Barclays refuse to deal with me - help!!!

[Andy S]

Dear fellow bank charge recoverants,

 

I have taken an interest in this group for a while now and thanks to it I have successfully recovered bank charges from 3 different banks. Recently due to my own success at recovering my own charges I was asked by 3 friends and 2 members of my family to recover their bank charges. This I was happy to to do for free as a favour to them. My relatives are elderly and couldn't manage the process on their own and one of my friends is a guy who lives in sheltered accomodation. None of them had statements going back 6 years and since they live a distance away from me I thought the best way to get the bank statement information was to construct a 'Letter of Authority' which I would send to the bank with the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) giving them permission to deal with me. Here's the wording of the 'Letter of Authority' and the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) which I sent by recorded delivery to them with a personal cheque for £10:

 

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From: My uncle

 

Please be advised that I, the undersigned, have instructed Andy S to act on my behalf in connection with bank charges that have been applied to my account over the past six years.

 

Please accept this letter as undisputed authority for Andy S to act on my behalf in connection with a review of any charges from your company. This authority will endure until cancelled in writing. Please deal directly with Andy S and provide him with any information he may request.

 

Confidential information can be released from any relevant filing system you may hold in connection with this matter, in accordance with my rights under the Data Protection Act, as and when requested by Andy S and sent to him in his official capacity as agent for the undersigned.

 

I can further confirm that Andy S has made a Data Subject Access Request on my behalf. Details relating to this request should similarly be forwarded to him, appropriately referenced and marked as confidential.

 

This letter gives Andy S full authority to act on behalf of the undersigned, in accepting or rejecting any refund payments offered and to refer this matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service, if necessary. Any compensation or refund which may be payable, following these investigations, should be made payable to ‘Andy S'.

 

Signature of account holder: James Hainsworth (my uncle)

Date of signature: 22nd November 2006

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Dear Sir/Madam

 

Re: Data Protection Act 1998 - Subject Access Request For James Hainsworth, Sort Code: xx-xx-xx, Account No: 12345678

 

I refer to the above named person who has instructed me to act on their behalf in connection with bank charges that have been applied to their account over the past six years. I enclose a ‘Form of Authority’ which you should read and make sure is filed accordingly and applied each and every time we contact your company.

 

Please send me the information which we are entitled to access under Section 7(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the ‘1998 Act’) in relation to all charges which you have applied to the above noted account within the last six years from the date of this letter. Alternatively, a complete set of statements for that period will be acceptable.

 

If you require any further information please let me know as soon as possible.

 

I enclose a cheque in favour of your bank for the sum of £10 with respect to the maximum statutory fee for processing this request.

 

I look forward to your response within the maximum 40 day time limit under the 1998 Act.

 

Yours sincerely etc etc etc

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So I posted the two letters together in an envelope to Barclays Bank, Churchill Place in London and thought no more about it until this morning when I got a letter back from Barclays returning my cheque for £10. Here's what it said:

 

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Dear Andy S

 

Data Protection Act - Mr J Hainsworth

 

We refer to your recent letter concerning transactional data arising from a Barclays bank account.

 

Please be advised that this department is not in a position to proceed in this matter on the basis of the authority presented with your letter. We are therefore unable to correspond with you in connection with this individual.

 

Despite the above we can confirm that the requested information will be forwarded directly to the individual concerned. In this way the Bank will ensure compliance with all requirements arising from Section 7 of the Data Protection Act and of course our usual obligations regarding customer confidentiality.

 

As the Bank will be providing the information on a complimentary basis, your payment is returned herewith.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Peter Townsend

Manager, Barclays Data Protection.

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So basically they are refusing to deal directly with me in spite of the 'Letter of Authority' I constructed. The problem is that my uncle is unable to deal with them himself and that because he lives a bit away it made sense for me to deal with them. Some of you may suggest sending the letters as if from his address and getting him to sign them but this would be too stressful and there are other greedy family members who would want to get their hands on his cash. A couple of questions for you tekkies:

 

1. Are Barclays right in this matter or are they using bullsh**t tactics?

2. What have I done wrong with the Letter of Authority?

3. Why won't they recognize it?

4. If they won't deal with the Data Protection Act request does this mean they will ignore my future requests for a refund with the same authority.

5. If I am to obtain payment in my name on his behalf, how now do I proceed in getting them to acknowledge me?

6. If it is so much hassle would I be better dealing with one of the companies on Google and paying them for the service? How can they act on behalf on customers with Letters of Authority and get charges back when I can't?

 

I am very stressed over this please can someone offer some solution to my problem.

 

Andy S

[Andy S]

I've sort of answered my own question here. I'm just off the phone to Peter Townsend of Barclays Bank and he said that because a request is made under the Data Protection Act he has to abide by it and ensure customer confidentiality is not breached. Therefore when he receives a request by a 3rd party for statements quoting this act it is now Barclays policy to send the information to the account holders address not the 3rd party.

 

What he did say though was that a letter sent requesting statements NOT mentioning the Data Protection Act would not reach his department and would be dealt with by customer services at the head office. In most cases they would likely send the requested statements and make only a £5 charge for this service.

 

So to summarize:

 

If you are a 3rd party requesting statements: Do not quote Data Protection Act, instead, send letter to Customer Services who will send you the requested information. Otherwise if you do quote the DPA then it will by-pass customer services and go straight to DPA officer who will send them to account holders address and not 3rd parties.

 

Any comments, thoughts or suggestions on this matter would be appreciated.

[dunnie1]

One way to find out is to try it - I would have thought cust services would need to send it to the acc. holders address due to security/confidentialty restrictions etc. I have 3rd party authority set up for my dad and he gets his statements send to him.

Still if it works I would like to know as I need to do this soon for family members.. good lcuk with it!

[BankFodder]

frankly they should deal with you on the basis of what you have written. One of the problems is tha the level of staff training in the banks is often very poor and variable. Some people would have allowed you to to deal and others won't.

 

Go to the bank and ask for a "third party authority form" this will be one of their own forms with their own logo and it will be something that either they understand or will realise that it is something that the bank approves of.

Fill-in the third party authority, get it signed by the individual who you are assisting and then begin. Make sure you keep a copy of the third party authority before you give it that the bank.

After that if the bank won't play ball then you just carry on to the steps an issue your court claims as necessary.

The people you are helping will have to sign in the court claims themselves -- otherwise it gets a bit more complicated.

However you can use your correspondence address in the court form and you can deal with everything. If you have to go the court (most unlikely of course) then the person you are helping will have to come with you that you will be to do all the talking.

I'm glad that Townsend seems to be a little bit helpful. Don't forget that until recently he is the guy who's been pronouncing on the status of Barclays personal data in relation to the Data Protection Act and has been refusing to supply personal data against subject access requests. In fact some of the stuff that he has written back to people has been unpleasant.

Now that the Information Commissioner has ruled that Barclays is is in breach of their statutory obligations, maybe Townsend is having second thoughts about the way he deals with people.

Certainly he will now have a better understanding of the Data Protection Act than he did a couple of weeks ago.