Sent Data Protection Act letter the The Woolwich

jogrant69 · 25th April 2006, 09:42

Hi all just wanted to say what a fantastic site and job you are all doing, I found your site through Martins Money site and was disgusted that I have paid so much in charges that were unlawful. So I sent the Woolwich the Data Protection Act letter (on looking through other threads posted it to Barclays Head Office address in London). This was done on 11/4/06 (sent recorded) and I was just wondering if anyone could tell me how long they are roughly taking to send statement out.

ANYONE!! - DO I NEED TO WAIT THE 40 DAYS OR IS IT WISE TO SEND ANY SORT OF REMINDER AS OF THE THREADS I HAVE READ MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE RECEIVED THEIR STATEMENTS QUITE QUICKLY, I REALLY WANTED TO GET MINE TO START WORKING OUT WHAT I AM OWED BUT LIKE I SAID I POSTED THE Data Protection Act ON 11/4/06 (RECORDED) AND AS OF 26/4/06 I HAVE HEARD NOTHING - CAN ANYONE ADVISE ME PLEASE.

Mumofthreeboys · 27th April 2006, 11:51

Firstly, did you enclose a cheque for £10? It seems to me that they only take you seriously when you send a cheque. I too have a claim with the Woolwich and only when I sent them a cheque did they provide me with the statements (this morning) and they returned the cheque!!

Secondly, have you checked that they have received your recorded letter (either on line or by ringing up the PO)? My brother has a claim with First Direct and the letter mysteriously never got delivered..... He had to go into HSBC with a tenner!!

jogrant69 · 27th April 2006, 15:59

Hi - Thanx for replying I did not send a cheque as they would not issue us with a cheque book, so I wasn't able to. I checked online via royal mail and it says the letter was delivered, I have emailed them today and they told me to ring customer services I do not know what to do now for the best now.

Any ideas???

Mumofthreeboys · 28th April 2006, 13:03

I'm sure I've read on here somewhere that it doesn't officially become a Data Protection Act request until they are in receipt of £10 (could be wrong, it has happened once before)!!!

You don't necessarily have to have a cheque book - go into the branch and hand over a tenner, but make sure you get a receipt for it and then follow it up with a letter telling them that you have paid for the statements and the original 40 day deadline (in your first letter) still stands and that if they choose not to respond or furnish you with your statements you will report them to the Information Comissioner.

I did just that with mine, sent letter dated 12th April - full set of statements turned up yesterday (27th) and they sent my cheque back too!! Preliminary letter for payment going in post today.

jogrant69 · 28th April 2006, 13:19

Hi - Thanks for the help, I am going to send them a cheque (I'll ask my Dad to write one) and say that I had already sent them a letter and this one is for the payment and that the 40 days still stand from the date of the original letter and I shall see what happens then.

I'll let you know when I get a reply.

Thanks again and Good Luck with your claim.

Mumofthreeboys · 28th April 2006, 13:33

Yep, that's exactly what I did (and I bet you get your cheque back). Look forward to your post when you get a reply from them.

jogrant69 · 2nd May 2006, 11:07

I have now sent the Data Protection Act letter again including my £10 fee. Lets see what happens now.

jogrant69 · 10th May 2006, 11:13

I sent my Data Protection Act letter 1 May which Barclays (I'm with the Woolwich) have now replied to which is as follows:-

I refer to your letter of 1 May, which was passed to me for comment due to your request for certain information under the terms of Data Protection Act ("the Data Protection Act").
Please be aware that the Bank is not under an 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 shortly without charge on this occasion. In the circumstances your cheque is returned herewith.
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 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 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 provisions of the DPA, is in no way an admission that there was no such manual intervention.

Notwithstanding the above, the Bank is of course entirely willing to supply the general information that should be disclosed due to the Data Protection Act. To initiate the process Barclays will require payment of a £10 fee per individual which should be provided by cheque, payable to Barclays plc, directly to this department. Upon payment of the fee(s) the relevant information will be supplied as promptly as possible.

Yours sincerely

Peter Townsend - Manager, Barclays Data Protection

The address it came from is:-
Barclays
Data Protection
Radbroke Hall
Knutsford
Cheshire
WA16 9EU

From what I understand of the letter they are going to send my statements to me shortly but the rest of the letter I do not understand at all. Have I done what I need and just need to wait for statements or does the rest of the letter need me to respond to it.

Also, do I now send any further letters to this guy at this address as I had sent previous to Barclays Head Office in London.

PLEASE could anyone help as I am feeling and bit lost as to what to do.

Mumofthreeboys · 10th May 2006, 12:23

What a strange letter!! If they have returned your cheque, why have they then asked for payment via cheque??

As regards, the manual intervention, I think they are saying that the information is on microfilm and therefore not covered under the Data Protection Act (which I think is a stalling tactic, IMHO). But it still doesn't explain why they can't / won't tell you whether there was any manual intervention or not. I'm sure I read on the Barclays forum somewhere that somebody from Barclays had replied to a DPA letter asking the writer to explain the term 'manual intervention'!!! Is this account closed?

I don't understand what they mean by 'general information that should be disclosed due to the Data Protection Act' either.

