Brilliant.

Will sign up with Moneyclaim tonight, and have a look throughout the forum and google in regards to the SAR requests for Npower.

Reply from Ombudsman..... I reported that the meter was incorrect

Thank you for your correspondence dated February 2018. I apologise for the delay in responding - your investigation officer was not made aware that it had been received and this was only picked up recently.

You have provided copies of bills form npower. We have already received these bills as part of the npower case file and they have been reviewed.

I can confirm that we have fully investigated your complaint against npower (residential). Our conclusions are set out in the decision dated 22 January 2018.

I have reviewed the content of your subsequent email but do not consider that this warrants a change to our decision. This is because you have not provided new evidence or new information or highlighted an error in the facts that makes a material difference to the decision.

Our role in determining the complaint is over and there is nothing further we can do. You are now free to follow other routes to try to sort out the problem.

Surprise, surprise.

Now it's down to you.

Just read it again, and realised something. States February 2018, but I didn’t get back in contact until December 18 regarding that complaint.

SAR is in either way, but just seems a little strange.

Had look through moneyclaim, seems rather straight forward.

Yes - but I suggest that we work out your POC here

I also think that you should make a complaint to the ICO - at least to get a reference number and a paper trail

Aye shall be registering a complaint with ICO.

Can we have a look at POC whenever you’re ready? For original complaint not SAR.

Want to start the letter of action ASAP.

I think that you need to issue the DPA claim first. I expect that you will get your disclosure quite quickly after they receive the papers and then you can plan the second action with greater confidence.

I don't think there is any pressing urgency at present. Correct me if I am wrong.

I think that you need to issue the DPA claim first. I expect that you will get your disclosure quite quickly after they receive the papers and then you can plan the second action with greater confidence.

 

I don't think there is any pressing urgency at present. Correct me if I am wrong.

No absolutely no urgency, more wanting to get the whole thing rolling really. Makes sense actually, use that claim and then leverage the second claim. Guess it’s a waiting game to see if they miss the deadline.

2 days until the deadline for the SAR is due, and i highly doubt it is going to land on my doorstep come monday.

Anything else we should add to the above letter, or send it off as is.

At this point, do I need to formally open the case with MoneyClaim, or is that after the 14 days?

Will also be doing the ICO Complaint on Monday.

The letter is probably fine. At the very least it makes the point.

Make the ICO complaint as you have said – use broadly the same arguments that they are routinely sending out these forms and that they are using your ID and contact details to send other personal data such as hills, threats, demands and that they are ignoring you. Don't tell the ICO that you are starting a legal action – you never know the ICO may then say that they will not investigate a complaint that is also subject to legal action.

Start a legal action 14 days after you have sent the LBA – make it 15 just to be comfortable. Register onto MoneyClaim online and start getting used to it. Draft a particulars of claim and post it here and we'll have a look before you click it off.

So sent off the letter.

In 14/15 days I’ll be on holiday so don’t really want to worry about processing the claim and typing it all up whilst away, so could we go through the POC beforehand, then it’s literally a case of hitting submit on the day.

I really don’t know where to start, apart from the generic, you didn’t give me the information within the timeframe allocated.

I think this is as much as you need to put in the claim at this point. I was think it's better not to provide too much detail because then they can pre-empt your arguments in their defence.

Wait for their defence to arrive – which no doubt will start bleating on about how they didn't know who you were and they need to verify your identity. We can deal with that later.

The claimant sent a properly formulated subject access request made pursuant to the Data Protection Act 2018 to the defendant on XXX date.

The defendant failed to comply with their statutory duty to disclose the claimant's personal data within the lawful deadline of 30 days.

The defendant's failure to comply with the statutory request is continuing.

The defendant is in breach of their statutory duty and furthermore has caused distress and inconvenience to the claimant.

The claimant claims damages of £50

Thank you!

By the way, you must also begin a formal complaint to the information Commissioner.

You should try to do this on the telephone in the first instance and then follow up with a written complaint you can send by email. You need to get hold of a reference number for your complaint.

In your complaint of course you will emphasise the points that have been made here – that they have breached the time limit – but also very importantly that they are placing unlawful obstacles by demanding further identity verification when clearly they have everything they need. Point out the information Commissioner that this is to be routine for Npower.

You should get this off immediately and it will come in handy later on to be able to say that you have done it – and if you happen to get an opinion from the ICO that Npower are in breach then of course this will destroy any kind of defence that Npower might try to make. I suggest you do it today.

Just to let you know, not ignoring this, just that absolutely nothing has happened.

Should I expect this now to be a slower process than when dealing direct with them?

Please will you remind me where we are on this. What was your most recent communication with Npower? Did you make the complaint to the information Commissioner?

