Telewest registered a default against me

[defaultthis]

Hi all,

I hope someone can give me advice on this!

I decided to check my credit reference\score earlier on this year, and found that Telewest had registered a default against me.

I had an account with them from December 04. I cancelled it by phone, to be disconnected for 28/04/05. They let me off the 3 of the remaining 6 months worth of charges, which I thought was nice of them...

Anyway, spinning time forward a couple of months, I'd moved house. The next thing I hear is from Telewest\Westcott - with a demand for £127. I rang up and paid it on the 27/07/05, thinking that the matter was now closed.

This June, I decided to check my credit reference\score with Experian, and was dismayed to find that Telewest registered my account as defaulted, on the 27/06/05! This wasn't even marked as satisfied! I disputed this with Experian, but this of course didn't remove the default, it was just eventually marked as satisfied!

I rang Telewest (a mistake, I know!) and asked them to kindly remove this default, given that it was applied before the 3 month guidelines set down by the Information Commisioner's Office, but all I got was some uptight, unhelpful little jobsworth in their credit department who wouldn't lift a finger to help me!

I've sent a CCA request, and they've ignored it, and I've now sent SB's long letter - again, no response. I'm reluctant to take this to court, as I believe that I may be liable for their defence costs, if I lose. Is this true?

Is there another angle of attack that I could use against them? Any feedback from you guys would be appreciated!

[breadline]

Telewest seem to make defaults thier hobby.
Your default is possibly made up of charges.
Getting an Subject Access Request responce from Telewest is not easy there are alot on here out standing.
mine was sent £10 postla order accepted and still no Subject Access Request, i sent a LBA and im now sat on other cases but im willing to take the Subject Access Request failure to court.

Good luck i would go through all the letter process and then conide which way you want to go.

The Information Commissioners Office and the FSO are not much help.
If you want in hard its court.

BL

[defaultthis]

Update: I got fed up with the letter writing process, so I rang Telewest, and after explaining the situation to one of the credit managers (amount was paid, default was raised outside of Information Commissioners Office guideline time of 3 months, the rest of my credit reference is squeaky clean) and threatened litigation with claims for damages, they've now apparently issued a 'stop press' amendment to the CRA that they deal with - which will take 28 days to process.
I'll let you know what (if anything) happens.

[defaultthis]

Response from TW

Chief Executive Office
Concord Business Park
Threapwood Road
Wythenshawe
Manchester
M22 OBA


December 2006


Dear

Whilst your notice is very comprehensive and clarifies very clearly what your requirements are, unfortunately it also interprets a number of the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 incorrectly. Interestingly, nthTelewest has received other notices worded exactly the same as yours, which obviously also misinterpret the Act.

With regard to your allegation that nthTelewest has unlawfully processed your data by breaching principles 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Act, I can confirm this is not actually the case, all processing undertaken by ntl:Telewest has been conducted fully in compliance with the Act. Working through your letter I would like to offer the following comments.
Your letter alleges that ntl:Telewest has unlawfully filed a default on your credit file. However, on investigation I can confirm that a payment was received x March 2005 for your x February statement. No payments were received for the March, April and May statements until July 2005, when a payment for £ x was received from Westcott.

With regard to your written permission being revoked upon termination of the contract, I can confirm this is not the case. Clause F, section 7, sub section m of nthTelewest terms and conditions state that


“We may reveal information on your payment history to the usual credit agencies'

Therefore, ntl:Telewest has simply disclosed details of how you conducted your account as permitted by your contract and this is not limited by whether the contract is current or has been terminated.
However, with regard to the exemptions to Section 10, as you correctly point out, 10(2)(a) does give an exemption if the conditions in paragraph 1 to 4 of Schedule 2 are met. Whilst I note your contention that none of these paragraphs provide ntl:Telewest with an exemption, I can confirm that they do in fact provide two exemptions;

• Paragraph 1 - the data subject has given their consent.
• Paragraph 2(a) - for the performance of a contract which the data subject is party to.

As detailed previously, your consent was not terminated upon cessation of the contract and nthTelewest terms and conditions (performance of a contract) permitted ntl:Telewest to share your payment history with the credit bureau's.

With regard to Section 35, this does not make it a criminal offence to disclose personal data without express written consent, in fact it actually permits disclosure under certain conditions. There is a criminal offence under the Data Protection Act for unlawful disclosure of personal data, however I will not go into detail here as it is not for me to educate the author of your letter, which may have been yourself or a third party considering that identical letters have been received by ntl:Telewest, regarding the finer details of the Act.

