Close Brothers can’t find details

dunstonh

Margo71 said:

So we filled in the form and sent it off, close brothers came back saying they can’t find details. We then sent photos of the agreement but they have now said it is with close brothers finance and they are close brothers group. Are they not the same company?

They are seperate.

FennecFlump

Gmanmorgan said:

I have received the same email twice now from close brothers - saying they can't find my details and to fill out a form on their website. Underneath it states that if I fill the form out and they still can't find my details there is nothing they can do.

Thing is they are asking for more details but the extra details they are asking for I have already given them. 

They have my name, D.O.B, address, vehicle reg, make, model, the year I purchased the vehicle - there is really nothing more I can give them.



What is the next best thing to do? 

@Gmanmorgan, check the DOB on your actual policy that you provided the policy number of. In a request for information I made that mentioned it could be considered a subject access request (I used the MSE template email), I provided Close Brothers with my name, address, email address, DOB and policy number and I got the same automated message back saying they couldn't find anything with the details I provided and advising me to go to their website to fill in more details. I clicked the link to go onto their site but then found the website was down and I got an error message, so I emailed them and said what's the problem with those details I already gave you. They said the reason I'm getting the email saying there's no agreement found is that DOB doesn't match what they have.

So in my case it seems like there actually was a match with everything else I provided, but I think they're messaging people saying "We’ve checked our records using the information you provided and we’re unable to find any agreement that you’ve had with us" if one field is doesn't match what they have. They had my DOB as 01/01/01, which is incorrect and not something I have ever provided anyone with as my DOB. I happen to know that 01/01/0001 is a default date some software use to represent a null or blank value if the field is formatted as a date (for some reason they struggle to just display nothing if it's a date field, I guess because nothing isn't a date, so it just displays 01/01/0001 instead).

I can't post links yet because I'm new, but if you Google "workflow 2010 will show a Date equal to 01/01/0001 inside the email, if the Date is empty", the first hit should be a sharepoint stackexchange thread which explains the software formatting issue quite clearly, and also suggests a neat solution to it.

It is my belief (although I cannot be sure at this stage) that they used some software that is formatting blank values (e.g. your account's blank DOB field in their system if they didn't have your DOB on file when they created the contract) as 01/01/0001 at some point in the contract creation and processing process and, because on the contracts they are displaying it in dd/mm/yy format, it appears as 01/01/01, which looks like 01/01/2001 so they are not realising that it is actually 01/01/0001 and are telling people they can't find their agreements, not complying with data subject access requests, and failing to compensate people that they should because the DOB doesn't match, but it doesn't match due to their formatting a blank value into a date. 

Please check the DOB on your contract and if that is not what you provided them with initially, this is what they're after - give them that. If your DOB is showing as 01/01/01 and it actually isn't 01/01/01, this could be a really ridiculous situation that affects a lot of people. Please tell me if your DOB is 01/01/01 on your contract (unless this is actually when you were born lol, in which case I have no interest in knowing that). I only have my experience at the moment so what I said above could be completely wrong at this stage but I am curious to learn what you and others find when you look at your contracts to see if my theory is correct.

FennecFlump

FennecFlump said:

Gmanmorgan said:

I have received the same email twice now from close brothers - saying they can't find my details and to fill out a form on their website. Underneath it states that if I fill the form out and they still can't find my details there is nothing they can do.

Thing is they are asking for more details but the extra details they are asking for I have already given them. 

They have my name, D.O.B, address, vehicle reg, make, model, the year I purchased the vehicle - there is really nothing more I can give them.



What is the next best thing to do? 

@Gmanmorgan, check the DOB on your actual policy that you provided the policy number of. In a request for information I made that mentioned it could be considered a subject access request (I used the MSE template email), I provided Close Brothers with my name, address, email address, DOB and policy number and I got the same automated message back saying they couldn't find anything with the details I provided and advising me to go to their website to fill in more details. I clicked the link to go onto their site but then found the website was down and I got an error message, so I emailed them and said what's the problem with those details I already gave you. They said the reason I'm getting the email saying there's no agreement found is that DOB doesn't match what they have.

So in my case it seems like there actually was a match with everything else I provided, but I think they're messaging people saying "We’ve checked our records using the information you provided and we’re unable to find any agreement that you’ve had with us" if one field is doesn't match what they have. They had my DOB as 01/01/01, which is incorrect and not something I have ever provided anyone with as my DOB. I happen to know that 01/01/0001 is a default date some software use to represent a null or blank value if the field is formatted as a date (for some reason they struggle to just display nothing if it's a date field, I guess because nothing isn't a date, so it just displays 01/01/0001 instead).

I can't post links yet because I'm new, but if you Google "workflow 2010 will show a Date equal to 01/01/0001 inside the email, if the Date is empty", the first hit should be a sharepoint stackexchange thread which explains the software formatting issue quite clearly, and also suggests a neat solution to it.

It is my belief (although I cannot be sure at this stage) that they used some software that is formatting blank values (e.g. your account's blank DOB field in their system if they didn't have your DOB on file when they created the contract) as 01/01/0001 at some point in the contract creation and processing process and, because on the contracts they are displaying it in dd/mm/yy format, it appears as 01/01/01, which looks like 01/01/2001 so they are not realising that it is actually 01/01/0001 and are telling people they can't find their agreements, not complying with data subject access requests, and failing to compensate people that they should because the DOB doesn't match, but it doesn't match due to their formatting a blank value into a date. 

Please check the DOB on your contract and if that is not what you provided them with initially, this is what they're after - give them that. If your DOB is showing as 01/01/01 and it actually isn't 01/01/01, this could be a really ridiculous situation that affects a lot of people. Please tell me if your DOB is 01/01/01 on your contract (unless this is actually when you were born lol, in which case I have no interest in knowing that). I only have my experience at the moment so what I said above could be completely wrong at this stage but I am curious to learn what you and others find when you look at your contracts to see if my theory is correct.

@Robgc if you have the electronic copy of the policy still, I'd be interested to know if the above applies to your situation