noomill v Northern Bank

[noomill060]

First step in a project to recover unlawfull charges and interest levied thereon from 1987 onwards.

 

Phoned Northern bank HQ today asking for my old account number.

 

Suprise suprise- they have no record of me ever having an account with them!

[lickthewallfatboy]

now there's a shocker!! LOL

[noomill060]

heh! heh!

 

The battle has just begun!

 

Im gonna head over to the branch where my account is/was and innocently report a change of address and gauge their reaction.

 

If still no record it will have to be a Subject Access Request.

[noomill060]

Just back.

 

They close at 3.30!! Went to the pub instead.

[noomill060]

Got my SAR into Northern's Portadown branch on Friday 13th!

 

Just had a response.

 

 

 

They are claiming that they dont have to comply, under the "disproportionate effort" exclusion.

 

They claim account closed 1995, though I have no recollection of asking for the account to be closed.

 

They also make the observation that I may wish to use the data requested in a legal action to reclaim charges.

 

They also say that in this event, they will hide behind the Statute Barred defence should I make claim against them.

 

The War goes on.

[noomill060]

As the 40 days elapsed this week I have sent an official non-compliance complaint to the ICO.

[noomill060]

Recieved a favourable response from the Information Commissioners Office. they consider it "unlikely" that Northern Bank have complied with my S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) and advise me to go through the FOS.

 

Nah!

 

Small Claim lodged today for a Court order to enforce compliance and £200 damages.

[oneintheneck]

hi i am claiming against the northern sent the first letter and had one back before the deadline. Asking me for more time to fully investigate my claim and inviting me to contact my manager they have asked for a further 20 days what should I do?

[noomill060]

Stick to your own deadline, YOU set the timescale, not them.

 

If they have not responded positively within the time frame outlined in your letter, start your small claim.

 

I would advise against trying to talk to them by phone, they will tie you in knots and fill your head with nonsense.

[oneintheneck]

Stick to your own deadline, YOU set the timescale, not them.

 

If they have not responded positively within the time frame outlined in your letter, start your small claim.

 

I would advise against trying to talk to them by phone, they will tie you in knots and fill your head with nonsense.

Thanks noomill060 the response was very friendly asking me for more time to complete their enquires with a time scale given for a decision. Will not call the manager as he is the person who was my business manager.

[noomill060]

Hearing date set for October 25 at Craigavon Courthouse.

 

Northern had until 16 July to dispute my claim, but didnt do so until 18 July.

 

At 12.03 on 17 July I applied for a Default Decree online, must scared the sh!te out of them, 'cos by the 18th they had entered a dispute via "non-standard letter"!

 

(Local judge will accept dispute notices even after the official return date)

 

So, I guess I'll be seeing some eejitt from Northern bank at Craigavon Court on 25 October!

 

Unless they've complied with my S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) by then, and made me an acceptable offer for damages...

[noomill060]

Ive now recieved Northen bank's defence:

 

The Bank denies that the Applicant has an account with the bank. (Never claimed I did) defence The bank believes that the Applicant had an acconut or accounts that were closed in or about 1993 .

 

The Bank recieved a SAR from the Applicant on or about 13 April 2007 together with the statutory fee of £10. The SAR requested, inter alia, a complete list of of all transactions and charges relating to the Applicant's banking history with the Bank. the bank advised the Applicant that it could not comply with the request.

 

The bank recieved a letter from the ICO dated 3 July 2007 and will respond to same.

 

The Bank submits that it has acted lawfully in relation to the Applicant's SAR since bank records of transactions for the period 1987 to 1993 are held on microfiche records. Such records do not constitute a relavent filing system within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 since they are filed by date od statement and not be customer name, address or account number. Customer statements were issued after every 30 transactions (page full).

 

In the alternative, if the Court finds that the microfiche records are a relavent filing system, which is denied, the bank submits that recovery of the Applicant's records would require disproportionate effort within the meaning of the Act and the Bank is not obliged to provide the data requested.

 

The Bank denies that the Applicant has established any claim for return of alleged "penalty charges unlawfully debited" which in any event would be statute barred under the Statute of Limitations.

 

The Bank denies that any award for damages should be made to the Applicant.

[noomill060]

Just recieved this response from the ICO:

 

Dear noomill060

Re: Complaint against Northern Bank

I refer to the above and acknowledge receipt of your e-mail dated the 10th August 2007.

We have contacted Northern Bank about your complaint and advised them that we do not consider the way your statements are held makes them exempt from the subject access provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

If the letter you have received states that this is the reason why you have not been provided with your statements please provide a copy of this letter to us.

Please be aware however that Northern Bank has advised us that they are unable to provide you with your old transactional data without the statement date. In cases such as this organisations are not under any obligation to provide information in response to a subject access request unless information which is reasonably required to locate the data is provided to them.

In your case we cannot compel Northern Bank of provide you with a response until you have provided the statement date and allowed them 40 days from receiving this information to provide a response to you.

Yours sincerely

Victoria Byrne

Casework and Advice Officer

I have sent them a copy of Northern's defence.

Seems a bit of a con when they can avoid the SAR simply by filing records by date of statement, rather than name or account number, doesnt it?

Any thoughts?

