Barclaycard & Microfiche

[martynh99]

Ok, so a number of us are hitting the brickwall that is microfiche. Maybe it's time to all get a complaint logged(DPA / IC) against Barclaycard wrt their wriggling out.

 

Points to make in the complaint would be that the information must be in a relevant indexed filing system of some sort if they can offer to retrieve an individual customer statement from any given month for £3 - I simply do not believe that they would have someone site through 1000's of customers statements for that month looking for mine !

 

Also write a letter to our local MP's asking for their support.

 

Anyone up for this ?

[Aitken Brotherston]

I have had their "microfiche" letter and informed them that if i do not receive the information by the end of the 40 days on the original timescale I shall lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner. The 40 Days is up at the end of October. I may well also lodge a non-compliance complaint in the County Court.

[martynh99]

Well I filed my complaint with the ic today.

The form is a word document, you download it, fill it in then upload it back to them

Data Protection Complaints – Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

In section 6 of the form I put the following, please feel free to use this and put your complaint in against Barclaycard.

I made a SAR to them requesting details of charges levied on my account for the duration it was open. They responded with some limited information in the form of statements from July 2004 onwards. They claim that information prior to May 2004 is exempt from the Data Protection Act as 'Statements are copied onto microfiche in date order and more than one customer statement may be held on an individual film of microfiche. These statements are not stored by reference to account number of customers name and are not "readily accessible" within the meaning of the Data Protection Act. These statements are not retained in a relevant filing system and therefore do not fall within the class of documents to be produced pursuant to a subject access request. They can be obtained from out Customer Services Dept at a cost of £3 per statement'. If their statement is to be believed then if I request a statement dated prior to May 2004, as they are only stored in date order and not customer ref or name, then they would have to manually search through ALL of their customer statements for that month and pick mine out. I believe that this is a blatant attempt to get out of their obligation under the act to provide this information.

[Glenn UK]

Martyn

 

I had a word with the ICO yesterday the guy i spoke to said they wont do anything unless the 40 days has passed.

 

HTH

 

 

Glenn

[Aitken Brotherston]

Martyn

 

I had a word with the Information Commissioners Office yesterday the guy i spoke to said they wont do anything unless the 40 days has passed.

 

HTH

 

 

Glenn

 

And 40 nights?

 

Presumably he did not indicate that the issue had already been addressed.

I believe that their offfer to produce statements from their Microfiche at £3 a go indicates that the system is much more easily accessed than they are trying to suggest and that can only mean an adequate degree of indexing.

[Glenn UK]

And 40 nights?

 

Presumably he did not indicate that the issue had already been addressed.

I believe that their offfer to produce statements from their Microfiche at £3 a go indicates that the system is much more easily accessed than they are trying to suggest and that can only mean an adequate degree of indexing.

 

Well I know that the issue of their fiche system is not clear cut, I also know they, the ICO that is, were expecting to send out letters on the 11/9/06 after their visit to Abbey to inform all those who had complained about the abbey.

 

I also know that they have introduced a delay subject to some further internal discussions.

 

Bottom line is that the decision has not as yet been formally made and we wont know until towards the middle or end of next week at least, what the ICO thinks of the Abbey systems.

 

The offer to send statments for a charge has nothing to do with the DPA and whilst we may believe it matters, ultimately the ICO will make their judgement and then its for the courts to decide on the matter.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

[Aitken Brotherston]

Yes I understand and agree that the ICO has no interest in charges made for reproducing statements. My reason for mentioning them was the relatively small sum involved. It does not take long to use up £3 worth of time and as I cannot see the Banks doing anything at a loss, it follows that the information must be readily accessible.

 

I will be interested in what the ICO says. My 40 Days is up at the end of October.

[Sayonara]

I would take the position that if they can access their microfiche records for £3, then they can do it for free.

 

It's not like they are paying it directly to the members of staff who have to carry out the work -- those guys get their salary either way.

 

If Barclaycard don't like losing man hours over a legally required process, then perhaps they should reconsider their line of business.

[Glenn UK]

Yes I understand and agree that the Information Commissioners Office has no interest in charges made for reproducing statements. My reason for mentioning them was the relatively small sum involved. It does not take long to use up £3 worth of time and as I cannot see the Banks doing anything at a loss, it follows that the information must be readily accessible.

 

I will be interested in what the Information Commissioners Office says. My 40 Days is up at the end of October.

 

This may be found to be the case, sadly I dont think it actually does 'follow' in a legal sense. If it did then the ICO would not have bothered going to the abbey since they offer multiple statements for ten pounds.

 

GLenn

[Aitken Brotherston]

The legal decision that has to be established is whether or not the data in the Microfiche filing system is "readily accessible" for the purposes of the DPA. The cheapness of the price to produce the data will tend to suggest that data retrieval is inexpensive and thus easy.

