I was contacted by an agent for Halifax informing me of shortfall and asking me to complete an I&E. Refused until they answer all of my questions. Got in the mail a credit card application from guess who, The Halifax. Served SARN and got details. Pointed out in my reply that they had not given me any of my details pertaining to marketing information that they were holding, and that I knew they were keeping some becauase I had recieved this credit card application. Halifax responded saying that they did not hold marketing information for me but would make sure that I was never sent any more material like this, even in error. Since then I have recieved a number of I&E forms direct from Halifax, but again will not complete until they answer all of my questions. This morning I recieve... no points for guessing this one, yet another application for a Halifax Credit Card. My question is three-fold:

1) How gullible do they think I am that I will actually complete one of these and furnish them with all of my details via a backdoor?

2) Why would a Lender be sending me an application for a credit card if they really believed that I owed them an alleged shortfall of circa 28,000.00?

3) As they have stated that they would ensure that I would recieve no more of this type of correspondce from them is there anything I can do. I certainly intend to keep it in the back of my mind to show the Judge (should it get that far) just how they break written promises and their potential to be negligent over such a simple request.

-- Tim Heath (tim_n_heath@hotmail.com), January 23, 2001

Answers

Paranoia. I work in the direct marketing industry & believe me they are not that smart. They will correctly not tell you about marketing information that they keep on you because they don't keep any. Credit card marketing is just a case of mail as many people as possible and hope 2% reply. Month in month out. The same addressess year after year. Don't think you've been selected at this stage,if you have a pulse (or had one recently) you can be on a mailing list. The selection happens when you reply. In your case this would be when your dispute with them would cause your application to be refused.

The judge, if you get that far, will not be intersted in a possibl minor breach of the DPA. It is more likely to annoy them and work against you.

-- Judy Onavan (Judy@onavan.co.uk), March 01, 2001.

Judy,

I would tend to agree with you but for a couple of other factors. I have also received two "Consumer Surveys" from Experian. This survey have been mentioned on this site and gos far beyond "consumer opinions" in its' line of questionaing. Numerous prize draw entries for our good friends experian. Numerous applications for credit. Other wierd questionaires etc. When did all this start happening? Just after I told the Halifax that I couldn't fill in their I&E form until they had given me all of the information that I needed. What's the betting that if I had filled it in then I wouldn't be getting so much junk mail right now. Paranoia? not really! If you do not want to be on someones mailing list and you tell them so, then they are legally obliged to remove your name and not to send you more junk mail. This is especially true when they have told you that they have understood and complied with your request! If these companies hold no inforation on marketing then why does their Data Protection Registration list this as one of their purposes and one of the types of information that they hold?

Being in the biz yourself I would appreciate any further insight that you may have into this "Big Brother" activity.

Regards Tim

-- Tim Heath (tim_n_heath@hotmail.com), March 03, 2001.