Bailiffs hounding Daughter

mfijohn

Hello 
My Daughter who does not drive and doesn't own a car, is being harassed by Bailiffs.
For around 2 years she has been receiving letters, on two occasions Bailiffs have turned up. Thankfully they accepted that the person the letter is addressed to does not live their. My daughter has lived their since the house was built.
The issue is an "Unpaid Penalty Charge Notice"  The letters are addressed to someone who has never lived at her address, nor do she even know the person who is on the letter. Somehow this person has used her address, one  very odd thing is that the sub heading reads...
"Debt Type: Road Traffic.        Client: Bath and North East Somerset Council."
My Daughter lives in Bolton Lancashire.  Surely they have the cars registration, and the Registered Keeper would be on the DVLA's records. Can anyone advise as to how she can stop this from happening. 

Penguin_

Could she contact Bath & NE Somerset Council & go from there?

elsien

That would have seemed to be the obvious starting point, when the first letters started to arrive. 

Hounded seems like a strong term for two visits in two years.

Fruitcake

Your daughter should complain to her MP and ask them to intervene as well as complain to the head of Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) council.

She should also email the DVLA and ask by who and upon what dates her personal data was requested (from a date before the alleged event until now), and complain that her personal data has been released without a justifiable reason. She will need to provide proof of ID for this. The DVLA will respond by post and the letter should hopefully state nobody has ever requested her data. This then needs to be retained as proof.

[email protected] 

Sheila at Bailiff Advice Online might be able to advise as well. She sometimes posts here as Herbie21 and has a good reputation on the parking forum.

Bailiff Advice Online

elsien

The letters are addressed to someone else  who has given a false address. I’m not seeing a data protection issue here? 

patient_dream

Please do what Fruitcake says

Fruitcake

elsien said:

The letters are addressed to someone else  who has given a false address. I’m not seeing a data protection issue here? 

The DVLA should not have given the OP's daughter's personal data to a third party without a justifiable reason, and they failed to carry out checks to verify they had the correct data subject which then resulted in a data breach.

pdel61

Fruitcake said:

elsien said:

The letters are addressed to someone else  who has given a false address. I’m not seeing a data protection issue here? 

The DVLA should not have given the OP's daughter's personal data to a third party without a justifiable reason, and they failed to carry out checks to verify they had the correct data subject which then resulted in a data breach.

It's not clear that the DVLA have given her details, as the OP states that the bailiffs have accepted that the person that the letter was addressed to does not live at that address and that the letters were address to someone who they do not know and have never lived at that address. It is possible that some has used her address as the RK address for ulterior motives.

Coupon-mad

But the DVLA are responsible for releasing her address, which is de facto incorrect data (even if someone lied to them, it's indisputably incorrect).  Under the GDPR they must 'flag' and/or erase it from the record of the vehicle in question.

Thus, there is a data misuse DPA 2018 issue here for the DVLA to address.

If my lovely daughter had had bailiffs on her doorstep twice (plus a ream of Enforcement Notice crap arriving in the post over a period of 2 years for a debt that had nothing to do with her household) I would certainly call it 'hounded'.

pdel61

I'm not suggesting that being on the receiving end of countless notices and Bailiffs arriving is anything anyone should have to contend with. I was merely suggesting that the DVLA can only give out the name and address that relates to a licence plate number and unless someone has told them the information is incorrect I'm not sure what else they should do.

la531983

pdel61 said:

I'm not suggesting that being on the receiving end of countless notices and Bailiffs arriving is anything anyone should have to contend with. I was merely suggesting that the DVLA can only give out the name and address that relates to a licence plate number and unless someone has told them the information is incorrect I'm not sure what else they should do.

A random thought - the DVLA would have told the local authority the address of the keeper.

Bath is a BA postcode, Bolton is BL. Possible it could be a one character keying error on the postcode?