Leo vs Barclaycard

[LeoTheHamster]

Just printed off my first letter (the Data Protection Act Subject Access Request one) following the template on the site, going to send it off Recorded Delivery later today to London.

Lets see what happens. Bit nervous I have to admit, but nothing ventured and all that

[chorlton1]

You will be fine Good luck!

[LeoTheHamster]

I've had a reply. I'm not quite sure what to make of it:

"Privacy & Data protection
Radbroke Hall
Knutsford
Cheshire
WA16 9EU

DATA PROTECTION ACT

We refer to your letter of 5 February, which was passed to this departmentfor comment due to your request for certain information, relating to bank charges, under the terms of the Data Protection Act ["the Data Protection Act"].

Please be aware that the Bank is not under 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 within the next few weeks without charge on this occasion. We would advise however, that statement information prior to 2000 is stored manually rather than on computer. Therefore, if your account was opened prior to this time, there may be an increase in the time required to collate the information you have requested, I apologise in advance should this delay be the cause of any inconvenience to you.

As regards your mention of "manual intervention", the Data Protection Act does not oblige the Bank to comment about internal policies and procedures, Furthermore, in the context of managing day to day 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 generally record information in a way that is caught by the provisions of the DPA, is in no way an admission that there was no such manual intervention.

As the Bank is providing the copy statements on a complimentary basis your payment is returned herewith.

Yours sincerely

Peter Townsend
Manager, Barclays Data Protection"

Now, as the basis of my first letter was to get the statements with the information regarding the charges on them, I'm classing this as Stage 1 Completed Sucessfully. Is this a generic letter that is sent out, and nothing to worry about?

If so, 'twas nice of them to return my cheque. Lets hope they return the rest of the money that easily

[LeoTheHamster]

You've gotta love em, they've sent me another letter:

"Barclaycard House
PO Box 5592
Northampton NN4 1ZY

BARCLAYCARD SERVICES
ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

DATA PROTECTION ACT -Subject Access Request

Thank you for your request for information under the Data Protection Act 1998.

The Data Protection Act provides you with the right to a copy of your own personal data. However, before the data can be made available to you, a fee of £10 is required.

Please note that we can only accept payment for this service by cheque or postal order. All cheques should be made payable to Barclays Bank PLC, and sent for the attention of the Data Protection Team at the above address.

Upon receipt of your payment the information will then be sent to you within the 40 day legal time scale.

Yours sincerely,

Angela M Phillips

Barclaycard Customer Service"

I think Mr Townsend and Miss Philips need to get together and have a chat. One wants my money, the other doesn't. Think I'll just stick photcopies of both letters along with the still-attached cheque in an envelope and send it back to them.

[b8byd]

What silly billys they are. Its quite funny really, but must be infuriating for you.

Good luck with your claim (if you ever get the statements!)