advice please- is this legal?

archiesdad

hi all
please feel free to move if in the wrong place.

sorry is a bit long.

for the last three years and upto last christmas, my wife and i had her brother renting our spare room.

to say he wasn't good with money was an understatment, but with our guidance we felt he was monving in the right direction.

anyway, against our better judgement he decided he needed a new car and went to yes car credit,asuring us he could meet the payments of about £150/month.

you guessed it within 6 months well behind on the agreement then banned from driving for three years,don't ask thats a whole new story.

so christmas he moved out and after a few months of redirecting his post and returning to sender we stopped recieving threatening letters from his creditors.

that is until yesterday when i got a phone call from auto finance , i believe they took over from yes car credit. to ask to speak to him. i curtley told them he didn't live with us anymore and to stop calling.

about twenty minutes later a neighbour walked over to ask if we were mr X X . and that she had recieved a call from auto finance to ask if she knew us or if mr x x lived at our address.

anyway my question is surley is cannot be legal to harrass my neighbours into
doing thier dirty work trying to chase up a debtee who they can not find.

is it worth taking to the cab with respect to making a complaint or maybe the fsa.

any opinions would be gratfully recieved.

flaura

they are breaching the data protection act - they are technically revealing that "Mr Bro in Law" owes money to them and if they revelealed the address then they have disclosed personal information about that person - report them to the FSA - I would recommend getting a statment from your neighbour to that affect

archiesdad

thanx flaura
she's already written me a note she was a lovely lady but thats not the point.

she camme over with a hand written note saying

to mr x x
a gentleman rang me this morning at 10.30 asking if i knew if you still lived at no x . i said i had never met the occupants of no x after mr and mrs x moved out.
however he says, can you please telephone direct auto on XXXXXXX and quote ref XXXXXXX.

i am mrs x living at no x opposite(he said he rang me as the nearest neighbour on the database with a tel no.etc etc.
your sincerely mrs x.


do you think this would constitue a statment as it seemsa bit mean harrassing her again as its nothing to do with her really.

thanx archiesdad

flaura

You need to contact the information commisioner - supply them awith a copy of the note she wrote you.

I'm not clear if the information disclosed was about you or your bruv in law - if it is the latter then he would need to make the complaint any way around under the data protection act you cannot disclose information about youto a third party.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/what_we_cover/data_protection.aspx

Link to how to complain - i 'd have a good read of this website

http://www.ico.gov.uk/Home/complaints/data_protection.aspx

Flaura xx

southernscouser

I personally don't think they have breached the DPA.

Yes they are sneaky a$$holes, but if they haven't revealed any personal info I don't think there is any comeback. :think:

flaura

apart from giving the lady across the road their name address and reference numbers for the account ?