Late SAR response & 5 year-old PCN

Kate_kt

Hi all! Looking for some advice if possible! Sorry for the long read, but I appreciate anyone willing to tackle it lol!

Last year, 2020, I received a "Notice of Debt Recovery" letter in the post stating that I had an unpaid PCN from 2016. This letter alleged that I owed £40 for the PCN & £70 in admin & recovery charges for DCB Legal. Following advice on here, particularly the newbies thread, I ignored letters until receiving a "Letter of Claim" earlier this year. Again following advice on the newbies thread, I responded back to the PPC with a SAR request and also alerted DCB Legal that I had sent an SAR request to their client and they would need to put the claim on hold for at least 30 days. 

The SAR was sent to the PPC outlining my requests (photos of alleged offence and signage, all previous correspondence including appeals, p&d ticket machine records of payments made on alleged contravention date, all data held, full copy of PCN and NTK). In this SAR I included my name, address, phone number, and also stated if any more info was needed to please let me know asap. I sent this SAR to the only available email address I could find for the company and within this email I said "FAO of Privacy team", to which they responded 4 days later saying that I must send the request to their GDPR email address, instead of them forwarding this email in-house to the relevant teams. To my understanding, as I have sent the SAR to the company and it has been acknowledged, the time period they have to respond would have started from the day that I first sent the email, not five days later when I forwarded it to another department within the same company - please correct me if I'm wrong about that. 

Anyway, I did as asked and forwarded the exact same email & request to the GDPR team. I allowed 1 calendar month (from the resent email) and had no response, I then followed up with a reminder that I had not received a response from my SAR sent first 33 days prior and then sent again 28 days prior (1 calendar month but a short month). I stated they had a further 7 days to respond. 

After sending my reminder email, I received a response within 10 minutes saying I have not provided the necessary information such as a ticket reference and reg number. I responded within two hours, something along the lines of "You did not request this information from me before today, despite knowledge of my initial request 33 days ago. To have knowledge of my SAR and to ignore it or unnecessarily delay requesting necessary information until after the one month time limit is a breach" I also mentioned that they already had this information about me as it was used to contact me, therefore this couldn't have stopped them from fulfilling the request. Nonetheless I added the reference and my reg number. Baring in mind they still had 7 days to respond.

19 days have passed (that's now 52 days since my SAR was first sent) and they have responded again saying "in order to respond to your request, please provide us with reference numbers". I responded within the hour to remind them that I had ALREADY done this, with an attachment of my previous email, and said they had already taken far too long and would be reported to the ICO.

Miraculously I received a response within 10 minutes with my SAR attached. They said they did not intentionally delay the SAR request but were short staffed due to the pandemic, and that it's inevitable for a delay to occur when they have not been provided with information, stating that if I had provided this information without them having to request for it, I would have received my SAR in time. The SAR sent shows only pictures of the alleged contravention (with and without PCN attached to the window) and signage, and the NTK. It does not include a copy of the original PCN. 

I do believe that they have breached the law here. Is anyone able to offer their opinion on this? 

Moving forward, now that I have the SAR I'm unsure on my next move.
Do I still report the delayed SAR response to ICO? 

From doing some research, I can see that I paid £65 (£5 fees + £60 PCN) for the original PCN, however it seems a though this was paid later than the 14 days "discount" period, and so they are trying to recover the remaining £40 now 4-5 years later. I do not recall receiving the reminder notice to driver (I'm a very nervous person so any correspondence would have intimidated me and it's likely I would have paid up if I received it lol). My prior payment is also not included in the SAR they sent.

How do I respond to DCB Legal now that I have the SAR? 
I also realise that their £70 admin fees add-on is unlawful  from other threads on here, but I'm unsure at what point, and to whom, this should be addressed. If I am making a report to ICO, should I include DCB Legal's charges? or is that the wrong place to take that complaint?

Thanks so much for reading! 

Coupon-mad

The SAR sent shows only pictures of the alleged contravention (with and without PCN attached to the window) and signage, and the NTK. It does not include a copy of the original PCN. 
I do believe that they have breached the law here. Is anyone able to offer their opinion on this? 

Yes in terms of not providing the PCN, if there was one.  But their reasons for delaying the SAR response would be accepted by the ICO because these are exceptional times and they'll get nothing bad happening so I wouldn't bother.