[steven4064]

Generate a list of dates using excel and send them that.

[noomill060]

Not sure what you mean, Steven. Could you elaborate?

 

A list of random dates between September 1987 and a point in 1993?

[noomill060]

Sent ICO a few emails today

 

Ms. Byrne,

 

In reponse to your request for evidence that Northern Bank is stating that they have failed to comply with my SAR because they do not believe microfiche is a relevant filing system within the meaning of the DPA, please find below a verbatim, word for word copy of Northern Bank's letter to which I refer.

 

 

If you would like a photocopy, I will provide one, but this is simply a sheet of A4 paper, no letter heading and provided to the Court as their defence to my claim in the small claims track.

 

 

Northern Bank have only asked me to provide the date of account closure by way of additional information. No mention of requiring dates of statements.

 

Had they done so, (and if they are asking me to provide it) would I be able to acquire this data from them by way of a SAR?

 

and finally-

 

 

Ms.Byrne,

 

To recap and to quote from the ICO's own website:

 

You say that Northern have advised you that they need "statement dates" in order to provide me with the data I rquested.

 

I do appreciate that Data Controllers may reasonably ask for additional information to help them find data requested, however:

 

1) Northern Bank did not ask me (the Data Subject) for this information, nor have they given me this as a reason for their inability to comply with my SAR.

 

2) The only additional information they asked me to provide is the account's closure date. (Which I have given them)

 

3) By their own admission, Northern Bank file transaction data by statement date, not account closure date.

 

4) You say:

 

"In your case we cannot compel Northern Bank of provide you with a response until you have provided the statement date and allowed them 40 days from receiving this information to provide a response to you."

As I haven't been asked to do so by Northern Bank, I dont understand the relevance of this statement.

With respect- who are you (the ICO) to set conditions before action, stipulating that I, myself do something which even the Data Controller hasn't ask me to do?

As I have provided all information which Northern Bank asked for, I am disappointed that you do not feel able to instruct them to comply with my SAR.

The Northern Bank state "Disproportionate Effort" as a reason for not complying with my SAR.

This exemption takes into account the cost, time, difficulty and the size of the orginisation, balanced against the detriment to the Data Subject by not having the data requested.

In my case, the detriment is measurable- many thousands of pounds unlawfully debited by the Northern Bank, which, naturally I would like returned, either amicably or by legal action.

In attempting to use the "disproportionate effort" exemption, Northern Bank are attempting to continue to profit from their unlawful acts.

This profit from unlawful debits over many years, I believe, negates their assertion of disproportionate effort and implies abuse of the DPA, indicates an acknowlegment that in complying, evidence of their unlawful debits will produced.

The detriment to myself, and my legal right to reclaim my money I believe, far outweighs Northern Bank's claim to "disproportionate effort".

I ask you to reconsider your decision.

[steven4064]

Not random no. In excel if you put two or 3 dates in a column, select and pull down it will generate a list with the same 'gap'. Eg in a column put

 

30/9/87

31/10/87

31/11/87

 

and selct the 3 'cells'. A little black square appears at the bottom of the selection. Right click on the little square and pull down the page. It will generate a list of dates (last day of the month in this case) until you stop. Cut and paste the list into a letter and send it to them.

[noomill060]

Ah yes, I see what you mean.

 

Unfortunately, the Northern is saying that statements were issued every 30 transactions, rather than a period of every 30 days or so.

[steven4064]

THey are taking the p**s. I would be tempted to use the method I posted above to send them a list of dates for every day from 01/09/87 to say 31/08/93. Of course, they won't be able to find statements for most of the days - but that's their problem!

[noomill060]

I'll try that, at least I will get the date of every single statement 100% correct!

 

And they do not deny they dont have the data, they just want me to tell them where to look!

[steven4064]

I suppose they still might claim "disproportionate effort" as you would effectively be asking for about 2000 statements Try the end of every month dates first, as asking them to producie 72 statements cannot be considered unreasonable. They might not be the saem as the statements they sent you at the time, but that is irrelevant. If you think you might have had more than 30 transactions per month, do it for every 2 weeks - that is still only 144 statements.

[noomill060]

Thanks for the reply, Steven, though I may not need to- just got this reply from the ICO to my above emails, my case has been passed to the ICO's heavy mob:

Dear noomill060

Re: Complaint against Northern Bank

I acknowledge receipt of your further information regarding Northern Bank and the decision has now been taken to pass your case to our Regulatory Action Division for further consideration.

Your case will be reviewed by one of our Remedies Officers. However I should point out that we do have an amount of correspondence awaiting allocation to this department. We will however, make every effort to give you a substantive response as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Victoria Byrne

Casework and Advice Officer

[noomill060]

Looks like the ICO has given them a good kicking- ALL my Northern Bank statements from 1987-93 arrived this morning.

 

 

At first glance, not many penalty charges (just 11) but with close on 20 years compound interest...

 

Got a covering letter which I will write up later.

 

They were spitting feathers!

[steven4064]

So it is worth persisting - well done!

[noomill060]

I think that it was their claim that microfiche storage gave them exemption from my SAR, that annoyed the ICO enough to jump on them.

 

Just been going through the statements- its a walk down memory lane, I can tell you!