AIBU to think a national retailer is hiding behind GDPR?

[Flooring24]

AIBU to think a retailer is hiding behind GDPR?
I’ve been in dispute with a flooring company since March. The wooden floor was installed in January and started staining permanently within weeks from normal family use. An independent inspection took place and I’m now in a formal complaint process.
I’ve been emailing their customer service email and dealing with a named customer service advisor. The emails I have received so far have been from Penny (name changed), with her job title and phone number in her email signature.

Penny says my complaint is being reviewed by Senior Management and several departments.

I’ve asked for the name and position of who is actually responsible for reviewing my complaint.
Penny has now told me they cannot disclose this due to “data protection legislation”.

This seems odd to me given they’ve happily been corresponding with me through named employees throughout the process. Penny and two other named customer service advisors have been corresponding with me over the past few months.

The company is a national retailer with flooring stores across the country. 100’s of their employees are on LinkedIn with names and job titles etc.

AIBU to think GDPR doesn’t stop a company telling a customer which person, role or department is responsible for deciding their complaint?

how can I be sure that my complaint ia being dealt with. I’m being robbed off by the customer service team with delay after delay and no solution. It’s been going on for months and I’ve never got further than direct contact from the first line of customer services.

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.

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

Should say FOBBED off at the end
although I do feel Robbed 😭

good idea. I might reply with which section of the GDPR are you relying on Penny?

and then a SAR. I doubt they’ll even respond to that

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.

Yes this!

They are talking nonsense.

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.

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

That and a trust pilot review. Honest and factual.

I want to understand who is accountable for determining my complaint. Even just a job title at this stage. I don’t think it’s acceptable for them to be invisible. I want it escalated, and I’d like to know who it is escalated to!

They haven’t stated it’s company policy. They’ve stated it’s due to GDPR.

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.

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.

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

lol I wont be harassing anybody

i have already submitted a formal complaint.

i Need to escalate my complaint to a senior person as I am not getting anywhere with the generic customer service advisor

I’ve been waiting months for a proper response. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make progress?

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

I think most people know about those websites but I'd be surprised if the actual CEO of a large organisation is opening emails from randomers

It's might be a quicker route to getting a complaint sorted but I'd hope the CEO is concentrating on running the business rather than customer service

But I'm sure they enjoy a mansplaining email 😀

In my experience emailing the CEO results in your email being filtered down to customer relations who filter it back down to me, the manager handling your complaint 😂

One time, DD1 was in hospital. My grown up DS came to watch over her, while I went home for a shower. When I got back, DD1 told me, there’d been a drugs round, but they hadn’t given her, the vital drugs for her life threatening condition, but they had given her the multi vitamin supplement. She had learning disabilities, so she couldn’t put it in those terms, but when she talked about the big brown tablet, I knew what she meant. Had she not mentioned it to me, I wouldn't have known anything about it. She was right, because when I tackled the nurses about it, they brought the drug trolley at lightning speed to give her the rest.

Coming off the drugs suddenly could have killed her in the night. DH complained to the CEO of the hospital the next day. Imo, that’s a serious concern, which is more than a case of mansplaining. We shouldn't have had to explain anything to the hospital. What do they think drugs charts are for?

Or in this case, having a stained floor.

Just so your DH knows, emailing all the management means a much slower response than operations. I’m efficient, but once the higher ups are looped in, everything is a comms/PR nightmare. If there was a corporate manslaughter issue, our higher ups would already be aware.

I really hate people like your DH, invariably insufferable.

@TY78910 answered it brilliantly 👏

Just to add that asking for a DSAR won’t give you any names as they’ll all be redacted. I used to compile these for a large retailer and it was our policy to remove any identifying information for any of the employees. We could trace them if needed for a complaint but they would never be given to a customer. It will just be a waste of time and slow down your complaint as it’s usually the same team dealing with both!

GDPR is just awful and companies really do hide behind it. I had to phone one company up because they kept writing to the previous occupier of my home and despite me writing ‘not known at this address’ the letters kept coming. I rang in the end to let them know they had moved and when I asked (out of curiosity) what they did, they said they couldn’t tell me because of GDPR. I said I wasn’t asking about that person specifically but just if I was ringing about myself, want could they do for me…nope, GDPR 🤦‍♀️ The woman clearly had no idea what she was talking about.