How do I respond to DCB Legal now that I have the SAR? 
I also realise that their £70 admin fees add-on is unlawful  from other threads on here, but I'm unsure at what point, and to whom, this should be addressed. 

Don't bother until you get a LBC from DCBLegal  - are you at that stage?  We are not talking about tedious letters from DCBL Ltd ('Recovery' letters - ignore).

Kate_kt

Coupon-mad said:

The SAR sent shows only pictures of the alleged contravention (with and without PCN attached to the window) and signage, and the NTK. It does not include a copy of the original PCN. 
I do believe that they have breached the law here. Is anyone able to offer their opinion on this? 

Yes in terms of not providing the PCN, if there was one.  But their reasons for delaying the SAR response would be accepted by the ICO because these are exceptional times and they'll get nothing bad happening so I wouldn't bother.

How do I respond to DCB Legal now that I have the SAR? 
I also realise that their £70 admin fees add-on is unlawful  from other threads on here, but I'm unsure at what point, and to whom, this should be addressed. 

Don't bother until you get a LBC from DCBLegal  - are you at that stage?  We are not talking about tedious letters from DCBL Ltd ('Recovery' letters - ignore).

Hey there!

Thanks for the advice re: reporting SAR delays.

Yes "I ignored letters until receiving a "Letter of Claim" earlier this year. Again following advice on the newbies thread, I responded back to the PPC with a SAR request and also alerted DCB Legal that I had sent an SAR request to their client and they would need to put the claim on hold for at least 30 days. "

I believe a letter before claim and letter of claim are the same? 
So I followed advice and sent the SAR after receiving the letter of claim. Now unsure what to do! 

SayNoToPCN

Yes, as there is no standard term. Anything which says they WIL i ssue proiceedings is a LOC/LBC/LBCCC etc

|They have committed an offence, as the DSAR is about a data sdubject, you, and NOT their reference numbers. You are entitled to request all data held about you, not jsut data held under a ref number. 

Coupon-mad

If you've already responded, obviously you do nothing except read the NEWBIES thread about court stage, and the template defence thread, and all the zillions of other exact same DCBL court claims threads to get a heads up.

Why do people always think there is a next step, and a next one...if there was then the NEWBIES thread would tell you.

Kate_kt

SayNoToPCN said:

Yes, as there is no standard term. Anything which says they WIL i ssue proiceedings is a LOC/LBC/LBCCC etc

|They have committed an offence, as the DSAR is about a data sdubject, you, and NOT their reference numbers. You are entitled to request all data held about you, not jsut data held under a ref number. 

I was of this understanding too! But is this worth reporting now? Baring in mind coupon_mad's comments

Coupon-mad

My reply was about not doing anything by way of pointless responses to and from with DCBLegal.


If you have a complaint about things missing from the SAR from the PPC, you obviously just reply to the PPC and tell them.  And report them to the ICO if unsatisfied with the PPC's final SAR response.

Kate_kt

Coupon-mad said:

If you've already responded, obviously you do nothing except read the NEWBIES thread about court stage, and the template defence thread, and all the zillions of other exact same DCBL court claims threads to get a heads up.

Why do people always think there is a next step, and a next one...if there was then the NEWBIES thread would tell you.

I have not responded, this is my point and my question. I am asking how or if to respond now that the SAR has been sent to me. The last I spoke to DCB Legal was to inform them that I'm requesting an SAR from their client and they should hold for 30 days. Surely I would need to do something now that I have the SAR, surely I need to respond back to the LOC from DCB Legal?

I have read and studied so many threads on here, including newbies, and I'm still struggling to know what to do now, hence my asking for clarity. I wasn't able to find a thread that shared my experience in having the SAR sent, but sent late, so wasn't sure what to do with that

Kate_kt

Coupon-mad said:

My reply was about not doing anything by way of pointless responses to and from with DCBLegal.


If you have a complaint about things missing from the SAR from the PPC, you obviously just reply to the PPC and tell them.  And report them to the ICO if unsatisfied with the PPC's final SAR response.

I have had no to and from with DCB Legal. I have contacted them only once, after receiving LOC, to tell them I was requesting an SAR from their client. There has been no other contact since from myself or from them 

SayNoToPCN

You know what to do then, which is 
wait

You can complain to the ico but don't expect a) a swift response b) a positive one 

D_P_Dance

I recently complained to the ICO about an ignored SAR, (not parking).  They have replied reasonably  quickly, and been rather heavy with the company involved.