Hang on, I think that you have sent them a letter of claim and that the 14 days expires on about the 14th or 15th of February. Is that correct?

You say that you are going on holiday. How long will you be unavailable for?

Yeah both the complaint and letter went off.

I’ll be back on the 20th, so shall see if I’ve had any correspondence then.

Got the letter that was signed as received on the 4th.

Been messing around on the moneyclaim website, so pretty sure I know my way around that. Just need to look at information to put in that, where I’m not overly sure.

It should be straightforward. Make sure that you use the correct company name and registered address in the UK. Use the particulars which I suggested in an earlier post – if you're happy with that. Don't bother to claim interest.

If you haven't heard from them on your return from holiday then you should probably just issue the papers.

Then make sure that you are on hand 14 days later to apply for judgement if they haven't put in an acknowledgement. If they don't acknowledge then apply for judgement the moment that the time limit expires. Don't hang around.

Well back now, had an issue that to be honest completely threw everything sideways, but life happens, so let's get back to it.

Returned back from holiday and had one letter from Npower stating that they had closed the SAR request as I did not fill out that form they had sent. This was after I had sent them the following letter

Hello,

 

I have today received a letter stating that you need to verify my details in order to comply with a standard Subject Access Request.

 

Please note that I have provided you with the required information, sent from the email address held on the account, account numbers, and home address the accounts are registered.

 

As per ICO you are not permitted to make someone fill out a specifically designed form for a standard SAR. Please see follow extract from ICO website:

 

Should we provide a specially designed form for individuals to make a subject access request?

 

Standard forms can make it easier both for you to recognise a subject access request and for the individual to include all the details you might need to locate the information they want.

 

Recital 59 of the GDPR recommends that organisations ‘provide means for requests to be made electronically, especially where personal data are processed by electronic means’. You should therefore consider designing a subject access form that individuals can complete and submit to you electronically.

 

However, even if you have a form, you should note that a subject access request is valid if it is submitted by any means, so you will still need to comply with any requests you receive in a letter, a standard email or verbally.

 

Therefore, although you may invite individuals to use a form, you must make it clear that it is not compulsory and do not try to use this as a way of extending the one month time limit for responding.

 

I feel at the present moment you are obfuscating the process. I will not be filling out your form, and as initial request was made on the 29th December, you have 14 days remaining in which to comply with the Subject Access Request as is my right under GDPR law, or a complaint shall be raised to ICO.

 

Many thanks,

So that is interesting.

Then another letter dated 2 days later stating that they had got the request for SAR and were now working on this.

Obviously I have banked both those letters.

Does that change anything that I will need to place when I submit the moneyclaim thingy later on in the day?

Just wanted to make sure before doing anything.

As of now, they have not acknowledged the letter of claim. It was signed for the following day. So they have had even longer to reply, but yet haven't.

Many thanks,

David

No, I don't think there is anything else you need to do. As long as you are aware that there is a risk that you might lose – very remote risk in my view – but always a risk and that you could lose your claim fee.

The possible losses are extremely low – and apart from anything else I would have thought that once the claim is issued and they realise what they have got that the SAR disclosure will arrive. It would be amazing wouldn't it, if they received a claim from you which they dealt with and yet still denied that you are who you say you are.

Be aware that if you do issue the claim, then they may decide to counterclaim for any outstanding sums. Personally I don't think there would be a bad thing. It would force everything out into the open and also it would mean that they would have spared you the hassle of having to bring your own claim for the money.

However, once you issue the claim, you will start having to pay attention to deadlines and knocking it back on time and not getting sidetracked

if they do counterclaim they will have to show how they arrived at their figures and explain why they were unable to sort this out beforehand. in short, provide everything you have asked for and more

Personally hope they counterclaim.

Anyway claim is all done and funnily enough, got this email today.

Thank you for your recent letter of claim regarding your Individual Rights in line with the new GDPR legislation.

 

Firstly, we would like to apologise for the issues you have encountered in receiving your data following your earlier requests. As you have advised, as you had already provided sufficient information in order for us to process your request the verification forms were not necessary. Unfortunately, your earlier requests were not passed directly to the Individual Rights Team and we were therefore unaware of the information you had provided. Please be reassured that the issue of the forms was in no way an attempt to delay the issue of the data you require.

 

The information you have requested will be ready to be sent to you by the end of this week as we are currently waiting for data from one of our third party agents. In order to get the system data to you quickly we will arrange to load this to a secure location for you. You will receive a separate email which will enable you to access your data. The information will be there for the next 60 days.

 

Unfortunately the secure location will not currently support our call recording data and we will arrange for this to be sent to you on an encrypted USB by special delivery which will require a signature on delivery.

 

Once again please accept our apologies for the issues you have encountered.

 

Kind regards