I will now detail ntl:Telewest actions in regard to your summary of requirements.
1) ntl:Telewest will not cease to continue to store your data. nthTelewest is entitled to retain such data for it's own business purposes and to fulfil certain legal obligations, for example to evidence its VAT returns.
2) Section 12 of the Act does not apply here, and as with Section 35 above, it is not for me to educate the author of your letter on the requirements of the Act.
3) ntl:Telewest can not fully honour this request. Should ntl:Telewest be served with a lawful request for your data, e.g. from a law enforcement agency or Court, ntl:Telewest will have no choice but to disclose your data, otherwise we will be subject to litigation for non compliance with such an order, something we are not prepared to do.
4) In accordance with the terms of your contract, it was appropriate for ntl:Telewest to disclose your data to the credit bureau's and therefore this data will remain on your credit file.

I trust their response brings this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

Yours sincerely

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Any advice, anyone?

[Donel261]

They are ba****d''s... I hate Telewest with a passion

[buzby]

Well, they've been taken over by NTL and will be branded Virgin Media, so perhaps their disappearance will give you some comfort?

[defaultthis]

Well, I can tell you that I'm not at all happy with their arrogant response! It's not like I've got an armful of defaults against me - this is one default where the rest of my references are listed as perfect 0's.
I don't think Telewest have disappeared - I think they still exist in their own right, even if they are the 'bride' of the NTL\TW marriage.
I'm on the brink of writing back to them and asking them to remove it under the 'distress' part of the letter, citing my case. I really don't want to do this - it feels like begging, where they should be the ones apologising for being overzealous!
Or, I can call their 'bluff' by applying for copies of the agreement and default notices, which I don't think they have as I'd already sent a request for these back in October.
Other than that, I really don't know how to respond. I've no legal experience or aptitude! If anyone can give me even casual advice, I'd very much appreciate that!

[buzby]

This in not an account regulated under the CCA, so any 'default' is simply one that the company says you didn't pay any particular bill on time, so you may never have received a formal letter - you just don't need one - a reminder would suffice.

You don;t need legal experience, if you feel they are being unfair, write and tell them so, and what you require to make thing right. As long as you're being reasonable, they usually are too - but it helps if you've a previous good record with them.

[defaultthis]

That's just it, you see? When I rang them initially, I was very polite and reasonable and told them that this default is really affecting my ability to get credit, but all I got was an unhelpful, uppity jobsworth! Hence why I decided to try SB's letter, as it was my belief at that time that they wouldn't remove this default marker without being forced to.
I'll try writing again, but my gut feeling is that they won't budge on this matter!
The only other thing I can say is, the Data Protection Act is useless, and the CRA's should be brought to book, if they can register adverse credit data on individuals just because of a companies say-so!

[buzby]

ON the one hand, our data privacy is being railroaded by these CRAs, but on the government side they say they are the lynchpin of ensuring responsible lending - not only that, the law is being changed to allow banks to release data on how a data subject's account is being handed - even if they hadn't agreeed to it. (If you opened an account prior to 1994 you didn't give permission, they want to get round this). Similarly, Council's have been told they can gain extra revenue by being PAID to give all their Council Tax data of payments to CRA's.

We're being screwed, and there's not much we can do - hopefully a change of Government will kill the ID Card Bill, before this too is linked to the CRAs.

[defaultthis]

I didn't realise any of that, and I keep an eye on the media! Isn't it funny what is deemed "newsworthy" these days? Poshs and Becks makes news no matter what insignificant things they do, but erosion of privacy doesn't? What kind of state do we live in?

I'm a strong opponent of ID cards anyway, and fully intend to defy registration or, better still, emigrate if this lot manage to gain another term in power!

[buzby]

Originally Posted by defaultthis

I'm a strong opponent of ID cards anyway, and fully intend to defy registration or, better still, emigrate if this lot manage to gain another term in power!

Have a look at another posting on this Forum recently about the NHS database and how to opt out, and for information on ID Cards and possible misuse, look at NO2ID:stop ID cards and the database state

[defaultthis]

You preach to the converted, my friend!

I'm already signed up to the ID card pledge on pledgebank, and put my name on the petition at the downing street website, and have written to my nu-labour local MP (although this achieved nothing!).

But the NHS database is an interesting one. I'll look into that. Thanks!

[demon_x_slash]

Opting Out of the New NHS Database 2007

Thanks for the plug

[buzby]

Keep bumping it - it's worth stating, or ask the mods to make it a sticky!

[demon_x_slash]

I'll only bump it with new articles I come across, I get fed up of going to a thread and expecting an update, only to see:

*bump*

*bump*

*bump*

...ad. infinitum...gets a bit tiresome