confused.com & personal details

dazybb

Hi

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but thought I'd give it a go...

I was fed up with confused.com marketing emails and phone calls so I asked them to remove all personal details about me from their systems.

I was told

Due to legal and regulatory requirements, we are entitled to hold such details on our records for a period of four years. These reasons include assisting and validating requests from official bodies such as the police. This can also be for Management Information and other business reasons.

If a customer were to delete this type of information from the database, we would have no record of them ever utilising the website, and therefore would not be able to meet our business requirements.

Is this right? Thanks!

DCFC79

Ive used the site for quotes and hardly get anything, maybe the odd email now and then, no phone calls unless its time for me to get a quote and i accidently put the phone number down. For the phone number use 00000 000000 or similar, isnt there a box saying do not contact me

dazybb

The phone calls are less often now as I did use the website only once over a year ago, but I still receive emails.

Really I just wanted to unsubscribe, but then I thought I might as well remove all personal details as they are no use (to me) being there. I tend not to trust companies with my details as they have already escaped in to hackers hands following the attacks on various websites, and I'm trying to be proactive in maintaining who has what details and asking "do they really need to be there".

confused.com response just surprised me, I thought if I wanted a company to remove my details and I'm not an active customer of theirs, then they should oblige...

dunstonh

Firms can hold on to your data for as long as justifiable. Legal liability (due to FOS regulation) can mean some data needs to be held forever in some areas.

DCFC79

dazybb wrote: »

The phone calls are less often now as I did use the website only once over a year ago, but I still receive emails.

Really I just wanted to unsubscribe, but then I thought I might as well remove all personal details as they are no use (to me) being there. I tend not to trust companies with my details as they have already escaped in to hackers hands following the attacks on various websites, and I'm trying to be proactive in maintaining who has what details and asking "do they really need to be there".

confused.com response just surprised me, I thought if I wanted a company to remove my details and I'm not an active customer of theirs, then they should oblige...

why not change your details to a throw away email address and be done with it.

InsideInsurance

You have the legal right to tell them to stop marketing you and to stop passing your details to third parties but have no legal right to ask them to remove your data. This applies to Confused.com or any other organisation.

In some senses it makes sense, if you tell them never to market to you but then tell them to delete your details they could no longer do the first part of your request as they'd have had to delete your request for no marketing. If they then bought a database of contact details you could be in it again and so you'd start receiving marketing.

midgetessa

DCFC79 wrote: »

why not change your details to a throw away email address and be done with it.

yup


I always give a nonsense phone number and use my 'junk' email address for most things like this.

dazybb

Cheers.. makes sense. Problem is I'm still getting marketing stuff but can't unsubscribe as my account is suspended; as that's what they did when I asked them to delete my account!

Lesson learnt...

tonycarew

I've just came across this post after a search.
I have literally just emailed Confused asking them to remove my personal details before I was aware of whats been discussed above.

I received an unprompted email from them in October last year containing several quotes they had obtained for me for home insurance,my policy was due for remewal in November and I had previously used Confused the year before.

Because Confused had already searched using my details things became awkward,when I rang certain companies for quotes they became a little suspicious stating that I had already been quoted.This in turn made me feel like a liar when I tried to explain that I hadn't personaly requested a quote.The various operators I spoke to didn't sound like they believed me.

I would prefer in future if Confused didn't obtain quotes without me asking them so to speak.

Has anyone had any similar experiances?

grimboyd

As others have posted, enter ..

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com
0208 123 45678

When you get the best quote, shut down confused.com and go direct as this will knock another fiver off

Wutang_2

grimboyd wrote: »

When you get the best quote, shut down confused.com and go direct as this will knock another fiver off

Is this always the case?? WOW