I sent off a letter from the Library to the Clydesdale Bank requesting details of the complete list of transactions and charges and headed up Data Protection Act Disclosure Request I have received a response from the Clydesdale Bank Network Support Department as follows:

"Charges would appear on your statements and the Bank would have notified you in writing at the time of the charge the reason for the unpaid. This information is not provided under a Data Subject Access...... Application for copy statements does not fall within this policy and must be followed through your branch seperately"

Is this a typical response and should I just go to my Branch & ask for copy statements - I think they will charge me for this.

I don't think my letter suggested "Data Subject Access" but a Disclosure Request and I am not sure whether this is a "misunderstanding" or an accurate response to my original letter.

Any advice on how I should proceed would be helpful[/i]

Repy to them making sure that they undersatnd that they have received a DPA request from you.

Quote Durant (linked in the library) that it has been held that data does include statements. Remind them that they have fiduciary duty towards you under which they are obliged to excercise utmost care in the accuracy of the statements which they make to you and that to make a false representation would be a serious breach of this duty and that if they persist that you may bring the matter to the attention of the Court as well as the Information Commissioner whene you make your complaint.

Remind them also that they have a contractual as well as a statutory duty to comply fully with your reasonable requests unther UK legislation - viz. the Data protection Act and this also might be brought to the attention of the court.

Thank you for the information - letter on its way!

BF,

Done all the above, Clysdale is yorkshire,

They dont want to know , spoke to Christine at the Clysdale and evediently they dont provide this service, but I can have copy statements for a fiver each.

Think we have about 3 weeks to go till they run out on the DPA request and will be reporting them to the ICO (Would like some help on wording and things).

We arnt going to let this drop as we had to write to the yorkshire as my partner leant/made payments for her ex and he has always promised to pay back the money.

then left....

but now wants money now the property they had its now sold.....

He didnt get nothing, but out the equity he is claiming for half the furnature

that had to be binned......

Rambaling on here and sparking off....

If you like PM me and I will ramble on PM

Cheers Dave

Sent off my letter requesting details of charges from Clydesdale Bank and received the following letter in reply:

DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998 - DATA SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST

Thank you for your letter dated 25 April in view of your request for copies of your financial/banking statements.

We confirm that we are now able to provide you with copies of your bank statements from July 2005 onwards. However under the Data Protection Act 1998 the information you are entitled to must be held in a "relevant filing system" and it was in July 2005 that our statement records became accessible in electronic form, therefore statements prior to July 2005 are outwith the scope of the Act.

Copies of earlier statements can be retrieved manually at a cost of £5 per statement and should you require statements prior to July 2005 please contact your Branch.

We also note your request for disclosure of data relating to manual intervention on your account. This is not data which you are entitled to receive under a data subject access request and accordingly no such disclosure will be made.

Within the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 we have 40 days after receipt of payment in which to provide you with the information we hold in respect of the period from July 2005 onwards.

We enclose statements from July 2005 to date and the fee of £10 which we have received will apply to this information only.

Checked the forum & will send off letter that my original letter was for details of charges etc & that I was being helpful in offering them an option to supply statements. Looks like the Information Commissioner will be busy with the Clydesdale!

Try this:

I am in receipt of your letter dated xxxxxxxx outlining that you could only provide me with printouts covering the period commencing July 2005, and stating that prior to that the information was not kept in a "relevant filing system". You also state that the requested information on manual intervention also falls outside of the legislation.

To clarify, my request was for a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my account since 1st April 2000 – in short, a list of charges with dates and amounts – alternatively, a complete set of account statements for that period will be acceptable. This should be retrievable from your accounting systems, and easy for you to produce. I will accept a computer print out of these transactions.

Should you still be of the opinion that the information I requested (including that regarding manual intervention), falls outside the scope of the Data Protection Act, can I please ask for a full explanation as to why you feel the requested data is not covered, and the section of the Act which you believe excludes this data.

In considering your reply, I would draw your attention to the case of Durant v Financial Services Authority (2003) EWCA Civ 1746, and Smith v Lloyds TSB Bank plc (2005) EWHC 246 (Ch).

This letter has been sent by first class recorded delivery, and therefore should have reached you by xxxxxxxxx – as you will be aware, as of this date you have just xxx days in which to comply with my request. As stated above, a complete set of account statements for the period in question will be acceptable; however, I expect this to be provided within the time period for DPA compliance.

Should there be any further attempts to delay compliance, I will be left with no alternative but to issue a County Court action under Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 for damages, and an injunction to force your compliance.

