I agree. The whole matter seems to have fragmented. My original intent was to gather all the information regarding this account....Bills, emails, transcripts and phone calls, and then when I have everything in the correct order, and only then, file a complaint with the Ombudsman. The one thing missing, the one piece of information on which this case stands on is the five phone calls. These calls have the conversation that I had regarding the payment of the outstanding £435 and the agreement by EDF to change the acct to cash/cheque quarterly. The agreement which they failed to live up to. These calls show that I have been authorized to speak on my ex-wifes behalf...made on my mobile with the EDF acknowledging my right to speak for her. Now we have EDF in violation of both of the DSAR's and the Ombudsman and ICO saying that I should write to EDF to give them a chance to explain why.

Here is the draft........... On 26 July 2021 I sent you a Data Subject Access Request for the above account. You failed to complete DSAR inasmuch that five phone calls were missing. I sent you a further DSAR on 7 October 2021. This contained itemised details of the phone calls in question. You have failed to this DSAR in the allotted time. In the event that I do not hear from you within seven working days from the date that you receive this letter, I shall consider taking this matter to the County Court.

BF I've drafted a letter to their Data Protection Officer giving details of EDF's partial disclosure and their non disclosure. I said that if I did not hear from them within seven working days from the time of receipt of this latter, then I would consider taking the matter to the County Court.

You could be right, I've just been talking to the ICO. They said that I should email the DPO of EDF explaining that they had only given partial disclosure with my first SAR, and had not replied to my second SAR within the one month allowed. I pointed out that this should not be necessary as the SAR is self explanatory. They went on to say that if I were to lodge a complaint with them it could take five months to reach a conclusion. I said that the time factor did not matter to me, my aim is to bring this matter to their attention, and also the Ombudsman. I want these people brought to book, I am not looking for monetary compensation. I consider that they treated my ex-wife unfairly and certainly without any consideration for the stress they have caused. I told them that I would be submitting a complaint with them.

I have my EE bills, luckily I pay for itemised billing. The bill for the month in question shows that I made five phone calls to EDF. My name is on my ex-wifes accnt with EDF and so I am authorized to speak on her behalf. The phone calls prove beyond all doubt that EDF have failed to comply with my DSAR. I read through EE's privacy policy and found this. Section 4.2.3 To improve and personalise elements of our services, including to monitor the quality and level of service given to our customers by our employees. We record all telephone calls, emails and other correspondence between our customers and our members of staff and use them for training and quality improvement purposes. Section 7. How personal information is stored. (b). Recordings of the conversations you have with one of our customer service or sales representatives will be stored for a duration of two years. This EDF Privacy Policy was last updated August 16 2021.

Thanks dx, I always like to have a paper trail, but tomorrow I'll phone the ICO first thing and tell them what action I expect them to take, and that if need be I will start a formal complaint against them. I did a bit of research and found an item which seems relevant....Section 173 (3) DPA 2018 reads...( dsar) " can only be extended when the request is complex or or you have received numerous requests ". In this instance my DSAR detailed all the information regarding these five calls. To try to put this into context the first DSAR was for all details regarding our account, this included phone calls, emails plus all written data. This was received by us within the month allowed. Two of these five calls which I am requesting are vital, the first gives one of their agents agreeing to change monthly DD's to a quarterly cash/cheque system, and that they had received £435 to bring the account up to date, they further promised to request a metre reading in three months time ( 18 August ) they did not. Instead they continued to pursue money already paid, sending RED letters describing what would happen if this money was not paid They also sent texts demanding the money, and also went as far as engaging a debt collector. The fifth call was with an agent from their Complaint Intervention team ? who three times explicitly denied any knowledge of this call. So you can see how anxious I am to have copies of these calls. This whole matter is causing a lot of undue stress. conchy_joe.

Thank you, but are you seriously suggesting that I sue the ICO.

Good evening everyone, On 26 July I sent a DSAR to EDF regarding information I needed before making a complaint to the Ombudsman. This information was sent within the required one month period, however after reviewing what had been sent I realized that there were five phone calls which could prove pivotal to my case which were missing from the data. I checked on my EE bills and identified the five calls, including dates and duration of each call. On 7 October I sent a further DSAR letter specifically detailing these calls. Nothing was heard until we received an email which stated..." I have reviewed your account, and I am waiting for the information to be sent to you, this was requested on the 18 October. This can take up to thirty days to process. I have amended the resolution date to the 22 November, to review your complaint, (this is my next working day) " Yours etc. As of today nothing had been sent to me so I called the ICO to ask what my next course of action should be. They told me that I should write to them reminding them that the deadline had passed, and that I was giving them fourteen days to send the data...In the words of the ICO advisor I would be .." Setting out my stall " ?. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, surely when I sent the first DSAR my " stall " was set out. Right now I'm more than a little angry, so I took time out to write this post in the hope that someone could help me make sense of this BS. conchy_joe.

