Egg 'prove' manual intervention.

[Walksonwalker]

SO after my S.A.R letter I have eventually received a reply from Egg. As well as all my statements, they have also included dozens of screen dumps from computer terminals with their staff logged into them. As well as this, they have a list of all the members of staff, their hourly rate of pay, how long they worked on the administration for my being over limit and finally, how much it cost in total for all of this.

Doesn't this kind of prove manual intervention on their behalf in all of this. If so, all the arguments used against them, kind of fall to pieces.

[hagenuk]

We know they intervene on accounts and some of it must be manual.

 

Do they show that the cost of this intervention on your account is matched by the level they have been charging you?

 

For example, the GMB reported in January of last year that the average hourly wage for men and women in the UK was £12.50 per hour.

 

Taking into account employer contributions, the cost of plant, offices, power and being much more generous than Egg will be towards their staff, let us suggest that it costs double that per employee per hour.

 

Using that example, have they shown you that for every £25 that you have been charged, one hours work has been done on your account?

 

Out of interest, what do they claim it has cost them?

[Stornoway]

Does seem worrying ....Suposse it depends if they can prove how long the staff were on the screen for and that they were actually doing work - you could log onto a screen then go for lunch....Will be interested to see other views on this.

[Walksonwalker]

We know they intervene on accounts and some of it must be manual.

 

Do they show that the cost of this intervention on your account is matched by the level they have been charging you?

 

For example, the GMB reported in January of last year that the average hourly wage for men and women in the UK was £12.50 per hour.

 

Taking into account employer contributions, the cost of plant, offices, power and being much more generous than Egg will be towards their staff, let us suggest that it costs double that per employee per hour.

 

Using that example, have they shown you that for every £25 that you have been charged, one hours work has been done on your account?

 

Out of interest, what do they claim it has cost them?

 

 

£18.95 was said to be the cost incurred. Apparently one person working on it called Ema Clayton spent one and a half hours on it doing something. :S

[kazzaw]

£18.95 was said to be the cost incurred. Apparently one person working on it called Ema Clayton spent one and a half hours on it doing something. :S

 

Poor Ema Clayton!! She seems to do everything!! She was the person who made my first offer of £4 per charge & then made my final settlement offer & also sent the letter with my cheque.

[Enron]

As someone with a work background in computing i'm extremely skeptical of this.

 

The screen dumps:

 

Are we talking a list of who was logged into a computer and at which time? In this case how can they prove they were working on your account?

 

If it's a screen capture of what they were working on, are we to believe that they monitor ALL employees taking screen dumps of what they are doing every couple of seconds. If so, that's laughable because the amount of storage space they'd require to do this would be massive - and we are talking about a financial institution here with share holders.

[Matheos95]

I used to work for egg and can confirm that yes anytime someone logs into a customers account there is a log created and they are supposed!! to leave a contact log stating exactly what actions they have taken on the account - this is for audit and compliance purposes. They have 2 computer systems a front end where users details like password etc is kept and all logs are stored, and there is a backend system which is the financial system. The costing piece must be new cause never heard of that before. There are no screen captures unless they capture them and send them for scanning - egg have a paperless system (or did) whereby they can have all corresponance scanned and held in the system and can be recalled by any authorised user (this is managed by a 3rd party company). Hope this helps.

[Enron]

Matheos, as an ex egg employee can they work out the duration they would spend on a customers account from these details?

[Matheos95]

Unless they have had a major change I dont think they can as like you or someone said they could be logged in over lunch from memory it just stamps in and out and records some process like sending of preprinted docs, completing app for etc . Other notes ie non recorded process should be left in the contact log. and I state SHOULD as most didnt used to!!

 

Have to state though I have not been there for 2 years now so they could have had some software changes

[Enron]

A written statement by yourself stating the problems in what Egg have produced would be invaluable to all people claiming against them.

 

Though it does depend on whether you had to sign a confidentiality agreement of any kind, and if so what it applies to.

[InKogneeToh]

Hi all

 

Aren't Egg violating their employee's data protection rights by issuing documents containing their names and wage levels??

 

Just a thought!

 

Regards, Pam

[Walksonwalker]

Hi all

 

Aren't Egg violating their employee's data protection rights by issuing documents containing their names and wage levels??

 

Just a thought!

 

Regards, Pam

 

 

Yeah. So am I probably by printing them on a web forum. Ooooops!

[Walksonwalker]

A written statement by yourself stating the problems in what Egg have produced would be invaluable to all people claiming against them.

 

Though it does depend on whether you had to sign a confidentiality agreement of any kind, and if so what it applies to.