Many thanks for the letter but I do have a query - I live in Scotland and the Small Claims Court is up to claims of £750. The charges from to July 2005 to date are £680.

I was intending to make this one claim and any others before July 2005 as seperate ones.

Should I submit a charges reclaim letter as part of the one demanding the rest of the satatement or should I submit them seperately?

I would treat the seperately.

Thanks

Two letters sent

If you decide to bring an action under section 7 DPA, it is in your own interests to include in your application a request that the court inspects the bank's data per section 15.2 DPA 1998

15(2) For the purpose of determining any question whether an applicant under subsection (9) of section 7 is entitled to the information which he seeks (including any question whether any relevant data are exempt from that section by virtue of Part IV) a court may require the information constituting any data processed by or on behalf of the data controller and any information as to the logic involved in any decision-taking as mentioned in section 7(1)(d) to be made available for its own inspection but shall not, pending the determination of that question in the applicant's favour, require the information sought by the applicant to be disclosed to him or his representatives whether by discovery (or, in Scotland, recovery) or otherwise.

Thanks for that diddled, I am just working on an FAQ and templates and that will be incorporated.

Received this response from Fiona Hutton, Clydesdale Bank, Network Support in relation to request for statements prior to 2005:

"As previously advised the requested data is not covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 as the information you are entitled to must be held in a "relevant filing system" and it was in July 2005 that the Bank's statement records became accessible in electronic form, therefore statements prior to July 2005 are outwith the scope of the Act.

Copies of earlier statements can be retrieved manually at a cost of £5 per statement etc. etc."

Letter about to be sent advising them that if they do not comply then I will lodge complaint with Information Commissioner

Lodge your complaint with the ICO anyway - also ask them why they were willing to provide details to some customers (send Homer_J a message & ask him for permission to quote his dealings with Gordon watt at the Clydesdale bank).

Give Gordon Watt (DPA Advisor) a call and if nothing else, enjoy his squirming when you present your argument as to why the Clydesdale Bank are refusing to comply with the DPA.

His number's 0141 223 1013

Also - don't be put off calling the ICO DPA helpline, as I've said on my thread - they're very helpfull.!

Good luck

Are Clydesdale claiming that pre July 2005 statement information is only held on paper copies in unstructured manual files ?

In my case whenever Yorkshire Bank changed it's systems, closing entries on their old systems always read-

FILE CONVERTED, PLEASE USE DATABASE REF XXXXXXX

Whilst the DPA does not govern the manner in which data should be filed/stored,a data controller is not expected to change his systems to prevent data from being caught by the Act.

Thanks diddled & JMio for help - I have sent complaint to ICO and contacted homer_j as suggested.

Good stuff - keep us updated!

Claim for £680 from July 2005 is now being dealt with by Customer Relations Department and they are to make investigations into the points raised and will contact me as soon as investigations are complete - clock is ticking 10 days gone!

In relation to getting statements prior to July 2005 - Letter received from Network Support reiterating that they can only supply copy statements from July 2005 - not "personal data". Mentioned situation re homer_j but they are unable to comment on other customers.

Awaiting response from Information Commissioner regarding this situation

I finally got acknowledgement of my ICO complaint yesterday, they've got quite a backlog I understand, but worth giving them a call every week or so to get hold of any reference numbers they give you.

I'm going to call them on Monday and see if they're interested in the facr that the information that I am looking for was provided to Homer_J by Gordon Watt or not.

Will let you know how I get on.

Good luck!

Received a letter today offering £100 as a "goodwill gesture" for £680 worth of charges. Will accept the gesture - and continue with the claim for £580!

Niiiice!! So so good to see this horrible bunch on the back foot at last!

Keep going, let us know how you get on

Sent letter requesting the return of the £580 and received the following reply:

"The refund of £100 will be honoured but I am not prepared to go further. I have explained, in what was the Bank's "final response" of 19th May, that our advertised charges were applied as a result of the manner in which you operated the account"

Looks like it is Court action - will start to research & lodge paperwork next week.

Today lodged Small Claim at Court against Clydesdale Bank for £580 - awaiting date for hearing but likely to be late July. Will update Litigation Section when I have the details.

Good good, have you had any joy with your old statements yet?

Absolutely nothing - not even an acknowledgement or reference number from the ICO

The ICO took about 3 weeks to acknowledge my complaint, then about another week or so before they sent me a letter saying they've written to the Clydesdale & are awaiting their response...

Not looking great so far I must admit. Wondering what the methods / possibilities would be of submitting an 'estimated' claim?