Vodafone Not Playing Ball. Want to take it further?

ppauls150 · 5th September 2006, 18:48

After sending my letters to Vodafone regarding my CCA request plus the default notice papers that they say they served i got a reply back saying they will not remove nor will they uphold the CCA request as they are not governed by the act. I contacted Vodafone again reitterating that i wish the information or the defaults removed asap and got a reply saying no again.( Will show a copy of what the email said in a moment.) What i want to know is that i am now wanting to start court aciton and issue the court proccedings on them but can anyone help and tell me what the wording of the particulars should be? Also can someone just please claify if they do have to give me the information even though they say they dont in their letters due to certain reasons. I know this is probably B**S**T but wanted to just make sure.

Thank you for your email below. I am aware of the background to your recent request for information about yourself held by Vodafone Limited, and I did appreciate that my response would come as a disappointment to you. As I advised in my letter:

1. The Vodafone airtime agreement is not a regulated product and therefore we are not obliged to provide any documentation in accordance with the Consumer Credit Act 1974. ( Sent me the £1 PO back )

2. We are well aware of our obligations to provide a copy of your personal information to you and I have duly supplied a copy of all the notes on your accounts with us.(All they sent me was the computer printout of notes certain things what they call a memo report. There was nothing regarding letters they have issued or statements that i requested plus of course the Credit agreement or the default letters)

3. Regarding copies of the airtime agreements, these are not stored in a manner that is covered by the definition of personal data as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998 as subsequently defined in the case of Durant v FSA. We are therefore not obliged to provide a copy of your contract by virtue of Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998. ( So ? SurelyBonds mentioned the appeal case of this but i had a read through that i couldnt see if his appeal was upheld and that you cant get ahold of data that is not stored in a manner that they have easy access to the information. ? Relevant Filing System? )

4. You will see from the notes on your accounts that we made attempts to contact you by standard letter advising of outstanding monies and the repercussions of failing to pay on several occasions. ( I cannot see from the notes that there were letters sent out to me regarding this issue. I suppose it wouldnt take them long to make them up and add them to the account though )

5. You have stated that the defaults on your credit reference records are inaccurate - I have provided you with the information that we have regarding outstanding monies, but I have not seen any evidence or received any explanation from yourself as to why you believe that information is inaccurate. As I am sure you have been advised by our customer service people previously, we will only remove the default information where we have evidence that they are inaccurate. Our records show that they are not. ( Well it looks like that they at least have a record of payments made and payments not received or left outstanding at the time they mention though this has all been paid now. Don't know why if they cannot prove it with Contract )

I have no doubt that you will keep your word and issue court proceedings, and would advise therefore the our contact details for such course of action are:

Legal Department, Vodafone Limited, Baird House - Second Floor, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 2 FN. ( Oh bet your bottom dollar I will as Long as someone can help me on the relevant information to start it

)

Alternatively, if you wish to complain to the Information Commissioner about the alleged inaccurate information re the default, their contact details are:

Office of the Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF ( Might just send them a letter giving them a breif outline of the case but to be honest they really dont seem to be doing a lot for other people on here at the moment when they do contact them )

Regards

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 02:23

This is a letter that i am thinking of sending to the CRAs as i also contacted them about these but they came back and said that they wont just delete the information on my say so and that the information has to stay on there for 6 years. I will type it out what the CRA said here goes.

Dear Mr ?

Thankyou for your letter bla bla bla

I acknowledge your request for certain account entries recorded on your credit report to be deleted on the basis that your consent for information to be displayed on your report relating to these accounts was withdrawn at the point at which the contract was cancelled.

I note that you are aware that we retain account information on a credit report for six years from the date that an account is registered as being defaulted. I would also like to highlight that the same applies to accounts that are cancelled at the point that they are settled/closed, irrespective of the payment history of the account.

