AIBU to think a national retailer is hiding behind GDPR?

DH has a website, which gives him the email addresses for CEOs. When he has a complaint, he emails the CEO on the basis, they normally hide behind their bureaucracy and claim they don’t know what is going on. He makes sure, they do know and he tells them the direct consequences of what they are doing, or usually not doing - such as corporate manslaughter.

As of last week all businesses have to have a data protection complaints process OP so find out what that is and follow it.

I wish they had to have one for consumer law complaints as well!

You need to follow there complaints process rather than make your own up
all your doing is winding yourself up
ask them for the complaints process follow it and then as a last resort you have the ombudsman

even if you get there name it’s absolutely pointless they won’t deal with you

Businesses love to hide behind GDPR. Have you ever heard the story (not a myth by the way) of M&S refusing to tell someone who had sent her flowers because of the data protection law that predated the GDPR? Or British Gas saying they could not pass a vulnerable person's details to the authorities when they needed help.

The best one I had was when I had a few days' outage with my broadband and Virgin Media tried to say I had to phone and go through GDPR before they would credit my account with my compensation. I soon put them straight on that. You don't need to prove who you are to have a credit applied to your account. Idiots.

The problem is that they receive a bit of training but don't really know anything. Same goes for consumer law.

But having a name of the person handling this isn’t going to help you in any way. You can only do one of two things with that information - look them up, or contact them directly. Both reasons why the company won’t share those details.

If you are positive that you have a claim, then send a letter before action:

Essential Contents
Your letter should clearly and concisely outline:
The Parties: Your full name and address, along with the recipient's details.
Summary of Facts: What happened, in chronological order, including previous attempts to resolve the issue.
The Remedy: Exactly what you want them to do to fix the problem. If it is a debt, state the exact amount and how you calculated it.
Evidence: Enclose copies of key documents (e.g., contracts, invoices, or photos).
Deadlines: Provide a reasonable deadline for a response (usually 14 to 30 days).
Legal Warning: State that if they do not respond or settle, you will begin formal court proceedings.

Penny is likely to be generic customer service account name rather than persons actual name.

It won’t be one person. You’ve already been told it sits with a senior manager as well as other departments (likely legal for consumer law guidance and product to understand the likelihood of your issue happening). If your flooring is made by a manufacturer independent of the retailer (not own brand) they will be liaising with their team too. She told you who is reviewing your case.

YABU.

People in 2nd and 3rd line support are not customer facing so there is no need and indeed no requirement for you to have their details, they wont have agreed to have customer contact and it isnt in their SLA or OLA.

Your contact is via 1st line, they are designed and trained for customer contact. If you are not getting satisfaction then submit a formal complaint. Absolutely no chance they should be supplying the name and contact details of the person handling your case, because you'll contact them and harass them.

This is my go-to at this point in life.

That and a trust pilot review. Honest and factual.

Why do you need the name of the person reviewing your case? Companies don’t disclose this so that customers don’t start trying to contact them directly as they are not customer facing. I have also seen cases where customers use names to harass employees on platforms such as linked in to try and get updates, or pressing for answers outside of the appropriate channel. Whether GDPR is the correct reasoning or not is irrelevant really, it could be internal policy.

Yes this!

They are talking nonsense.

You could also ask Penny how she feels about her management team being happy to share her name and position but refusing to share their own.

Penny doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Ask her to specify the section of GDPR that covers her ideas. That’ll shut her up.

GDPR is such a get out for so many people

Play them at their own game. Submit a subject access request to get copies of all files, emails, notes etc on you and your complaint.