Compensation Advice Please

Greenfingers3

I have recently made a complaint to a Building Society, on the grounds of breach of the data protection act and severe lack of confidentiality. To cut a long story short, we adopted two children and in the process of sorting out the details on the child trust fund accounts, the building society released our address to the biological mother of the children. The children had been removed from her and when it went through court great effort was made to ensure that she did not get our address, although nothing has happened as yet, the children are quite young and we are now going to be living for quite a lot of years never knowing if she will turn up on our doorstep one day or if we will start getting postal items.

The Building Society in question have totally held their hands up to this and admitted fault. Whatever they do will never make up for this, but they have decided to offer us compensation and want to know how much we would like to suggest. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what would be reasonable?
Thanks for reading and your help.

Gromitt

Data protection breach with possible further problems? I'd say £250.

innovate

hmh, not sure this is done with £250. As Greenfingers3 said, they don't know now whether the birth mother will turn up at their doorstep etc. Worst case, they might have to move and/or change their names to re-gain the privacy that the BS so carelessly violated.

Greenfingers3, have you consulted with the adoption agency / a solicitor about the best course of action? I would do that if I were you, and then inform the BS accordingly. They should need to pay all your costs now, plus also any future costs that you incur as a direct result of their mistake. Plus compensation for distress caused.This probably needs to be put in writing by a Solicitor.

Best of luck, hopefully you and your family will be left alone!

Greenfingers3

innovate wrote: »

hmh, not sure this is done with £250. As Greenfingers3 said, they don't know now whether the birth mother will turn up at their doorstep etc. Worst case, they might have to move and/or change their names to re-gain the privacy that the BS so carelessly violated.

Greenfingers3, have you consulted with the adoption agency / a solicitor about the best course of action? I would do that if I were you, and then inform the BS accordingly. They should need to pay all your costs now, plus also any future costs that you incur as a direct result of their mistake. Plus compensation for distress caused.This probably needs to be put in writing by a Solicitor.

Best of luck, hopefully you and your family will be left alone!

Thanks, I have contacted Social Services and they were thinking about making their own complaint. They have also taken some action which hopefully may prevent anything happening (sorry cant go into details)

JuicyJesus

innovate wrote: »

hmh, not sure this is done with £250. As Greenfingers3 said, they don't know now whether the birth mother will turn up at their doorstep etc. Worst case, they might have to move and/or change their names to re-gain the privacy that the BS so carelessly violated.

FOS have ruled on similar cases.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/45/45_bankers_duty.htm

In 45/2, the bank inadvertently (if recklessly) disclosed the address of a woman to her violent ex-partner, who promptly broke her door down seriously assaulted her. She received a compensation payout of £3000 - incidentally, a figure suggested by the FOS, not by the complainant, who didn't specify an amount she wanted other than that she felt the original figure of £300 was insufficient.

45/3 is more directly applicable to the OP's case. There, the bank offered £500, but was instead asked to pay the difference in rent between the old property and new property for the term of the rental contract, removal costs, school uniforms and electricity and gas changeover costs, totalling £1000, AND the £500.

It should of course be noted that the FOS do not work on precedent and Ombudsman News case studies do not constitute precedent. But basically I would ask for a lot more than £250 given the circumstances.

opinions4u

£150 - £250 reflects a breach where, for example, the next door neighbour gets to hear of your account balance.

Juicy's link above guides you to higher amounts.

If nothing else happens I'd suggest £500 is a reasonable figure to settle for. But ensure that when accepting an offer you make it clear that you will still hold them responsible for any subsequent costs should the need arise.

innovate

opinions4u wrote: »

But ensure that when accepting an offer you make it clear that you will still hold them responsible for any subsequent costs should the need arise.

Definitely!

And I'd have that put in writing by a Solicitor. Costs of engaging a solicitor to be borne by BS.

pmduk

I should imagine there's at least one building society employee justifiably worried about their job. With good reason!

InsideInsurance

The general scales for compensation by the FOS can be found http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/distress-and-inconvenience.htm#15

The problem is that we dont have punitive damages and therefore compensation is based on what has happened and not what could or may happen. On the basis nothing has happened and you arent proposing to move address or anything else cost incurring then the compensation is going to be relatively modest

JuicyJesus

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The problem is that we dont have punitive damages and therefore compensation is based on what has happened and not what could or may happen. On the basis nothing has happened and you arent proposing to move address or anything else cost incurring then the compensation is going to be relatively modest

I would disagree. There are reasonably foreseeable consequences to the release of the information, which places the family and the adopted children in immediate potential danger. Depending on what happens, moving house could be a consequence.

If it were the case of, say, a sister's address being accidentally released to a brother who was on good terms with the sister, it'd merit a token payout. This is a lot more serious. The society's actions have caused actual distress and inconvenience - not just "boo hoo I had to walk to the branch" distress and inconvenience, either, but the sort that has the potential to cause sleepless nights.

I would say the figure of £500 plus costs as suggested by opinions4u is reasonable.

Greenfingers3

Thanks, so much for all your help, just to update you, the BS rang me today, to ask what I wanted to suggest as compensation. I didnt exactly suggest any figure, but told them my feelings on the matter and what the potential costs could be. I then put the ball in their court to see what they were going to offer me.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The problem is that we dont have punitive damages and therefore compensation is based on what has happened and not what could or may happen. On the basis nothing has happened and you arent proposing to move address or anything else cost incurring then the compensation is going to be relatively modest

As InsideInsurance said they told me that compensation is based on what has happened and not what may happen, and as the mother must have had the information for some time and has done nothing with it, that they didnt really see too much of a problem. For various reasons I am not sure I agree on that bit.

opinions4u wrote: »

If nothing else happens I'd suggest £500 is a reasonable figure to settle for. But ensure that when accepting an offer you make it clear that you will still hold them responsible for any subsequent costs should the need arise.

They also made it very clear that they wouldnt be responsible for any future costs.
They told me that for compensation for breach of the data protection act they normally pay £250 and offered me that. I told them that I realised that, but felt that this is a bit more serious than just sending my bank statement to my next door neighbour. The call ended with them saying they would go and consult and send me a letter with their final offer and then I could accept that or take it up with the Ombudsman. Will have to wait and see what they come up with now.