Today's rant

If you watched BBC's Panorama from Monday 11th July, at 13mins 45seconds the presenter sets up a crash scene, and then follows one of the cars to a bodyshop (15mins) for its repair work. 

We see the red car being unloaded from the truck.

There the presenter interviews the owner of the bodyshop, Nick Gaskell - and the commentary states: "They too may send me to a Claims Management Company. Nick says he does it because they are easier to deal with than insurers, and he'll get paid for the referral."
 

Nick: "On this, if we put you in touch with an accident management company we'd probably get a hundred quid"
Presenter: "A hundred quid?"
Nick: "Yeah"

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012s1xj/Panorama_The_Great_Car_Insurance_Swindle/)

After seeing the programme, I tweeted: "Tonight's #BBCpanorama had the garage I had problems with a couple of years ago when they used me a wedge to get more £/hour from ins work" (Note that I didn't name them, or where they were)

And received a reply:
@Lancs , Hi, Noticed ur comment ystrday,. thought ths link wld B worth looking at, its a shame Panorama dnt investigate things further http://bit.ly/orziSC
(The link suggests that the increases in insurance costs aren't necessarily as a direct result of personal injury claims... which isn't really what I was implying - I was implying "hey look, someone and somewhere I know was on the telly!")

But it kinda pissed me off that this guy that I'd trusted with my family car, because my mum said they advertised in my Church's magazine, was quite likely to sell my details should I use the company again in the event of an accident - and I have big feelings when it comes to privacy issues. 

I don't use my surname online, I'm ex-directory, and I'm registered with the mailing and telephone preference service, so I wouldn't ever have agreed to it if I'd been asked permission. I have a teenage son who has autism, and he can't cope with strangers who ring the doorbell or telephone the house. He doesn't even cope well when it's me on the telephone, or Grandma asking him if he wants her to take him out for lunch! We have an intercom so he doesn't need to actually go to the front door, he can talk to a visitor from the safety of the dining room. There is NO WAY ON EARTH that I would encourage people to contact my home without me knowing about it in advance!

So I forced the bodyshop company to unfollow me (I don't want to be associated with a company that would do that) and sent this: "@GaskellMotor but you admit on TV that you fail to respect customers' privacy and sell their details. I would NEVER give permission for that"

 And the reply came: "@Lancs Hi Liz we do not pass our customer details on, on any occasions, We did the program because we are fed up with it as well" and 5 more tweets... (including one that he missed my name off, then sent again with my name on)

@Lancs, sometimes have to use accident mngmt co, when insurers are unwilling 2 pay for genuine new parts and are only willing to cut corners

@lancs When using acc mngmt co this is only done with the customer's full knowledge and understanding.

@ I hope this helps clarify our position, and helps confirm that we do not sell customers information to anyone.

@lancs I hope this helps clarify our position, and helps confirm that we do not sell customers information to anyone 

@lancs the reason y I did the program is we want it stopping like you and many others, I 2 get un reqstd txt mssg touting 4 injury claims

 

Uh? Hang on... that isn't what the TV programme said!   Then @GaskellMotor followed me again, so again I forced an unfollow. 

And they followed AGAIN, and again I forced the unfollow.

And then, at 9:22am, my mobile started buzzing in my pocket. I was at work. 

We have a strict "No Mobiles" policy at work, but because of my son's Autism I have negotiated that I can keep mine on (on silent, in my pocket, for emergencies... I check the calling number quickly and recognize it as local, but don't recognize the number's owner, so I do a quick google search to make sure it wasn't anyone in connection with my son. The search comes back as Gaskell Motors.

I pop on to Twitter quickly, from the ladies' loos at the earliest opportunity (10:52am) to tweet: 

" '@GaskellMotor please don't call my mobile,do NOT call home either, you'll upset my autistic son.Please delete my nos. from office database" as I'm concerned that if they call home, and son answers, he'll be confused and not really know who is on the phone, or why they're calling. And since I have no "childcare" (He's almost 18!) today, he's home alone and I don't want to have to leave work early to deal with an emotional meltdown because someone's ringing him to harrass me!

And I was right, when I got home, I found that they did in fact call here, 1st at 9:21am and again at 9:30am - luckily, being a teenager, son didn't wake up til noon, so didn't answer.

But where do we stand on the Data Protection Act? 

So it was 11th May 2009 that Gaskells had my car. 

And I got it back on 6th June 2009.  

That's 27(?) days to do a job that they'd quoted as taking 4½ days.  

(If you scroll a REALLY long way back in my tweets, you can see where I tweet about the problems I'm having, and @ZurichConnect get in touch to try to help me sort things out!

So, that's over 2 years ago, and they STILL have my details on file, handy enough that they can respond with phone calls?

Maybe a quick referral to the Data Protection Registrar will be in order if it continues?

And yeah, I do consider it harassment when a man who is a relative stranger calls my home and mobile phones out of the blue, presumably to discuss something I've tweeted about.  

Although it isn't quite so straight forward, because when I was at High School in the 80s, his wife was in my school year, lived very close to me, and travelled to the same school on the same school bus, but other than whilst the car was being fixed in 2009, we've had no contact since 1986 when I changed high schools, so it isn't like we're what I would class as friends!