In both these instances, the original contract agreed between the consumer and the lender has effectively been terminated. However, as the indvidual concerned consented to information being passed to a credit reference agency when signing the original agreement, they are consenting to that information being held and used in accordance with credit industry standards.

It was agreed throughout the credit industy, in conjuction with the OFT and the Information Commissioner, that six years is considered a reasonable amount of time for account data to be retained from the point that an account is settled/defaulted. This is because it enables lenders to make responsible lending decisions when processing applications by having to access to an individuals credit history over this period. This has been in effect for many years and is regulary referred to as the general standard for CRAs.

I see that you have quoted the 5th Data Protection Act which states
"Personal data processed for any pupose shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose."
Broadly speaking this principle is designed to make the period for which data is retained something that organisations can define themselves, as long as they can justify their reasons for doing so. We feel that as it was agreed throughout the credit industry and in accordance with the relevant regulatory bodies that six years is an acceptable period to hold account information, that we are fully fustifed in retaining data for this period.

You openly agree that your contract did stipulate that you give permission for the company concerned to supply credit reference agencies with information relating to the conduct and payment history of the account. By notifying us that the account is defaulted, a company is providing Experian with information concerning the conduct of that account. This information is clearly relevant to your credit history and the information can be retained for six years in the same way that any other closed account data can be retained for this length of time.

before undertaking potentially expensive legal action i would strongly recommend that you contact the Information Commissioner who regulates the Data Protection Act so you can verify my comments. The address is below.

If an individual could simply have an account remoevd at the point that it became defaulted, there would be little incentive to maintain a good payment history on that account. The account holder would be aware that their ability to obtain credit in the long term would not be compromised through their failure to meet the terms of the orignal agreement and this could lead to more people being less careful in how they managin their financial affairs.

This would ultimately be likely to result in more bad debt leading to higher interest rates for us all due to the inability of companies to properly assess applicants and the increased amount of debt that they would have to write off.

Therefore we will not be removing the defaulted accounts to which your refer from your report and i hope that i have adequately explained our reasons for taking this stance.

As it is clear that you dispute the accuracy of these accounts i will write to the company concerned to ask them to verify this information, in the meantime i am adding the following statement to these entries.
I think we know what the statement says.

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 02:33

So ontop of vodafone not supplying the stuff and Experian not deleting the stuff i need some help in what to do about issuing court proccedings on either or both parties and what to say on the particulars for the application to the court?? anyone? this is what i was thinking of sending back to the Experian. Anyone got any suggestions ?

Dear Mr Lever

Thankyou for your letter dated 30/8/06 With regard to my letters that I sent in. As you have said the reason that these entries are on my Credit Report because the Orignal Contract that I signed with Vodafone allowed them to process this data to you. Please note I have given Vodafone on two occasions the opportunity to give me either the contract that I am suppose to have or even the default notices to prove that these two accounts are showing the correct information. Please note that they cannot produce either a signed copy of the credit agreement or even a copy of the default notices for these two accounts. Due to Vodafone not being able to supply this information and you also not being able to prove that I have signed any contract with Vodafone and you are only taking Vodafone’s word that there is a signed agreement when I have asked several times for this to be shown to validate the entries as I believe there is no contract there and this information is being processed unlawfully and would like you to delete this information until Vodafone can Produce this to yourselves. Please note showing of transactions on an account simply does not justify how either I had accounts with Vodafone or even that there was default notices served upon me. Please note that with this in mind Vodafone simply cannot produce the information required to validate these accounts to stay on my credit file. Just you asking Vodafone if the information is correct and them coming back simply saying that it is, will not suffice on this occasion as this is what I asked you not to do in my previous letter. If these two Vodafone records are not removed within 7 days until Vodafone can prove that these accounts are correct by supplying the relevant paperwork then I will have no alternative but take further action upon yourselves for holding information that is wrong by taken you through the court. I also believe that you have no legal right in the first place either to hold information that is passed privately to yourselves and the only real information that you are allowed to store is information about people that is already in the public domain (e.g. CCJs, IVAs, etc)..

