Data Protection Edinburgh City Council and Scott & Co

[Scooters]

Amigos,

 

A bit of advice please.

 

I owe Edinburgh City Council £1600 in council tax from last year (long story - I'm not too worried as I will be clearing it in about 6 weeks time).

 

I'm having to deal with the delightful Scott & Co and had agreed and adhered to a repayment schedule.

 

However, on Saturday, I received throught he poet, an Earning's Arrestment Schedule under the Debtors (Scotland) act 1987 which informs me that a Summary Warrant has been granted at Edinburgh Sheriff Court granting Scott & Company the right to recover the debt from my employer.....Scottish Widows....

 

the only problem is that neither myself or my wife currently or have ever worked for Scottish Widows.

 

Now I see 2 issues here.

 

1stly, there is a clear data protection issue with confidential information being dislcosed to a 3rd party.

 

2ndly - the information they hold on me is clearly wrong and they have used this wrong informaton to pursue me in the courts (despite having a previous arrangement with them) and this Summary Warrant is now part of the public record.

 

Any ideas how to pursue a complaint?

[Scooters]

well well well

 

I spoke to Scott & Company (I recorded the call) and was told by a supervisor that the Earning's Attachment was nothing to do with them and was the council's doing - they were very keen to change the subject and that it was 'no big deal' as a professional company like Scottish Widows would realise that there had been a mistake and no harm would be done.

 

So I called Edinburgh Sheriff Court who said "not again", and wer clearly fed up with the number of times this seems to happen.

 

I then called Edinburgh City Council who were interested to hear that their representitives - ie Scott & Co had told me an untruth in that they ( the council) were reponsible for issuing Scott & Co the wrong information and also reponsible for issuing the earnings attachment to Scottish Widows. They have instructed me to complain in writing directly to the Council and to cc it to the information commissioner - they see two issues here

 

1/ an organisation acting on their authority is behaving in an unprofessional way in respect to one of their 'customers' and clearly has internal data protection/integrity issues

 

2/ Scott & Company have told a blatant untruth about their own client's position.

 

this should result in a council audit of Scott & Co.

[moneycheatingexpert]

Hi

 

I know this an old post I hope you resolved it.

 

Scott & Co are so (EDIT) is not real. Edinburgh city council’s stance on them is they get results so they are not dropped as the councils chief monkeys. (EDIT)

The council should see sense realise they are dealing with (EDIT) and find another DCA to do there dirty work for them. Incidentally, is it me or do I get impression that staff moral is extremely low, all of the telephone advisors sound like they are one step away from the Samaritans.

 

Anyway, Scott & Co like most DCA’s use a combination of in-house as well as external companies to trace debtors and obtain information about your employers and your financial situation.

 

(EDIT) Does anyone remember when the then Halifax (HBOS) got reprimanded for using a company to recover there mortgage debt? The company in question was obtaining personal info by pretending to be everything from police officers to tax officials.

 

So if Scott and co. ever send you a letter containing personal info the question you need to ask yourself is how was this information obtained (EDIT). Data protection laws state they have no right even if you are in debt.

 

This of course will change when the government threatens to licence the enquiry agent business, but as they’ve been saying this since the early 60’s one can only assume the worst.

 

(EDIT)

[moneycheatingexpert]

As I’m regularly censored by moderators I’ve decided to be good:p and in this instance only print non libellous and factual evidence which can be obtained by anyone from the ICO.

The ICO has evidence implicating local authorities in an unlawful trade.

PLEASE READ ON......

In a case that surfaced in March 2005, a job centre in Hull received a telephone call purportedly from a civil servant working in the section within the Department for Work and Pensions responsible for recovering overpayments. The man’s apparent familiarity with office jargon and procedures allayed any suspicions that he might not be genuine. During the course of the conversation – which lasted

over 90 minutes – he was able to gain personal information (mainly address and employment details) relating to 140 individuals living in no particular geographic area. A second call two days later was reported as bogus, and the matter referred to the ICO.

20

On investigation, the trail led to one of the individuals whose details had been obtained. She revealed that she had recently moved house without informing the council, and leaving her council tax bill unpaid. When contacted by the ICO, the council in question said that although most tracing was done ‘in-house’, the more difficult cases were referred to DCA’s.

AUTHORS PERSONAL COMMENT: The use of DCA’s by local councils is prolific!!!! As council records do not generally include their residents’ national insurance numbers, so absconding council debtors are harder to trace.

5.16 Tracing debtors is an activity which relies on good, up-to-date personal information. To recover a debt from borrowers who have defaulted on their loans or financial commitments, creditors need a current address. While there are a number of legitimate means of tracing absconded debtors, these can often be time-consuming and expensive.

Under current legislation, lenders and creditors have the responsibility to make sure that they do not knowingly or recklessly procure the disclosure of information by unlawful means. The same caveat applies to local authorities that seek to collect council tax arrears by outsourcing their tracing of debtors.

[Dipply75]

Hi scooters

 

Am wondering how you got on with all this a I am going to complain about the lovely scott & co. Thing is, I can't find them listed anywhere on the infomation commisioners register. i take they ARE registered lol

[maroondevo52]

i take they ARE registered lol

 

I hope so, I've been paying them for about two years and am still doing so