 

I could email you photographs of what they have actually sent me if that would be of any service to you. I would appreciate it, however, that they are only for your own use and not to become public.

 

I find it very hard to believe that someone was actually working on my single payment failure for one and a half hours!!!!!!

I mean a good type setter could have set up a type face in that time, before the days of PC's!

[thecornflake]

I work in IT too. I think the screen dumps would not be good evidence on their own unless they can prove when they were taken etc, as already said.

 

This is very odd unless as was said they take screen shots everytime anyone does something. This would take up a huge amount of space but is possible with a lot of servers. If they do this as a rule why has no-one else yet received this?

 

Providing a list of staff and their hourly rates of pay is extremely dubious. I'm very surprised they've done this - when I work on payroll systems I have to sign agreements not to mention salaries to anyone, not even other employees. It's a sackable offence.

 

This may be a new tactic after them being taken over by Citicard. Whether it's good enough in a court remains to be seen.

[Enron]

I'd be tempted to get in touch with the Information Commissioners Office stating that they've broken the DPA act by giving name and wage details of their employees.

 

If you need the complaint forms get in touch.

[Walksonwalker]

Not just one employee's name. There are a few. I won't mention any more. One thing that does annoy me is that they have sent out more oodles of paper with all MY personal info on. Including name, address, DOB, account number, email address, account password [for God's sake!] etc. Anyone could have gotten into my account with those details.

As for the screen dumps, I think they are to prove manual intervention, but I am starting to think that no one with a bit of common sense would think that a member of staff has to sit there for one and a half hours doing admin work on one automated letter.

[Enron]

I would definately complain to the ICO, forms are available here:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/56482-having-problems-getting-your.html

 

It's quite incredible that they would send your password in open mail, and even more that the would devulge their employees names and how much they earn a veilled attempt to justify their costs.

 

As for the screen captures they can verify that your account was being worked on at a time or date, but not the duration of work being done on them.

 

Matheos95 could be invaluable in helping if he is able to provide a statement.

[ncf355]

I'll further back Enron and TC with a 'I also work in I.T' (Software Testing) and I think this stinks to high heaven

 

For the kind of work, I also find the rates questionable especially if we are talking perm staff

 

No way on earth would that sort of process take 1.5 hours - and I bet they have targets for the number of customers they deal with in a day

 

NcF

[Enron]

Are the screen dumps on different dates, or on the same date to prove that they were working on the account for a certain period?

[thecornflake]

I think if you took the number of staff, the number of failed DDs, overlimit accounts etc per day and the amoutn of time they say gets spent on each item it won't tally up. They would probably need thousands of staff to spend an hour or more on each thing.I was thinking last night you could call customer services and say you received details of staff names and wages, and wanted to check if this was correct as it concerned you. Let the office grapevine do the rest.

[Petmidget]

I was thinking last night you could call customer services and say you received details of staff names and wages, and wanted to check if this was correct as it concerned you. Let the office grapevine do the rest.

 

Good call, the union reps (assuming Egg dont ban unions which they probably do) would go absolutely off it. Good start for Citibank, a staff walkout for Egg disclosing sensitive and personal information re staff to the general public.

[Walksonwalker]

Are the screen dumps on different dates, or on the same date to prove that they were working on the account for a certain period?

 

 

Various dates and times with various user names of staff logged onto an application. Then there is a box at the top with various activities that have been carried out.

[Enron]

I would be content to argue that the screen dumps are not accurate evidence as to how long an Egg employee worked on your account. It only indicates that a specific task has been done.

 

In fact you could argue that multiple accounts could be worked on during a specific period of which yours was one.

[Mistermind]

If Egg chooses to name names of staff and hours spent on one individual case, they are inadvertently opening the door to external audit and challenge. Are they saying the one account in question was exceptional, or typical of all their accounts which triggered punitive charges.

 

If Egg is saying the below:

 

(Egg expense incurred per account) x (number of accounts)

= (total of puntive charges levied by Egg)

 

I would think quite a few accountants and lawyers and judges and the OFT would be delighted

 

to audit and reconcile Egg's figures against the P&L breakdown from their balance sheet filed with Companies House.

Thank you, Egg management, for your offer to transparently defend the "estimated" and actual costing of your punitive charges.

[mikefellows]

Various dates and times with various user names of staff logged onto an application. Then there is a box at the top with various activities that have been carried out.

 

Even so, correct me if I'm wrong, but surely just changing the system date/time on the PC would produce these results also? Screen dumps are far too easy to fabricate - I don't think they'd stand up in court - and if it gets that far, take a laptop in as evidence (if they'll let you) and change the system time while you're there with a couple of screen dumps too ;-)