GDPR breach?

Clive_Woody

What figure did you have in mind as being reasonable?

dunstonh

Do I have any rights to seek more compensation?

What financial loss have you suffered as a result of this breach?

This is a relatively minor breach as no personal data of yours has ended up in someone else's hands other than an email address.  However, email addresses are not really important personal data, in a similar way your address isn't.

The ICO won't take any action against the company.  Its was a simple mistake.

So, the £20 offer to you doesn't sound outside the expectation.  You may get it to £25-£40 with a bit of haggling.  However, the other person who passe their personal data to you would likely be offered a higher amount.

dunstonh

Customer services tend to be more generous with gestures of goodwill than lawyers are.

It is similar in the financial world.   The Financial Ombudsman Service have said that people that resort to legal avenues have to be treated as the law would, and this is usually less favourable.

Send a letter before action to your energy company, I'd be asking for £500, but I'd settle for £300. If they offer less than that, then start proceedings via money claim online.

The other party may well be justified for pushing into the hundreds but not the OP who has suffered no ill effects from this (either mentally or financially)

SAC2334

Personally, I would just grab that £20 .

My email has been sold on probably 100 s  of times including from my local council and the DVLA  .any fraudster can buy hundreds of thousands of email addresses and determine their ages to target fraudlent activity.
We live in a age where internet fraud is a fact of life .

.My Spam folder gets emptied every week in seconds 

EdwardB

I think you need to complain to the ICO , not for an money but because that system has to be shut off until fixed.

The_Fat_Controller

@EdwardB

The company have already reported the issue to the ICO, see the OP's second post.

There is no system problem, the live chat agent obviously made a genuine mistake when they had more than one chat open and sent the OP's email address to the third party, simple as that.

Ectophile

EdwardB said:

I think you need to complain to the ICO , not for an money but because that system has to be shut off until fixed.

The ICO is yet another toothless watchdog.  They can barely keep up with all the major data breaches that go on.  One person't case is going to get filed away and forgotten about.

Section62

fryedslyce said:

Section62 said:

fryedslyce said:

Clearly your personal email address being given out to a random stranger has caused you psychological distress.
Send a letter before action to your energy company, I'd be asking for £500, but I'd settle for £300. If they offer less than that, then start proceedings via money claim online.

How do you get from "psychological distress" to the sum of £500?

OP, be careful with advice like that contained in that post.  If you start a legal claim then your energy supplier is likely to pass your case on to their legal team, rather than being dealt with as a customer service issue.

Customer services tend to be more generous with gestures of goodwill than lawyers are.

Lawyer's are pragmatists, they know that defending the claim will cost their employer more than £300, therefore they'll settle.

You said £500.

Large organisations have in-house legal teams.  It costs the organisation the same money to employ them whether they defend a claim or not.  If they defend and win, it saves the organisation money.

If the claimant has a decent case the lawyers are more likely to settle for a reasonable figure.

So far there's little evidence the OP has a decent case, and the figure you propose isn't reasonable in the circumstances.

fryedslyce said:

Customer service agents have very little scope for negotiation and will just follow their standard protocol.

That's not my experence, and I've done a lot of complaining.  Organisations have different approaches, but typically the first-line CSA will have either a fixed figure or a formula approach to offer a sum of money.  If the complainant doesn't accept this the "standard protocol" will typically have levels of escalation or authorisation to or by someone in a more senior position.

fryedslyce said:

Taking legal action is very simple, just ask all those parking companies who issue 10000's of money claim proceedings.
How many of those are legitimate?

Parking enforcement on private land is a very different scenario - and it is very much not "simple" to get it right.  Which is why relatively few cases progress to the court stage, and in those that do, the parking company often loses.

fryedslyce said:

It is a percentages game, same here. If the OP started proceedings, almost certainly the defendant would come to a settlement as it is not in their financial interest for it to progress.

That's your opinion, not a fact.  There's no way of being sure how the company would respond to the commencement of proceedings.  It could be as random as which member of staff's inbox the case lands in.

fryedslyce said:

If more consumers took this route then these companies would behave better.

On the face of it, this is a case of an employee making an error.  It is very difficult to stop errors like that happening, so it isn't obvious why the company would need to "behave better".

What your suggestion would do is to increase costs.  Businesses treat claims as part of the cost of doing business, and those costs just get passed on to the consumer.

If you disagree with the 'part of the cost of doing business' point, then why have you been suggesting that companies are so keen to settle rather than defending a claim?

pochase

Section62 said:

On the face of it, this is a case of an employee making an error.  It is very difficult to stop errors like that happening, so it isn't obvious why the company would need to "behave better".

What your suggestion would do is to increase costs.  Businesses treat claims as part of the cost of doing business, and those costs just get passed on to the consumer.

If you disagree with the 'part of the cost of doing business' point, then why have you been suggesting that companies are so keen to settle rather than defending a claim?

This error can be easily avoided, each agent will in future only deal with one customer at a time.

Of course that means either it will be nearly impossible to get through to them on chat, or they have to hire more agents, result: higher admin cost.

And that higher admin cost will be build into the next cap, and we all will pay for this.

sienew

It was a mistake. We all make them. They have admitted their mistake and have referred themselves to the ICO. Accept the £20 and move on with your life. You haven't suffered any real loss or damage.