Data Commissioners Are A Waste Of Time
October 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Remember my problem with the Golden Spiders and being spammed a little while ago? I took the time out to report it to the Data Commissioners in the hope that they would actually do something. This is what I heard back:
On 10 October, I received an email back from Edel Carty the investigating officer (I’m seeing visions of CSI with an Irish flavour here!). Guess what the Data Commissioners did? They contacted the Golden Spiders people and you know what? The Golden Spiders people fobbed them off with this : “What happened was we had multiple subscriber
groups and we sent the newsletter to all of these groups. When someone nsubscribed they only unsubscribed from one group and therefore still eceived the newsletter. So once she contacted us we removed her from one ubscriber group but she was still getting email through another subscriber roup. We have gone though all our data bases now and made sure she and a small number of other duplications have been removed.”
They should have done that when I first unsubscribed.
Furthermore. “Our sincerest apologies on this, we weren’t aware of the situation until now.”
That’s a lie as I telephoned them to get off their list. And I told their damned telesales girls too.
And to add insult to injury, they wish to contact me directly – to apologise.
NO WAY.
I have been waiting a week now to hear from Edel Carty because I emailed her back on 10 October to tell her that this reply was not acceptable. I do not accept their crap excuses and I’d like to know specifically how many times an offender has to spam and to how many people in order to get more than just a caution from the Data Commissioners.
She hasn’t replied to date. So for anyone involved in marketing, the message is clear: spam all you like, the legless powerless data commissioners office is only there to create a few more public sector jobs and to do nothing.
It’s still going on – NTL is busy spamming people today. And what can we do about it? Don’t bother reporting it because you’re just wasting your time.
This kind of thing makes me mad.
Comments (4 responses)
[...] I was frustrated and disappointed in October when I brought this to the attention of the Data Commissioners Office (the email police) because all they did was reprimand the Golden Spiders by mail. I simply had to accept the Golden Spiders answer that this would not happen again. Read the “data commissioners are a waste of time’ post here. [...]
Interesting to read your post re Data Commisioners from last year because have had reason to contact them (and same person) regrding unsolicited faxes to a private phone/fax number and after much to-and-froing I have received a very unsatisfactory response.
I find the Data Protection people frustrating to deal with and inept. I have replied to her last email with an attachment of all the emails she had sent me to point out the lack of info and I got a ‘rejection’email from their server (all of a sudden) so I find the whole thing very sinister. More or less it was put to me thaat their word is final even though the offending company are legendary for faxing direct marketing material illegally a lot of the time.
I’m only 40 and not into complaining. Pity taxes are wasted this way.
Hi JD.
I’m less than 40 and I complain a lot if I get poor service from private sector firms, or if public servants are not serving me in the way that they should!
Have you read on? Did you read the ‘happy ending’ that came out of that particular spamming event? Golden Spiders – aka Business & Finance magazine – were asked to pay €500 to a charity of my choice as a penance for their over insistent communications.
Granted, I had to diairise it to check up every day with Ms Carty that she was on to it. And, even after the settlement was agreed, I still had to nag to ensure they money was paid.
It shouldn’t have to be like that.
But it is.
And while it remains so, keep complaining. Make your voice heard. And keep those Data Protection Commissioners on their toes.
Thanks Maryrose. I think I’ll just print off all the documentation and send it by registered post to Data HQ. I’ve alerted my local TD (first time for everything!) by email also but surprise surprise no reply either (as yet).
I’m not that hopeful either way that I will get a resolution. A pity but c’est la vie!
Great blog BTW. Keep up the good writing!
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