Hi,
Wonder if someone can give me a heads up on what I think is a major breach of the DPA act.
I have been a customer with Virgin, through it's many guises for over 14 years (ComCast to NTL to Virgin) and have held an internet connection and email addresses with them all this time.
They have recently began moving the email accounts from a dedicated server to Google Mail accounts. I did not experience any disruption at the time or realise anything was wrong.
3 weeks ago, I had an issue with a service, so I logged onto the Virgin Web Page (My Virgin Media - formerly Customer Zone) to see if I could work out what the problem was, I noticed at this point that the account details being shown were not for my account, but for another customer.
I was able to view their details on screen, as well as view telephone calls they had made and any outstanding amounts on their account.
I contacted Virgin and informed them of this problem and they at first did not believe me, then after 5+ hours of arguing with various call centre staff in the Indian sub-continent, I was notified that the email and account had been transfered to this other customer and that I no longer owned these accounts.
At this point the passwords were changed and I was cut off from my email accounts, which I had held for the 14 years of being a subscriber, as I was not the owner of the accounts.
I also receive my billing via Virgin's e-bill service, which is also tagged to one of the missing accounts.
So at present, another customer has access to my e-bill, my email addresses and I can log into his Virgin Web Page and view his account details and calls made.
I have spent hours on the phone to their 'Un-helpful' desk and I am no further forward. Nobody seems to want to admit that this could happen, how it could happen and how 14 year email accounts can be transfered to another customer, opening up my personal details and correspondance for perusal, along with me being able to view this other customers details.
I am currently waiting for Virgin to accept there is an issue and transfer the accounts back to me, along with explaining how this problem occured in the first place.
I believe that they had a duty of care to protect my personal information and that of other customers and by making this mistake, they are in fact in breach of their duties under the Data Protection Act, by allowing my personal information to be made available to someone else and also me to view someone elses account.
Any comments are welcome, as I want to raise this issue as I am not happy about the way in which it has been dealt with so far, the lack of responce, not admitting there is an issue and the general attitude of the help desk in not wanting to deal with the problem.
I told them they had been watching too much "IT Crowd" on Channel 4 and need to understand that customers pay the wages they earn and they should be sorting out issues, not ignoring them.
Wonder if someone can give me a heads up on what I think is a major breach of the DPA act.
I have been a customer with Virgin, through it's many guises for over 14 years (ComCast to NTL to Virgin) and have held an internet connection and email addresses with them all this time.
They have recently began moving the email accounts from a dedicated server to Google Mail accounts. I did not experience any disruption at the time or realise anything was wrong.
3 weeks ago, I had an issue with a service, so I logged onto the Virgin Web Page (My Virgin Media - formerly Customer Zone) to see if I could work out what the problem was, I noticed at this point that the account details being shown were not for my account, but for another customer.
I was able to view their details on screen, as well as view telephone calls they had made and any outstanding amounts on their account.
I contacted Virgin and informed them of this problem and they at first did not believe me, then after 5+ hours of arguing with various call centre staff in the Indian sub-continent, I was notified that the email and account had been transfered to this other customer and that I no longer owned these accounts.
At this point the passwords were changed and I was cut off from my email accounts, which I had held for the 14 years of being a subscriber, as I was not the owner of the accounts.
I also receive my billing via Virgin's e-bill service, which is also tagged to one of the missing accounts.
So at present, another customer has access to my e-bill, my email addresses and I can log into his Virgin Web Page and view his account details and calls made.
I have spent hours on the phone to their 'Un-helpful' desk and I am no further forward. Nobody seems to want to admit that this could happen, how it could happen and how 14 year email accounts can be transfered to another customer, opening up my personal details and correspondance for perusal, along with me being able to view this other customers details.
I am currently waiting for Virgin to accept there is an issue and transfer the accounts back to me, along with explaining how this problem occured in the first place.
I believe that they had a duty of care to protect my personal information and that of other customers and by making this mistake, they are in fact in breach of their duties under the Data Protection Act, by allowing my personal information to be made available to someone else and also me to view someone elses account.
Any comments are welcome, as I want to raise this issue as I am not happy about the way in which it has been dealt with so far, the lack of responce, not admitting there is an issue and the general attitude of the help desk in not wanting to deal with the problem.
I told them they had been watching too much "IT Crowd" on Channel 4 and need to understand that customers pay the wages they earn and they should be sorting out issues, not ignoring them.