BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

[holdon]

In September 2013 BT negligently deleted 9 years work that had been stored on emails in my mebmail, I was taking advantage of the 'unlimited facility' offered by BT and had been doing so for the entire period. I am/was a 'domestic' customer.
I complained to BT on the day the emails were deleted, as I used the emails daily this was done without delay. During the process BT requested a 'screen sharing' procedure which I agreed to so that I could show BT that 600 emails had gone from my 'in box' whilst my 'sent box' remained intact. During this process BT decided to put 'Outlook Express'(OE) on my computer without my permission, this program is not compatible with my operating system although I could see the missing emails had been listed on the 'in box', the screen sharing session was ended. I tried to open the emails from OE and found that they had been corrupted with attachments not being 'downloaded' and the text on the various emails was distorted, also the emails 'melted' once read. I duly reported this problem to BT and additionally complained that there was no 'contact list', BT again requested 'screen sharing' and again I agreed requesting that BT refrain from opening any further programs on my computer, this they ignored and opened two further programs and said I could now send the emails back to myself, one at a time, when I enquired how long they expected this would take they said "not our problem" and the screen sharing was again ended, all of which was complained of at the time by way of emails to BT at every stage of the way, the OE disappeared after 10 days as it was a 'temporary program' which BT had failed to advise. Subsequent events took me through the BT complaints procedure which proved to be not fit for purpose as BT failed to comply with their own published rules. The emails had been deleted at the same time that BT changed their process from Yahoo to BT, this was subsequently confirmed in the BT 'call log'.
As no satisfaction was obtained from BT I submitted my complaint to the OSC and duly sent a copy of the 'deadlock letter' that BT had supplied. The decision reached by the OSC was based purely on 'false assertion' and I duly pointed this out to the OSC on the two occasions they had issued their final decision. Having got to this stage I had again suffered a variety of 'failed call backs' dishonoured agreements and other maladministration all of which I tried to address direct with the OSC, by now I was fed up with the 'misdirection' false assertions and maladministration so duly referred the complaint to the Independent Assessor(IA) who found in my favour although the IA was unable to make comment on the final decision or the methodology he could and did comment on the maladministration.
My complaint was brought to the attention of Ofcom once I realised that the OSC had the same 'flawed' procedures as BT and Ofcom expressed disinterest, my complaint has now been referred to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. There is another interesting point, BT had supplied the OSC with their 'call log' which contained some 135 entries some of which I later found out were 'fabricated', I obtained a copy of this 'call log' from the OSC after they had finished dealing and duly spoke to BT to report the obvious 'misdirection' the false entries would have caused, also informing the OSC. I subsequently spent £10 and obtained my own copy of the 'call log' and the 'false entries' complained of had been deleted on my copy.
I would be most interested to hear from anybody else who might have had similar experiences, it is becoming clear that the OSC are not fit for purpose and are certainly not capable of understanding any complaint that involves 'negligence' or 'maladministration' as their own is far worse than that complained of. During the entire process I have been lied to and misled by both BT and the OSC and whilst there is no appeal to the OSC decision I am obliged to suffer a 'miscarriage of justice' without apparent redress, other than litigation. Any helpful suggestions will be welcome.

[ostell]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

The "unlimited" would appear to be not unlimited. Investigating for someone else's problem BT told me that the limit was 1 TB of space on the mail server. Large but certainly not unlimited.

I am sorry but if that data was important then you should have been taking steps to backup those critical messages to your own space. Outlook Express is not a temporary program, it was distributed with Windows up till Vista. Other programs are available to replace it. The combination of BT and Yahoo was a fiasco but there was security breach which forced the split.

BT support, in line with most other support lines, is not the best when it comes to non standard queries and problems.

Was there any particular reason that you were using webmail rather than an email program on your computer? If no reason then I would suggest that you start using an email program on your computer and download your emails rather than leaving them on BT's server. You need to set up the program to receive mail using POP3 protocol and delete them from the mail server when received. You will then be in a position to save your mail to backup (on another device!).

