
TalkTalk want £10 for a 13-month-old bill - AndrewDucker
http://reprog.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/talktalk-want-10-for-a-13-month-old-bill/
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blibble
If they won't send you that information without a Subject Access Request (Data
Protection Act), you should note the Act forces them to fully disclose all
personal information that you request, so request the following in printed
form:

\- every bill for the last 10 years

\- every email in your account

\- transcripts of all the phone calls they have recorded for "monitoring and
training purposes"

it'll still cost you ten pounds, but their processing costs will be in the
hundreds if not thousands of pounds, and they have no right to refuse.

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IanCal
They can charge any reasonable fee for this, can they not? So you could
request loads and they can turn around and say "That'll be £280".

~~~
blibble
10 pounds max per request, and a request can cover all your personal data (you
just have to name exactly what you want them to return).

the ICO has some guidelines on this:
[http://www.ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_...](http://www.ico.org.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/principle_6/access_to_personal_data#expensive)

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petercooper
I thought paperless billing was a good idea until I stumbled across similar
situations. I now try and ensure I keep paper billing as much as possible (or
at least have them e-mail me a bill every month where I can back it up
myself).

2 years should be a legal minimum for free, open access to bills, because many
self employed people only do their accounts once per year and you get nine
months in which to complete them.. so that's 12 + 9 == 21 months you have a
legitimate need to collect together your records.

~~~
epo
"Your inefficiency is not my problem."

~~~
MikeTaylor
It is is you want to retain inefficient people as paying customers.

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petercooper
Doing your accounts and collecting together records at a single sitting is
more efficient than remembering which provider restricts access to your
records at what times and having to collate documents at different times in
the year to compensate, IMHO.

Even better though is to just use revert to paper billing to avoid all this BS
which I consider even more efficient (for me) than having to log on to
services to print out receipts.. or the technique _blibble_ mentions below to
request the provider sends you every piece of personal data they have for a
single fee ;-)

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sarreph
My university charged me £10 to have copies of my exam scripts from summer,
and it transpires that there is a maximum of £10* that an organisation can
charge to a party who wishes to access archived information. Seems like most
of them like abusing this upper limit.

*according to some sort of data-protection legislation, somewhere

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cpncrunch
TalkTalk are a really crappy company - terrible customer support, crappy
broadband routers, and they have a habit of signing you up for things you
didn't ask for and bullying you into paying. (This is based on experiences my
family and friends have had with them). Avoid at all costs.

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tnuc
Can someone tell me why these companies can't just email pdf's of the bill?
Why do I have to fuck about with their shitty systems once a month to get a
record?

~~~
michaelt
The reason phone companies will tell you: E-mail isn't secure enough, and they
strive to be responsible guardians of your personal data.

The reason phone companies won't tell you: They prefer you to ignore your
bill, so you don't think about what you're spending, dispute any mistakes, or
scale back your usage if you're going over your bundled minutes.

~~~
mnw21cam
My pgp public key is a matter of public record. "Email isn't secure" isn't
really an excuse in this day and age.

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pkorac
Similarly Ryanair wants £70 for a re-print of your ticket

