is £XXX! no more need for statements!

[jonni2bad]

....Answer: the bankcounters by saying that the actual amount is £XXX! no more need for statements!...

 

Which just leaves one tiny point......

 

Would you trust what they tell you?

[Dave J]

If you check my monument thread on other institutions I was sent incorrect data in my dpa which can be proven before a court. I would not trust any institution to advise me of my total charges without a breakdown.

[AY1000]

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