As an email program I would suggest Thunderbird, downloaded from this page and selecting English (British). When setting it up select POP3 for receiving rather than IMAPI. The setting will allow you to locate the location of the email folders (which you can set to your own location) and you can then back these up as required.

[wales01man]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

With respect can I ask the OP what outcome would they expect from this hard to quantify compensation for something which as ostell says should have been backed up

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

The email contained 'evidence' and I am always reluctant to 'interfere' with the originator.

BT opened/put Outlook Express(OE) on my computer and it disappeared after 10 days, this was the second act of negligence which resulted in my email being deleted, at no time during the complaint did BT suggest that emails were the subject of 'limited storage' in fact they put a warranty on their website at the time of change over from Yahoo to BT that no emails would be lost, again no caution regarding the potential limit on storage facility.

As far as I was concerned I had checked that I had adequate 'storage arrangements' for my email and this became a custom and use issue. As BT failed to alert me at the time of registering this complaint, when the deleted emails were still in the control of BT (they put the missing email into OE) I believe that BT were in breach of their duty, no explanation was/has ever been offered as to why the emails were not simply returned to my webmail account which I understand is 'industry practice'. I believe that putting programs on my computer without permission is breach of trust and deleting Data I believe put BT in breach of the Data Protection Act, this seems to be confirmed on the information Commissioners website when they qualify 'what is a breach'.

I fully appreciate that is difficult to quantify my loss but so far BT have offered £100.00, at the time this complaint was being registered it took 40 minutes on average to get through to either BT or Yahoo in order to clarify the complaint and I needed to explain what had occurred every time I spoke to BT/Yahoo, not being able to speak to the same person twice. The call log listed 135 entries and confirmed '"The eu lost some emails during the change over" my estimate on 'time spent' just registering this complaint was a minimum of 80 hours telephone time plus email confirmation, please also consider that I was promised 27 call backs that were dishonoured. Do you believe this to be a 'reasonable offer'?.

I am grateful for the input to this 'post'.

[nemesis45]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

80 hours of " telephone time" ? 3 days + 8 hours seems somewhat excessive imo, and would have to be justified.
It's not any unreasonable offer, but that depends upon your expectations.

nem

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Time spent was largely due to BT failing to call back as promised, the emails were sufficiently important to warrant calls as was confirmed at the time by email to BT. The BT complaints procedure, as published, was not complied with, BT and 'interfered' with the call log when they were told of false entries.
imo, it is not me that needs to justify actions but BT, I attempted to comply with what was required of me but sadly BT customer service is non-existent, this is confirmed in any 'forum' entry that I have seen and is well know by those who purport to be independent and capable of running the ADR scheme, this is most clearly not the case as the OSC lied in order to 'protect' BT which denies their independence.

My expectations were/are truth and honesty which should = justice.


Thanks for your post

[Berniethebolt]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Hi
Can I show my ignorance and ask who or what OSC are?

As for using POP for email that may be all well and good but a) Ifd you have more than 1 computer it tends to muck things up, if you leave a copy on the server it gets really confusing and if you hard drive gets corrupted you are equally screwed.

I have always backed up important emails by folder and although they are not always easy to identify at least they are there

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Ombudsman Service - Communications

[ostell]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Hi
Can I show my ignorance and ask who or what OSC are?

As for using POP for email that may be all well and good but a) Ifd you have more than 1 computer it tends to muck things up, if you leave a copy on the server it gets really confusing and if you hard drive gets corrupted you are equally screwed.

I have always backed up important emails by folder and although they are not always easy to identify at least they are there

If you use multiple computers for email and POP3 then make one computer the master and let that one delete from the server. In that way all emails received will be on one machine.

If the OP found that Outlook Express had disappeared then did he do something like a system restore? That would have made it "disappear".

Instead of the OP going on about "lost" emails he should take it on himself to ensure that anything important is backed up.

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Outlook Express(OE) was a temporary program, I did nothing to further put email in jeopardy. BT were administrators for OE as they had installed the program, not me, I was not informed that OE was a temporary program but did see the missing emails had, on the face of it, been installed into OE, they were however 'corrupted', text was missing on some and attachments were missing on some, the 'contact list' had been deleted by BT at the time the emails had been deleted.