Hi anton1888, Were you using GP as a debt management company ?, If you were do you have copies of the monthly statements ?. My statements showed the amounts paid to each creditor, monthly management fee and PPI. Against the PPI it should show you the name of the Underwriter. If you can't find any originals send a SAR off to GP. Once you receive the info send the standard PPI claim letter with a spreadsheet. I sent off my claim to Stirling 11th Feb' and received a reply from COVEA 14th Feb' , It contained the usual "wasn't us it was them " mantra. To save a lot of writing I have attached letters , both sent and received. Hope this helps. There is one quite misleading piece on the letter from Covea 9th April..... They say that they will have final response by 7th May and yet go on to say they have been unable to complete investigation within eight weeks. I didn't reply and on 17th April they wrote saying that thay had contacted GP but had struggled to get the info needed, " and consequently, we have decided to accept your complaint, and on an ex-gratia basis refund the premiums with interest ". As long as you have begun your complaint before the deadline you are ok. docs.pdf

In 2001 I went to Gregory Pennington for help with my creditors. As you know they require details of your creditors ( how much each are owed ). They also require details of your monthly income/expenditure in order to make offers to your creditors. My only income was from my monthly pay cheque. They asked me if there was any other money coming in each month, I told them there was my son's DLA payment, this was spent entirely on him, also £66 child benefit. They said that my monthly pay alone would not be enough to show my creditors that I could satisfy monthly payments and to that end they included the DLA payment ( £180 ) in my income bracket. In December 2003 they carried out a further financial review, at this time the DLA payment had increased to £260 ( this money also was spent entirely on him ) which they also included in the income bracket. In the expenditure bracket they showed £150 Disability Requirements. Ultimately the inclusion of the DLA payments only served in getting the creditors to agree to a payment plan. That plan was based on misleading figures and I began to struggle to make the monthly payments, which included £25 management fee plus PPI ( £12.75 - £15 ). In the end after incurring a number of penalties for not meeting the monthly deadlines, the matter became so severe that the council threatened to take the house away. Only after I made an appointment with the council to discuss my plight did I get the first honest advice. I agreed to make monthly payments to the collection agency used by the council and I was told about the Consumer Credit Counselling Service. After examining my income/expenditure details they contacted my creditors and as a result I had repayments which I could afford. In February of this year I wrote to GP repeating the above details and said that I did not believe that I had been treated fairly, and that the level of professionalism that I had received fell well below what could reasonably be expected, as a result I felt that I should be compensated. GP wrote back to say that I was time barred. I made a complaint to the FOS who said as GP was not under their jurisdiction at the time they could do nothing. I've scanned a copy of the letter from GP and also the letter from the FOS ..Do you think that I have a case to argue. img20190610_14005939.pdf img20190610_14021761.pdf img20190610_14112872.pdf img20190610_14125312.pdf

This is to put a closure on this thread, and I hope that it helps anyone unfortunate enough to have had any dealings with Gregory Pennington. As you can see from my postings I have been trying to reclaim PPI from these guys, but to no avail. My problem was in identifying the actual underwriters, I tried chasing Direct Group and a couple of others connected with this particular insurance group without any success. The answer was right in front of me. Luckily I had managed to find the original monthly statements from GP, or at least most of them. And there was the name of Sterling Insurance. Once again I sent off my spreadsheet plus my claim in reply received a letter from COVEA INSURANCE. It was the standard " we're sorry you're not happy etc " reply and promising an investigation. That was on 14 Feb', on the 17 April they sent me a cheque which was for about 60% of my claim and a letter explaining their decision part of which states...…...………. " Whilst COVEA INSURANCE plc ( formerly STERLING INSURANCE GROUP LIMITED ) was the underwriter of your insurance policy, we had no involvement in the selling of it. The finance was arranged by Gregory Pennington who also arranged the sale of the policy. We have been attempting to address your complaint with Think Money and obtain the point of sale documents to investigate your issues further, however, we have struggled to get the information, and consequently we have decided to accept your complaint, and on an ex-gratia basis refund the premiums with interest. " So that's it my friends, Another door closed. I hope that this proves helpful...……….If you've had dealings with GP the chances are that it was STIRLING INSURANCE who underwrote the policy. Here is the address that I wrote to initially. Stirling Insurance Group 50 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling Kent ME19 4JX.

Thank you for your valuable input regarding my post ( hard drive fails after 22 months ) spacing, set-up and punctuation etc. I'm sorry for any inconvenience that I may have caused you. It must have been quite painful for someone as erudite as yourself to make sense of. Please rest assured that I will not submit any more posts on the CAG site. Thank you for your much needed help.