In the first instance we must trust the ICO to properly investigate this question and arrive at an opinion about how "readily accessible" is the data and while their opinion is not a "decision" in the legal sense, it is likely that a court will pay attention to what they say.

[Glenn UK]

I dont dispute your logic, however, if you have time, or if you have read some of the recent cases pertinent to the fiche argument, you may not think its quite so clear cut, i find myself flipping one way then the other.

 

Whilst the courts may take notice of the Information Commissioners Office decisions that will be until or unless there is an appeal.

 

If it goes our way i wonder whether Abbey will challenge the decision, if it goes their way the path is far less certain because it would need to get into one of the higher tracks for case law to be made.

 

Not sure what finanacial and legal clout could be mustered by an individual or the forum if asked to mount a challenge.

 

Anyway it is kind of academic becuase the Information Commissioners Office have delayed the decision to some time this week, or at least this was the info i got on friday last.

 

It would be nice to think the decsion was as clear cut as many think, if it was my contention still stands there would be no need for the ico to have visited.

 

JMHO

 

Glenn

 

PS i hope my pessimism is misplaced and they ico comes down on the side of comon sense.

[mnrbig]

Hi

 

So the microfiche is an issue. How does one get around so that we can claim charges. Does it make sense just to issue a claim for an amount based on the information you have at hand and if your amount is higher than they actually owe, I am sure they will inform the judge of this in there defence?

[Glenn UK]

If you have some statements you can use these to provide an estimate.

 

On a personal note i would prepare the estiamte for the maximum i thoght reasonable since its likley that the defendnat will tell you if youre wrong and would have tp [rodcue the statements to validate that.

 

if they dont dispute your figures then presumably you have underclaimed.

 

JMHO

 

Glenn

[mnrbig]

Yep, i thought that too. To prove my estimate wrong, they would need to supply the microfiche info, so I win!! What will a judge think?

[paulpb123]

That's what I'm doing Glenn - an overestimate. Its up to B/card then to defend the claim and produce the 'oh-so-difficult-to-retrieve' information. This is the essence of my letter. They sent me the 'puzzled' bog off letter. This is going off today so any thoughts welcome

 

Dear Deborah Woodcock,

 

I wrote to you on 29th August regarding your failure to comply with my subject access request under the Data Protection Act 1998. Unfortunately, I received only a standard template letter [note: they say its an email! LOL] from Carol Jones which seems to be sent to anyone requesting details of charges levied against their accounts.

 

I am sorry that you have decided to flout the law by refusing to comply with my request; please note that I am making an official complaint to the Information Commissioner.

 

Furthermore, I have made an estimate of charges and penalties levied against my account based on the information that you did manage to supply. I am now giving you 14 days to repay me XXXX. Following the expiry of this deadline I shall file a claim and you will also be liable for costs and interest.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

mr impatient

 

Now I know it seems harsh but it seems like the only way to deal with them. If they decide to defend it they will have to explain why they didn't comply with the SAR. Any thoughts on this?

[Glenn UK]

I would be careful using the term overestimate, im not sure how to phrase it, it has to be logical but i guess what im saying is dont give anything away. As you say they have to produce the data to refute your claim if they wish to.

 

Re your letter, i have written letters along the same lines, it made me feel better, not sure it wil have any effect though.

 

JMHO

 

Glenn

[paulpb123]

Oh, and with a great big LETTER BEFORE ACTION at the top!! Probably won't have any effect but it really does make me feel better.

[peter201177]

Hi,

 

Did u get a response from the letter u sent Paul?

[courage2berich]

Hi,

 

I agree with Glenn UK the only way to get round the microfiche argument is to Overestimate the charges and then Barclaycard will respond. I have done that and awaiting reply on 19 October 2006. Barclays have accessed their microfiche library and they had no difficulties.

[noomill060]

funny that, eh?

[courage2berich]

Hi I received a response from Barclaycard and the over-estimation letters of charges was not effective. They did not provide any statements and instead said they will refund the charges, the difference of £12 and the original charges. They have placed the refund in my current statement. The route to go is a County Claim Court.

[mnrbig]

Is it not possible to work out the charges from what they have offered to refund?

[nads75]

No joy for me as i cant estimate any charges because i setteld my account before may 04 (and they still gave me blank statements till i closed it!) So i still need to get hold of my earlier statments. I have a complaint ready to go now to the commisioner office but im not holding my breath that i will get any statements withought paying £3 for them.

[mrpromiscous]

Well firstly would it be possible to pay the £3 per statement and then claim this figure back on an overall claim of charges ???

And secondly how does this new 'tact' all the credit card companies are employing of reducing their tariff of charges from £20 to £12 affect us in terms of what we can reclaim. Where has this new figure come from because personally I still think £12 is excessive in relation to the actual costs incurred by them ! However there must be a reason why they have all reduced to the same amount......

In summary are we still claiming back the whole £20 or the difference..... i.e. £8 ???

 

MrP