So please note again that due to Vodafone not being able to supply the relevant documentation to uphold that these entries are correct and simply not just taking their word for it I would like these entries once again to be scrapped off my credit file within 7 days until Vodafone can prove that there was a contract to start with between ourselves by showing either the full signed contract or a copy of the signed contract and also copies of the signed default notices letters.

Regards

Tinkerbelle · 6th September 2006, 09:43

Why don't you issue Vodafone with a Data Protection Act Statutory Notice telliing them to stop sending your data to the CRA? In the letter to them also tell them to ask the CRA to remove and destroy all current and historical data. There are provisions for this in the Data Protection Act.

If they are claiming that they are not covered by the CCA, then use the Data Protection Act. Try that before taking them to court.

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 10:48

Tinkerbell thanks for that but this is what i tried in the first place many months ago. They did not give me a full disclosure of the Data Protection Act and on many occasions they said, "oh it got put on the computer but the Data Protection Act was never acted upon" then got "oh we have sent you the info out havent you received it?" then i get oh we have again sent it out have you given us the right address?" then when i finally got the stuff all i got was a memo report which basically told me nothing. So i told them they have not complied and this is when i sent the CCA to which they have not given me the infor for either.

Tinkerbelle · 6th September 2006, 10:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by ppauls150

Tinkerbell thanks for that but this is what i tried in the first place many months ago. They did not give me a full disclosure of the Data Protection Act and on many occasions they said, "oh it got put on the computer but the Data Protection Act was never acted upon" then got "oh we have sent you the info out havent you received it?" then i get oh we have again sent it out have you given us the right address?" then when i finally got the stuff all i got was a memo report which basically told me nothing. So i told them they have not complied and this is when i sent the CCA to which they have not given me the infor for either.

This is not what I asked

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 10:59

oh sorry tinks my bad

i did read your post wrong but i have also done that also here is a copy of that aswell.

Statutory Notice pursuant to Sections 10 and 12 of

The Data Protection Act 1998.

Account Numbers: 1323456/9887546

Account holder: Mr ??????

Address: ???
Whereas I have been customer of Vodafone since I opened my account with you and whereas I consented in my contract with you to the disclosure by you of certain data to third parties, at no time did I consent and neither was it within the contemplation of the parties to the contract that I did consent to the processing by you of that data in any manner which would be unfair or inaccurate or which in any way would breach The Data Protection Act 1998.

Therefore, take notice that I require that you cease from processing within seven days of the receipt by you of this notice or else that you do not begin to process any personal data of which I am the subject insofar as that processing involves the communication or passing of personal data of which I am the subject to any third party. Take notice that you must also remove my subject data from all automated processes with immediate effect, as per my rights under Section 12 (1).

This Notice is served on the grounds that the processing or continued processing by you of the said data will be likely to affect my credit rating and my reputation and cause substantial damage and/or substantial distress to me and my family members in addition to that which has been caused to date. And that as the processing of the said data in the way referred to in this notice would violate the fourth, first and sixth principles of The Data Protection Act 1998 to do so would be unwarranted

Tinkerbelle · 6th September 2006, 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by ppauls150

oh sorry tinks my bad

i did read your post wrong but i have also done that also here is a copy of that aswell.

Statutory Notice pursuant to Sections 10 and 12 of

The Data Protection Act 1998.

Account Numbers: 1323456/9887546

Account holder: Mr ??????

Address: ???
Whereas I have been customer of Vodafone since I opened my account with you and whereas I consented in my contract with you to the disclosure by you of certain data to third parties, at no time did I consent and neither was it within the contemplation of the parties to the contract that I did consent to the processing by you of that data in any manner which would be unfair or inaccurate or which in any way would breach The Data Protection Act 1998.