My son has a Hewlett Packard laptop which started to show a message saying " sorry we have come across an error, please do not turn off the computer " it shows 1%....100% and then restarts. when it restarts all previous work has been lost. This happened several times over the next three days, some times twice on the same day. I took the machine to PC World in Selly Oak Birmingham, they said they'd need to keep it overnight. When I went back the next day they said that they had done a diagnostic on the machine and that the hard drive was failing ( faulty ). I pointed out that the hard drive had been installed by Knowhow 22 months ago at a cost of £60 for inspection and £127 for the new hard drive ( I have the bills ) and that in my opinion the drive they had installed was not fit for purpose as it should be expected to last at least 3 - 4 years. The tech' instore said that I would have to take it up with Knowhow, He emailed me a copy of the diagnostic test plus copies of the original bills that I had paid in order that I would be able to forward these along with my claim to Knowhow. One day after I had sent these ( including my concerns ) I received an email from Teamknowhow apologizing etc, etc and saying that I should take the machine to the store. I emailed them saying that I had already done this and explained the whole story. Almost immediately I received an almost identical email to which I again emailed back with the same explanation. It was only after I received a third email say the saying the same thing that I decided to phone Knowhow. The man that I spoke to said he would have to seek advice. He came back and said that the warranty on repairs was 1 year. I pointed out that the item that they had installed was not fit for purpose.re Trading Standards/Sale of Goods, he said that it did not apply to repairs only to " new " items. I asked for the address of PC World head office and he said he couldn't give it to me, then I asked for the address of the head office of Knowhow, again he said that he could not give it to me but he would give me the address of their complaints dept. I told him that I did not want my complaint to be buried inhouse, and that I wanted it to be heard at a higher level. That's where I'm up to at the moment. Does anyone have some advice on my next plan of action.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time talking to the FOS and FCA regarding when the GISC first began. The FOS said that they came into being in Nov' 2001 which would be a month after the first charge when I did some more scratching around I found an article from the National Archives dated 22nd Nov 2002 which states that the GISC was launched in 2000. I have to say that it seems to depend on who you happen to speak to in the FOS, not all there seem to be able to help. But you're spot on regarding pass the parcel. I'll send off my letter to Stirling tomorrow, I'll address it to the same address as before and not to Covea and I'll ask them why they chose to pass the matter off to GP.

I downloaded a piece from the FOS site ( online PPI resource ) , It states that the FCA/FSA were the regulators from 2005, The GISC from 2001 and prior to that the ABI. As the first monthly charge of PPI on my account was October 2001 do you think it's safe to assume that the GISC rules were in place at that time. I could make a call to the FCA to be completely sure when there rules applied.

Before I send off a reply to Stirling do you think that I should include that part where I refer to the GISC.

Here's what I've written, It's just a rough draft. How do you think I should refer to GP's Final response letter. img20190217_13530022.pdf

I sent a claim letter to Stirling Insurance which they received on 12th of this month, today I received a reply which I've scanned and attached. As you can see they have forwarded my complaint to " Think Money Group " which is Pennington. As GP have already sent me a Final Response denying liability I would assume that they'll simply repeat what they've previously said. img20190217_02431673.pdf

I wrote the letter to GP but once again no reply. Since I found that doc' showing that Direct Group were the ISP I think that I've overlooked the obvious. Although the copies that GP sent in reply to my SAR show that PPI was charged each month it showed no Underwriter's name, as I was looking through the originals today I see it clearly states PPI Stirling Insurance. I see that Stirling are now part of Covea. I just phoned Covea and they gave me a number for Stirling, Stirling took all my details and confirmed that it was them who underwrote the PPI with Pennington, they also informed me that with regards this matter I should write to Covea at their Kent Address. I have a spreadsheet and template letter all ready to fire off but if Stirling tell me to "go forth " what option would I have.

Sorry I don't understand. I really would like to put in a claim but I don't know how to go about working out a spreadsheet with only one figure ( £170 ) to work with...with the compound method ( PPI ) each payment and date is entered and everything is automatically worked out. In this case I have one figure which goes back to 2001.

So you think that I should open an official complaint with the FOS.

As I still haven't had anything back from AVIVA regarding the basic claim that I sent to them 11 Nov', not even a final response., would it prompt action from them if I sent in a claim for the Healthcare ins' but this time include a spreadsheet with the amount that I'm claiming.

Thanks dx, I'm writing it now.

OK thanks I'm clear on that now. Just one thing, would it help if I knew for sure just who did the underwriting for GP. The reason I'm asking is that the ICO said that if I asked GP who underwrote the policy they have to tell me. does that make sense. Also the deadline for Direct Group to give a response is 29th of this month, should I wait or lodge a complaint before that date.

What knocked me back was the FOS saying that they doubted that they would be able to give the conclusion that I wanted. Do you think that I should stick to my guns and wait until the deadline passes then lodge my complaint with the FOS re' Direct Group. In the event that I get no joy with the FOS would I still be able to go down the Plevin route.