TalkTalk and Carphone on the naughty step

TalkTalk and its parent company Carphone Warehouse have been slapped by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for failing to look after customers' data properly, in breach of the Data Protection Act. An investigation by the ICO revealed both companies were "opening accounts in the wrong names and passing inaccurate …

[Adam Wynne]

Credit check by email

I was in an email convo with CW about my (crap) phone. A few days later I received an email from the guy at CW, the email was meant for a credit check agency but came to me by miistake. The conttents? Some poor sod's details, bank account, passport nuumber, driving licence, address, mother's maiden, the whole 9 yards.

Good security, sending it by plaintext email.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

Lost in e space

As an AOL user, I wrote to them to ask about what Talk Talk and the assorted detritus over there was getting up to and they sent me some CDs.

Or at least they said that they were in the post.

[Mike Crawshaw]

When the ICO...

issues "enforcement notices" against the HMRC, the NHS, the DVLA, oh sod it - the entire damned Government, who are doing more to abuse our data than every private company in the country put together - THEN people might start to take them seriously.

In the meantime, they're a joke. Just like the "New & Improved Chastity Belt - as recommended by Paris Hilton!!!!"

[Sean Donnellan]

Credit Check - Pah

My wife had a 2 phone taken out in her name at an unnamed Carphone Warehouse, and a credit check was done.

They submitted the wrong DOB, (I on my Experion file) but were still issued with TWO new Samsung G600 handsets on a large volume tarrif (which they exceeded by £120 in 10 days)

They were blocked and reported - no info from the Fraud department (We'll be back to you in 10 days") - 2½ months and waiting.

My wife however, is claiming she's much younger than me now, as she has a *new* DOB, which has reduced her age by 12½ years......

[Anonymous Coward]

Court orders

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...

I had a "Creditor's Notice" from Carphone Whorehouse's debt collectors for a sum I didn't owe last week. Emailed CW who, somewhat surprisingly, actually replied. Except that they didn't know what phone number this claim referred to, even though I'd provided them with the account number referred to in the Notice.

I've replied since, telling them that it could be one of two numbers and I've supplied them with both. In the meantime I've had a rather nasty phone call from a debt agency used by CW asking me, with a certain degree of menace, when I was going to pay the outstanding amount. I told them I was paying nothing until I had some notice from CW as to what the outstanding amount was about. They just said "See you in court" and hung up.

This may not be relevant, but about 18 months ago I went for an interview with CW where they admitted that their accounting system was very out of date and in need of a lot of work. But I'm sure that's not relevant now. I'm sure it's all been brought up to date.

Now - I may not be right here, but I believe that whether their claim is correct or not, the mere fact that they may take this claim to court will reflect badly on my credit rating, which is something I'm not happy with. However, I'm sure they'll choose to deal with my small claim for defamation of character out of court rather than taking it any further.

[Anonymous Coward]

YEah. Right.

I took out a contract with CPW and they gave my direct debit details to two 'external' companies.

They have an intricate set of subsidiaries and tie in deals with their mobiles and share data freely with them. I had to cancel all the CPW related DD's and they had the nerve to charge me a surcharge for not paying by direct debit.

I would never, ever, ever, ever trust these fools with my personal information.

[ian]

a shambles from start to finish

i am not surprised by the shambles CPW/TalkTalk are in, i set up a business line when they first launched and noticed the "bundle" wasnt actually a bundle and nor was it charged that way, it took them 3-4 months to get broadband activated and refused to adjust the bills to account for this, i raised a formal complaint and was told they would get back to me in a few days, 3 months later i chased them and was told the complaint had been closed, not that they had the decency to notify me, in the meantime i paid each and every correct bill (but this left some still outstanding due to being incorrectly billed for broadband & bundled service) they kept sending letters threatening disconnection and each time i called them and we agree that i would settle the first few months outstanding bills once they sorted the billing issues out. Unsurprisingly they never did, i kept getting letters of disconnection, i kept calling them saying the same thing (adjust the billing to account for services/bundles we haven't incurred and i will settle the outstanding amount) and they never did, then i found out they had disconnected the line!!

after 3 weeks i received a disconnection notice!!!

it was clear they still felt they were owed money from the initial mess up, by this time i had had enough and had no intention of paying them anything else so i wrote to them with a cheque asking for information they held on me as per data protection act (in preparation to defend their debt collection in court), .........

i probably don't need to say that i didn't receive any response to this request either, they are an absolute shamble and the sooner companies are held to account for poor service and breach of acts like data protection the better, needless to say i wouldn't go near them again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Further update

I got a phone call from CW/whatever later this evening. This was obviously from India somewhere. They really didn't seem to know what the situation was. They apologised that I had been threatened with court action and told me that I did not owe them anything. Then they wanted to know what phone number I was being charged for. I told them I didn't know and that surely the account number I had given them was enough. They couldn't find a link. Nor did they even know the debt collection company.

I told them that I was fed up with their poor service and wanted to cancel the account. "Oh no - you can't do that," I was told, "You have just signed up for another 12 months. It will cost you £240 (or something) to cancel now. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was horrified and begged her to help me.

Of course I didn't. I pointed out the error of her ways. I do feel sorry for these call centre people at times but also some seem to be determined not to give in. Surely even they know when they're in the wrong?

Anyway - I think this thread has only touched the tip of the iceberg as far as CW, TT, T-Mobile, Fresh and whatever else are concerned. Anybody fancy starting a class action?