Screw ups when remortgaging

rjhempel

Hi all,

I am hoping, someone might be able to help me.

I switched my mortgage to ING Direct from HSBC, and was until today very happy with the service. The remortgaging had gone well, no hiccups so it seemed.

Today, I found out that ING Direct had sent my financial information to another of their customers. The information was cheque for the difference between my last mortgage and the new remortgage with ING Direct. The other customer, knows how much my mortgage is, how much my last mortgage was. They also have my mortgage account number. All of this information was sent to the wrong person, and if it hadn't been for the kindness of the other person, I would never have known.

As you can imagine I am livid. Banks are always telling us to be careful with our information, yet they managed with ease to send my information to another person. This is the only case of my information going elsewhere, but that is the point, the only case I know of, god knows how many other bits they have managed to mis send to someone else.

What I am trying to find out, and hope someone here might have suffered the same problem, what can I do about it.

I have called ING Direct, to be told I will hear from the team leader in 24/48 hours, but in this instance a simple apology for me isn't going to be good enough.

I am very careful about who sees my financial information, information which I had expected ING Direct to keep private as well.

Anyone any prescendent, as to what could happen next

Many thanks
R

UK007BullDog

They might put it down to computer error, however a human has to put the info into the computer. Having said that I have seen how data can be mixed up on a computer system.

To be truthful, everyone in the UK can find out the price you paid for a property. The information this person got will not be enough to do "fraud" with it.

Of course I can understand your frustration and worries about all this data on you floating about/being sent on to strangers.

I would be interested to hear what they have to say to you so do please come back and post how it went.

rjhempel

I rang them, finally got through, and their response was oh, sorry to hear that, but they couldn't deal with the complaint there and then. They want me to wait 24/48 hours, because the person on the end of the line couldn't deal with the complaint.

I am astounded, this should be dealt with the moment I complain, and call me back the same business day.

It isn't the price of the property that the other customer knows, but the amount of my mortgage I have with ING Direct.

I feel I have no choice but to contact the CEO and hope that they do something. This is as someone else said to me, a screw up that simply beggars belief.

KTF

I dont think you will get much more out of them than a 'sorry' to be honest.

silvercar

I had a share account once and was sent my list of holdings along with that of the person with the next account number to mine. When I phoned the share centre, they weren't particularly bothered.

Robert_Sterling

Chill out and keep things in perspective.

dwsjarcmcd

Aside an apology, what do you want to get?

rjhempel

To be honest I was more concerned at what happened than as to what I wanted apart from an apology.

what has happened today is that they called back, and apologised, and I feel rightly so. I still have the red mist over this.

I was then called by a member of the team where the mistake was made and they said sorry, which is at least helpful, and then they admitted that they had broken the data protection act, which made me realise, oh yeah, they have. A slight slip up, I feel on their behalf.

They have said they will give me a little something for the stress caused, which is appreciated, and all I can do now is hope this was a one incident, and never to be repeated.

Still wary of trusting them, even with the apology, especially with all the constant media that we should be safe with our own data, and they manage to give mine out to someone else. Thankfully an honest person it seems.

Jamz

This is a breach of Data protection and the op is entitled to compensation which usually runs to several hundreds of pounds

rjhempel

Jamz wrote:

This is a breach of Data protection and the op is entitled to compensation which usually runs to several hundreds of pounds

This is news to me, I knew it was a breach of data protection act, I never knew that one might be entitled to compensation and running to that amount. That is certainly nothing I was aware of.

Do people really get compensation for breach of data protection act? I am very surprised by this

dunstonh

Do people really get compensation for breach of data protection act? I am very surprised by this

No.

The act states:

An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.

An individual who suffers distress by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that distress if:
a) the individual also suffers damage by reason of the contravention or
b) the contravention relates to the processing of personal data for the special purposes
---
So, there is no grounds for compensation in this case as nothing has been done with the data to cause financial loss or distress. There is also a defence to this which the data controller can argue that he had taken care and that event was outside of their control. i.e. theft of data or where an handwritten letter made a 3 look like a 5 in an address and their records then reflected that letter.