Therefore, take notice that I require that you cease from processing within seven days of the receipt by you of this notice or else that you do not begin to process any personal data of which I am the subject insofar as that processing involves the communication or passing of personal data of which I am the subject to any third party. Take notice that you must also remove my subject data from all automated processes with immediate effect, as per my rights under Section 12 (1).

This Notice is served on the grounds that the processing or continued processing by you of the said data will be likely to affect my credit rating and my reputation and cause substantial damage and/or substantial distress to me and my family members in addition to that which has been caused to date. And that as the processing of the said data in the way referred to in this notice would violate the fourth, first and sixth principles of The Data Protection Act 1998 to do so would be unwarranted

Ok. So you have issued this and they have not complied. It's court time.

Edit: Posted same time as SB

SurlyBonds · 6th September 2006, 11:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by ppauls150

Tinkerbell thanks for that but this is what i tried in the first place many months ago. They did not give me a full disclosure of the Data Protection Act and on many occasions they said, "oh it got put on the computer but the Data Protection Act was never acted upon" then got "oh we have sent you the info out havent you received it?" then i get oh we have again sent it out have you given us the right address?" then when i finally got the stuff all i got was a memo report which basically told me nothing. So i told them they have not complied and this is when i sent the CCA to which they have not given me the infor for either.

Then I would simply suggest that you take them to Court and ask the Court to enforce the removal notice.

People on this forum have got to start realising that in this 'who-blinks-first' struggle, sometimes you have to go the whole blu**y hog and stop talking about it and just get on and DO it.

If you take it to Court (as I have advised before) then they will have to show the judge why they believe that they are exempted from your statutory request...

... they will also have to show that you gave permission IN THE FIRST PLACE for them to process your data and for them to disclose it to the CRAs...

... to do this, guess what they have to do???? yes, you guessed it, show the Court (in their document bundle) copies of the ORIGINAL contract(s) with your signature on it...not templates, samples or anything else they try it on with...but the actual ORIGINAL document...

...if they can't produce a copy of your permission, then they have NO permission, and the judge will order it be removed...

...if they DO produce the contract (the one that they reckon they can't get to), then they are going to look pretty stupid idiots both to themsleves and (more importantly) to the Court, and the judge will take a pretty dim view of them for wasting your time and for not taking measures that could have prevented the case from coming to Court...judges don't like people abusing the Court system or wasting their time...

...and even IF they DO produce it, then they are out of time (as per S10) for their exemption...and you win again...

I really don't know how to make this sound any simpler.

If it really means that much to you to have this data removed (and it seems you have a pretty good case) then be prepared to take it all the way... that is what the Courts are there for to decide when two parties don't agree, to have someone with a good knowledge of law to decide for them, based on the evidence and with a sense of proportionate reasoning.

This is not rocket science.

Now, please go down to your local County Court and get the form and fill the damn thing in stating what you want done, and include your claim for the fee, pay the fee, and submit it. I'll wager a 90% chance that they will just do it, when it lands on Vodafone's desk anyway, and they will probably write to you and offer to settle it out of Court... but do insist that they settle the whole claim which includes your fee.

Then everyone will be happy again, and the CAG forum databases will be that little less full of the same questions being asked over and over again.

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 13:37

thanks to you both that is what i am wanting to do. The thing that i dont want to do is to make myself look a plonker when i fill in the particulars of the claim to the court and put the wrong thing. Was hoping that someone either might have already done a particular for a claim and if so what was the wording put on it that basically tells the court that you are taking them to court for non disclosure either under the Data Protection Act or the CCA and believe that they dont have the right to process this data and want it removed. I take it that is what is needed somewhere along them lines but dont want to mess it up. Also other people might start to need this bit of info on what to put on the particulars when other companies dont comply with them.
Thanks Tinkerbell and SB

Tinkerbelle · 6th September 2006, 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by ppauls150

thanks to you both that is what i am wanting to do. The thing that i dont want to do is to make myself look a plonker when i fill in the particulars of the claim to the court and put the wrong thing. Was hoping that someone either might have already done a particular for a claim and if so what was the wording put on it that basically tells the court that you are taking them to court for non disclosure either under the Data Protection Act or the CCA and believe that they dont have the right to process this data and want it removed. I take it that is what is needed somewhere along them lines but dont want to mess it up. Also other people might start to need this bit of info on what to put on the particulars when other companies dont comply with them.
Thanks Tinkerbell and SB

Why don't you write a draft and post it here?

