Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
The book is easy to understand and clearly explains the rights
a bailiff has, and also what they cannot do when collecting debts and repossessing goods etc.
I only ask as the Natwest only charge £5 for as many statements as you want but the DPA request is £10. Is there a difference? And would it look better if it went to court if you had a DPA request? (Hope I have put this is in the right place as I got told off last time )
You use the DPA when they refuse to ggive you the statements or when they try to charge you a lot of money.
If they are givinig you the lot for £5 then that's good.
However, you might like to send them a DPA request asking them to let you have any deatils of any manual intervention which might have taken place in the implementation of any of the charges which were levied against you.
Please don't pm me about specific questions unless you have posted and it has not been dealt with or unless the matter is confidential. Please include a link to the post you want me to look at. If you have received a defence, contact me.
Advice & opinions of BankFodder, The Consumer Action Group and The Bank Action Group are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Use your own judgment. Seek advice of a qualified insured professional if you have any doubts.
Oh ta very much, will request the statements and take it from there. I terrified how much there is gonna be, me and my OH are guessing aroung £2k!!! :O
Natwest have replied very quickly to my DPA with the following:
".....I will be happy to arrange for the bank statements you requested to be sent out directly. The fee for this is £5. If you require a full Subject access request (SAR) the fee for this is £10 but does not normally include bank statements. Also if you require a full SAR we will need authorisation from Mr xxxxx........."
So I have drafted this reply, please can someone have a read and see if it sounds okay?
Dear Ms Tudor
Re: Data Protection Act 1998 Disclosure Request
I write to you with regards to your letter dated 10th March 2006 in response to my Disclosure Request under the Data Protection Act.
You explain that you can send out the information for a full Subject access request but this does not normally include statements. I have to correct you and explain that this is incorrect.
Bank statements do come under the heading of ‘data’ and therefore should be included in a request for data under the Data Protection Act. An example of this can be found in the Information Commissioners Case Summary for Durant Vs Financial Services Authority - 2003 which states that transactional and statement information is covered by the Data Protection Act.
Therefore the £10 fee for Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act will include the statements I requested for the past 6 years including any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of staff or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.
I would like to remind you that you have a fiduciary duty towards me under which you are obliged to exercise the utmost care in the accuracy of the statements which are made to me and to make a false representation would be a serious breach of your duty. Failure to comply with this request will result in me making an official complaint to the Information Commissioner.
I await your response.
Yours Sincerely
Mrs cheddar
Hope it is okay! Also sent a letter from the hubby saying tis okay for the info, not heard of anyone else having to do this though.
Also it intgregues me when she says "...does not normally include bank statements..." I wonder what the "normally" is about???
This has been debated a lot on the site and you can probably find the discussions be searching. Essentially it is unclear whether bank statements are covered by the DPA. However, it is very clear that details of charges and manual interventions are covered. If you ask for these details then NWB will be breaking the law if they refuse.
Nat West are generally being quite obstructive about responding to DPA requests and you need to ask the right question.
Hi new to all this, but just called Natwest and requested my statements for the last 6 years. i have been charged £5 and they are now in the post. this worked out cheaper than the £10 under the DPA. is there a catch? once i have my statements i can just calculate the total amout of charges myself and then send a letter requesting them back.
Please don't pm me about specific questions unless you have posted and it has not been dealt with or unless the matter is confidential. Please include a link to the post you want me to look at. If you have received a defence, contact me.
Advice & opinions of BankFodder, The Consumer Action Group and The Bank Action Group are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Use your own judgment. Seek advice of a qualified insured professional if you have any doubts.
Hi new to all this, but just called Natwest and requested my statements for the last 6 years. i have been charged £5 and they are now in the post. this worked out cheaper than the £10 under the DPA. is there a catch? once i have my statements i can just calculate the total amout of charges myself and then send a letter requesting them back.
I was told this at the start but was advised on here to get the full DPA as it shows all places where a manual intervention may have taken place. But now I'm confused, I just want to get on with it! LOL! Might just get the statements and take it from there. Honestly sometimes I read that much info on here it blows my mind and I come up with garbage like my letter above....
