False linked addresses from J D Williams?

[Tony Turbo]

Hello all,

 

From 2012 to 2019 J D Williams has posted false linked addresses to my Experian credit report on seven occassions.

These arise as a result of third-party fraud associated with their online credit account, which is available through a number of brands.

 

I have a good understanding of how the fraudsters operate, and why the false linked addresses arise, and am alert to the problem: its a long story, but I'm sure you get the picture and can guess at the resulting problems with debt collectors.

 

The failure of J D Williams to prevent recurrence of the problem despite promises to put a stop to it in 2014 and 2017 is now the subject of a FOS complaint and I am awaiting the outcome. This is driven by my conclusion, as others have said, that J D Williams governance, policies, process and systems focus on winning business, and that their investment in winning business is not matched by investment in fraud prevention or implementation of FCA requirements. Its interesting that I don't have this problem with any other online retailer.

 

If anyone similar experience is willing to share it with me please send me a private message.

 

Thank you

[dx100uk]

nope sorry pm will not be allowed

please keep things in the open

 

thank you

 

[BankFodder]

open

[Tony Turbo]

Just a quick update for anyone interested ... the FOS investigated my complaint and in September 2020 made a decision in my favour. J D Williams & Company Limited were instructed to pay £500 for the trouble caused.  All was fine until February 2021 when another false linked address was placed on my credit record by J D Williams t/a Jacomo - the 8th time since 2012.  Here we go again ...

[BankFodder]

Why are you bothering to go to the FOS in this case?

If you've already proved one incident, then it seems to me that you could go directly to the County Court on the basis of a breach of data protection and you can sue for considerably more.

[Tony Turbo]

You would think so, wouldn't you?

 

However, I made a complaint to the ICO at the same time as the successful one to the FOS. The ICO complaint was rejected even though they acknowledged certain concerns about the way my personal data was handled.  Not being happy with this outcome I asked the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to review the ICO decision, but the PHSO view was that the ICO was correct according to their terms-of-reference as regulator.

 

It appears that it is not as easy as one might think to prove infringement of data protection rights in the consumer finance context because there is an inherent inequality between big business and private individuals e.g. in terms of their right to create, process, store and retrieve your information. This makes it extremely difficult for individuals to discover and document evidence about business failures with sufficient rigour to prove their case. This is clear from many cases discussed on this forum.

[BankFodder]

Yes, it's always a problem with "terms of reference".

This is why court actions simply going directly to the relevant statute are far more straightforward because you know what your target is and also everything is transparent. The trouble with the FOS and the ICO see you don't really get to see what the other side is telling them. It's very unsatisfactory