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 14:16

I have asked the defendant (Vodafone) to produce copies of the original contract and copies of the default notice that is suppose to have been held between the defendant and the Claimant. This was done by me requesting the information under the Data Protection Act where there was not a full disclosure of my information to me and also under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 which again the claimant failed to produce copies of the agreement. I am contesting that they are processing data to Credit Reference Agencies without my authorization where they have recorded defaults under my name. I believe that the Claimant has been processing my personal data without written permission and as such is a criminal offence under section 35 of the Data Protection Act.

How does that sound? think i should add or delete anything?

Tinkerbelle · 6th September 2006, 14:25

As a guide, have a look at this.

SurlyBonds · 6th September 2006, 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinkerbelle

As a guide, have a look at this.

Yep, this is about as good as you'd need.

Personally, I would (maybe) include a little more detail to explain the point.

"The Claimant signed a civil contract with the defendant on dd/mm/ccyy in which it was agreed that the disclosure of personal data in relation to the contract would extend only to such times as the conclusion of the contract.
At no time did the Claimant grant permission, either expressly or implied, for the defendant to abritrarily extend that permission to store, process or disclose any personal data beyond the cessation date of the contract.
It is the Claimant's contention that the defendant's perceived right to abritrarily choose to extend the length of that contract without the Claimant's knowledge or agreement would be unlawful and unenforceable under the provisions of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999).
The defendant has failed to provide the Claimant with any evidence to prove agreement to such terms in perpetuity, and it is therefore the Claimant's contention that the defendant is in breach of both the contract itself and the Data Protection Act 1998, by the defendant's continued disclosure of personal data."

We won't get into the reciprocal clauses bit yet....

ppauls150 · 6th September 2006, 23:15

Thanks to you both for the particulars

next up is the court papers for these people who think that they can bully us around, well not anymore. Lets see how long it takes them to remove the data once they find a court papers slapped on their desk

Again thanks for the particulars

dayglo · 7th September 2006, 14:33

if you are only claiming for 'removal of default' and no money is involved is this £150 court fee and does it remain on the small claims track or do you add a small sum under damages and only pay £30 say?

ppauls150 · 7th September 2006, 16:15

I dont know but i will find out soon unless either vodafone come back to me and tell me that they will remove this information asap. I have once again just sent them an email telling them to show proof, remove the information or i will issue court proceedings in the morning. I have just got off the phone with a person from Experian after he told me vodafone said once again that the information is correct and that they cannot remove it if they say it is correct. I told him that this simply is not good enough as i have asked them several times to show that the information is correct either with the credit agreement and the default notices and they cannot show these to me so how can they process my information if they cannot show i have given them the consent. He said they dont usually ask companies to prove it but he said he will on this occasion. He also mentioned that they are getting a lot of standard templates which look like they come from a website forum where people are challenging their information and they cannot just give in just because the companies cannot produce the documents. I said how can that be when it is not our fault if big companies are not keeping the relevant documents that they need to show that they have the authorisation, and if they need this for future needs then they should file them properly and that it is not the consumers fault if they challenge the companies and the companies cannot provide the goods to show that they have consent.

dayglo · 8th September 2006, 15:07

I now know the answer - £150 fee, non-monetary claim, small claims track when AQ arrives.

ppauls150 · 8th September 2006, 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by dayglo

I now know the answer - £150 fee, non-monetary claim, small claims track when AQ arrives.

£150 looks like i might have to wait some time then before i can issue the court proceedings.

Tinkerbelle · 16th September 2006, 19:41

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