I write to you with regards to your letter dated 10th March 2006 in response to my Disclosure Request under the Data Protection Act.
I will require a Full Subject access request and enclose authorisation from Mr J xxxxxfor you to proceed and provide the details requested in my letter dated 9th March 2006.
I would also like to remind you that you do have a fiduciary duty towards me under which you are obliged to exercise the utmost care in the accuracy of the complete list of transactions and charges I requested in my previous letter relating to my bank account for the past 6 years.
This is to include any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of staff or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.
If you are unable to supply data relating to manual intervention because there has been no such manual intervention then please confirm this in your response to this request.
I have enclosed a cheque for £10 for the full SAR and would like to remind you that you have 40 days in which to comply.
Yours sincerely
I hope this one is okay and that I am asking the right questions this time!
Thought I would have a thread I can keep updated so people know where I am up to! Sent DPA request only to get reply from Joyce Tudor to say that SAR (their version of DPA) doesn't normally include Bank Statements but could send statements for £5 or SAR for £10.
Wrote back to say that they had a duty to send me list of transactions/charges for past 6 years and details of any manual intervention etc. and also enclosed a cheque.
A few days later I get 6 years of bank statements from Stuart Higley at Customer Relations (no £5 taken).
Am very confused now as they don't seem to be being very consistent at all. Anyway have gone over the statements and seen that I have charges of just over £2100!! :O
Do you reckon I should go for preliminary letter asking for this back now or wait until the DPA is recieved??? TIA
I think that with the Natwest you should wait until you receive the DPA. But hassled them for it. Make sure that there is no misunderstanding in that they don't think that they have satisfied your request merely by giving you the statements.
Don't forget that NatWest are the only people who successfully defended a claim for charges. They persuaded the court to accept that the charges were a service fee.
Now we have documents that shows clearly that bouncing dds etc are a breach and that the charges are levied for this so we are ready for them of they decide to defend another one. We would have to show our evidence to a court. However, get the full DPA to see if there is any other interesting info.
Please don't pm me about specific questions unless you have posted and it has not been dealt with or unless the matter is confidential. Please include a link to the post you want me to look at. If you have received a defence, contact me.
Advice & opinions of BankFodder, The Consumer Action Group and The Bank Action Group are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Use your own judgment. Seek advice of a qualified insured professional if you have any doubts.
BF I am in the same situation actually. I have ordered DPA but they sent me regular statements and didn't charge me. Would that do any harm to the claim as I sent the preliminary letter already.
I apologise if this is considered to be hijacking the thread.
I'm in the same situation - they more or less ignored my DPA request and just sent me statements (from Higley too) for free as they never cashed the £10 cheque that I sent, so I presume that means they will not be on the 40 days countdown yet. Time for a follow up letter me thinks...
The problem I have is that when I got my statements I though that my £10 cheque would have been taken and the actual DPA to follow etc.... Have seen today that the cheque hasn't been taken and don't have any funds......slightly ironic that the cheque may bounce if cashed before tuesday and make me incur a charge. Grrrrr! Flipping banks!!!!
Btw when I got a letter from Retail Reg Risk saying they could send statements for £5 or full DPA for £10 I sent this letter:
Dear Ms Tudor
Re: Data Protection Act 1998 SAR for Account xxxxxxx
I write to you with regards to your letter dated 10th March 2006 in response to my Disclosure Request under the Data Protection Act.
I will require a Full Subject access request and enclose authorisation from Mr xxxxxx for you to proceed and provide the details requested in my letter dated 9th March 2006.
I would also like to remind you that you do have a fiduciary duty towards me under which you are obliged to exercise the utmost care in the accuracy of the complete list of transactions and charges I requested in my previous letter relating to my bank account for the past 6 years.
This is to include any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of staff or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.
If you are unable to supply data relating to manual intervention because there has been no such manual intervention then please confirm this in your response to this request.
I have enclosed a cheque for £10 for the full SAR and would like to remind you that you have 40 days in which to comply.
Yours sincerely
But I still only get the statements.........hmmm. Might give Ms Tudor a ring on monday!