I think you should write back with your queries and remind them that the 40 day deadline still stands as they have not provided you with your statements or you will report them to Information Commissioner.

Maybe a Mod (please help!) could give you more guidance on your reply....... But you should remember that they are on the back-foot and not you, like they'd like you to think. Make them stick to your deadlines and not the other way round.

I will be watching this thread with interest - keep us posted won't you??

jogrant69 · 10th May 2006, 14:47

Hi - Many thanks for your reply after reading the letter a couple more times and showing it to family we think that it just means they do not have to tell me about any manual intervention, but have said that my statements will arrive shortly so I take I just highlight all the charges and go from there.

Mumofthreeboys · 11th May 2006, 11:23

I agree, but make sure they arrive within 40 days from the date of your letter and not when they feel like it!! Keep us posted.

jogrant69 · 24th May 2006, 10:52

I sent my Data Protection Act letter and a cheque for £10 on the 3rd May, I then received a letter from Barclays - Data Protection, Radbroke Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 9EU.

The letter I received is in one of my previous post but it stated that ' you may of course obtain this data from copy statements and these will be supplied to you shortly without charge on this occasion'.

Today is the 24th May am I being impatient or are they dragging their heels???

Mumofthreeboys · 24th May 2006, 12:26

In one of your original posts you said you posted the Data Protection Act 11th April (but without a cheque). When you sent the 2nd letter with the cheque, you reiterated that the original 40 day deadline stood - is this correct?

If this is the case, by my calculations, 40 days was up on 22nd May.

But, as you didn't put the cheque in 40 days from 2nd May is 12th June (ish).

If it were me, I would send them one last letter telling them that they have broken the Data Protection Act regulations by not responding before 22nd May and give them 7 further days to comply and put a cc Information Commissioner on the bottomof the letter, but don't send him one.

Play them at their own game for change!!

jogrant69 · 1st June 2006, 12:02

I am still waiting for my copy statements so today I decided to ring Peter Townsend - Manager at Barclays Data Protection, Radbroke Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire from whom I received my letter regarding the Data Protection Act letter.

I was expecting a man telling me to shove off or something but when I got through and spoke to the receptionist and told her that I had sent a letter and under the Data Protection Act I wanted my copy statements she said 'OK I know what you mean I will put you straight through to Peter Townsend'. I told him the same and he asked who we banked with so I told him 'Woolwich' he asked my name then said just a moment, when he came back on the phone he apologised and said that the letter from him had been sent 8/5/06 and that he would chase it up he then said that he would make a call after he finished on the phone and that the 'Woolwich' are now able to send a schedule of charges out to me which would now only take 2-3 days.

Just thought I would post this in case anyone else had, had a letter from this guy saying that copy statements would be sent shortly and that they hadn't arrived yet, just ring him and ask whether he can tell you when the statements got posted he did seem rather flustered but was very apologetic and not confrontational which was what I was expecting.

jogrant69 · 15th June 2006, 11:40

I have now received my statements and the total came to £2583.00, my partner rung Woolwich Customer Services Centre in Clacton and spoke to some guy who was actually really nice and said once we received the statements to just ring and ask for our money back, we did try this but unfortunately it wasn't as easy as he made out but he did say that we should send out a letter stating what we wanted (All of our money they have (edit) of course!!!). I sent the 1st LBA letter yesterday 14th June by recorded so lets see what happens. I have now got 4 friends who are all asking me to help them as they have had hefty charges so I am very busy helping them now.

moderated whilst we understand your annoyance we have to remove any comments that could be seen as libelous

jogrant69 · 28th June 2006, 09:03

Just a reply to say sorry for what I wrote but you know what I mean!!

rachbabe100 · 30th June 2006, 00:04

Hi there

I am reading with interest as I have recently sent my Data Protection Act letter to the Woolwich and recieved a holding reply from the Woolwich , and a letter from Peter Townsend, returning my £10 cheque.

As I am just beginning my journey I will be watching to see how things progress for those of you further down the road. Any tips, or hints will be appreciated.

I think I might send a polite reminder to Mr Townsend that my statements are due imminently, as he appears to be a little slow in responding!!

Many thanks to all posting here as it is a great incentive to those of us who would probably have let the bank get away with their charges for many more years....

jogrant69 · 30th June 2006, 12:04

It looks like you have received the same letter I did but I waited and waited for a reply and then when the 40 days were nearly up I decided to start ringing him, he apologised and said that he would get straight onto it and that I should receive the copy statements within a couple of days. I didn't so I rung again this time he said that he had passed it back to the Woolwich and that I should receive them again in a couple of days. In the end it turns out that he sent it back to the Woolwich so we rung the customer care number and they said the copy statements had been sent so we waited again and gave them the date that the 40days would expire and they were actually a couple of days late once we did receive them, so in the end we got our statement of charges through ringing the customer care line and we needn't have bothered with Peter Townsend.

This has now happened with our LBA letter we got told to send it to Clacton then when we rung them as their 14 days are nearly up they told us it has been sent to Barclays head office in London we tried to ring them and they have never heard of us or received a letter from the Woolwich about us. So we rung the Woolwich back and they said that they would send it to

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