I have always understood that if the server accidentally deletes emails then they can replace them into the webmail, as long as they are told within 10 days, BT were told on the day they were deleted as the emails were used daily. For reasons best know to themselves BT chose to open programs on my computer without permission rather than return the emails from where they had been deleted thereby putting the emails in further jeopardy and compounding their 'negligence'. Believe me I tried to protect my emails once I realised what had occurred, including having an IT specialist assist. One BT had put the emails into OE they became un-saveable or re-moveable.

I understand that it is reasonable to expect BT to be the experts here, not me, I also believe that BT breached the Data Protection Act by exposing my Data to loss in the way that they did. I should also add that BT have never explained why the deleted emails were not simply returned to my webmail which I understand to be 'industry practice'.

Thanks for you post and interest.

[ostell]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

I think you misunderstand several things. Outlook Express is not a temporary program, it was supplied with windows for many years. There is no reason for you to think BT were the administrators of the program. What version of Windows are you using? Why it disappeared I don't know, could be something you did. System Restore perhaps? By you or your IT specialist. I've often been called to assist after these so called "Specialists".

The messages are not "installed" into OE, they are downloaded from the mail server and saved to folders within your computer. If you have "lost" OE you have made changes to your computer and also lost access to the messages. They will still probably be there but not readily accessible by someone that doesn't quite understand computers.

With the use of OE the messages were no longer on the server (they are on your computer) and thus were no longer available for viewing via web mail.

The address book would not have been downloaded to OE, it's not part of the function. It should still be on the web mail page, though it my be possible to download it and insert into an email program.

The Data Protection Act has nothing to do with keeping data safe from loss:- it is concerned about protecting data from access by other people.

The use of the mail server as a repository for data is not what it is intended for. If you want to safeguard your data external to your computer you pay for access to Cloud Storage or similar, even store it to a device external to your computer.

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

I am grateful for your continued interest ostell, I can only tell you what happened and how it happened.

I understand what you have said regarding OE which is what I expected to be the case, when I opened my webmail the deleted emails were still missing although they appeared in the 'program' that BT put on my computer, I cannot understand why it was not also in my webmail, neither can my IT chap. The second 'screen share' with BT was, as far as I was concerned, for demonstration purposes so I could show BT what had happened and what was being displayed in webmail compared to the OE program, also to show BT that there was no 'contact list'. At the time of the second screen share BT/Yahoo opened two further programs on my computer and said "you can now send the emails back to yourself, one at a time", concerned at the time it would take I remonstrated with BT who said "it's not our problem", before I could do anything the program expired/melted along with my recovered emails.

I can assure you that neither my IT chap nor myself did anything to interfere with the email being shown on OE, the emails were vital and we were both aware that to disturb what BT had done might have a catastrophic effect which we avoided, this leads me to believe that although the program showed itself as OE it might not have been, I can assure you that it disappeared without prompting and this was complained of to BT.

I both contacted the Information Commissioners office and referred to their website and found the following definition,
15 "a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise protected in connection with the provision of a public electronic communication service".
16 " In short there will be a personal data breach whenever any personal data is accidentally lost, corrupted or disclosed, or if someone accesses it or passes it on without proper authorisation. There is no threshold for how serious the breach must be - all breaches must be notified".

The last thing I would attempt at such a time would be a system restore, it was the BT system that was at fault by way of the original negligent act that removed my email from my webmail, I trust this explains my position, neither my IT chap nor myself took any action that would/could compromise recovery of the deleted emails.

BT also issued two versions of the 'call log', the original supplied to the OSC and the second supplied to me direct. The first version contained false entries and I rang BT to inform them of my concern, I then sent BT the £10.00 fee and obtained my own copy which showed that BT had removed/deleted the false entries, I am concerned at this action which shows that BT have a total disregard to accuracy/honesty and transparency.

Regards

holdon

[ostell]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

As I said there is a misunderstanding how these things work. The reason the emails that appeared in OE are not in webmail now is that they were removed from the mail server (and hence webmail) when OE downloaded them. Operating as designed. The mail server is not designed as a permanent storage space and, as I said, there are finite limits to the space available. This is OK as long as housekeeping is performed on the mail to keep the total size down. If your IT chap can't understand that then I'd get another IT chap. When you exceed the space allocated to you then the results are unpredictable. It may have been set up so that the oldest emails are deleted to make space for any new ones to be received, or more normally any new emails will be be rejected. The sender may or may not be notified. Delivery of email IS NOT guaranteed.

OE has been included in Windows since about Windows 95 so it's not anything new. You still haven't said which version of windows you are running. BT probably installed it from the installation code they found on your computer. It's disappearance is not normal and therefore I would suspect that a System Restore has been done on your computer, perhaps by your IT friend. System Restore will remove any recently installed software, and usually leaves data intact, which is hope for the email that was downloaded. You could try removing the System restore. I presume you are Windows XP so Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore. See if you have an option to undo a previous Restore.

Get you IT friend to look for the OE folders and files. You can do a search for inbox.dbx, though you will have to search hidden files and folders. You may be able to recover them.

When OE was run it went to the server and attempted to download emails that it hadn't read before, which was all that was there at the time. It sometimes does this this in small batches so not all the emails are downloaded in one go. It then marks them as being read and so doesn't attempt to download them again.

There was security issues with Bt/Yahoo mail. Lots of things were lost and compromised, including passwords. You quoted 15 & 16 from the from the ICO web page. The relevant wording is "a Breach of Security". This is what happened, BT know about it, the ICO know that BT know about it and BT did something about it by changing peoples password to prevent unauthorized access. Bit like shutting the stable door etc. Who would you complain to if you picked up a virus that destroyed the data on your computer? Whose fault is it? The virus writer or you for not backing up your critical data. I would be worth a fortune if I had £10 for every person that gives that blank look when I ask them for their backups when I need to restore their computer because of virus action.

You are using the mail server in an out of spec manner. Because of this I believe any attempt to hold BT liable for the missing emails is bound to fail. Your actions are a bit like asking Royal Mail to look after your letters so that you can use them as a filing cabinet.

My Monday afternoon job is to sort out a company with email problems. Missing emails to be precise. They are also BT. A lot of their emails are 25 MB in size (another BT limit) so they are rapidly filling up their web space as they have multiple accounts. They are using imapi instead of pop3 so the emails are staying on the server. Tidying up and deleting has helped the situation.

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

Thanks, my system is Windows 7, OE is not compatible as I understand it. OE was removed from sale in about 2002, as I understand it.
The problem I have seems to be centred around the fact that at the time BT had full control of the deleted email I specifically asked them to put them back into my webmail, although there were a lot of them I had kept my email up to date and there were no email that I did not use and had done so for about 9 years. I saw the emails in my 'in box' on what I will refer to as the temporary program, I explained this to BT during both the first and second 'screen sharing', after being read the emails 'melted' this also was explained to BT, neither my IT man nor I had seen or heard of this before, also explained to BT. The transfer of email seemed to make matters worse, the emails had been corrupted during the transfer, I had viewed many of the emails the night before and as always checked everything prior to shutting down and all of the email was still in my 'in box', sent items were always in tact.
When BT changed to BT from Yahoo they gave an assurance that no email would be lost as a result of the changes, this proved not to be the case. At no time during my many and various discussions with BT did they mention that they considered my email use to be 'excessive', I explained to BT that the emails contained various items of evidence that I have always been nervous about moving, as you rightly caution 'corruption' happens but I took every precaution I was aware of to prevent 'accidental deletion'. Again, I sat next to my IT man and watched what he was doing, he 'searched' and did not 'system restore' neither did I.

Many thanks

[holdon]

Re: BT and Ombudsman Serevice-Communications(OSC)

I just recalled a fact that might be important, the 'temporary program' only had the deleted email in it, nothing else. All other email was left intact.