Broadband company unfairly damaged my credit rating, can I take legal action?

[Samm1]

Hey everyone,

I need some legal advice regarding a frustrating situation with my broadband company. They've unfairly damaged my credit rating by wrongly charging my account and reporting missed payments, even though my account was actually in credit and they owed me money. This has had a negative impact on my credit score, leading to issues like loan rejections and being unable to switch my mortgage for a better rate.

I lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman, and fortunately, they ruled in my favor. The company has been told to pay me £300 as a goodwill gesture and apologize in writing. But honestly, that amount doesn't really address the impact this has had on me. I'm wondering if I have any grounds to take legal action against them.

If anyone here has any advice or has been through a similar situation, I would really appreciate your insights. Thanks in advance for your help!

[R0b]

Yes, you could but have you accepted the Ombudsman's decision? If you have accepted it, then the answer will be no.

[Samm1]

Yes, you could but have you accepted the Ombudsman's decision? If you have accepted it, then the answer will be no.

Thank you so much for your reply. No, I haven't accepted it, I have the option to either accept, challenge, or refuse the decision. Could you please advise me as to what's the best way to take this further?

[R0b]

The common claim against companies is a breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 by failing to ensure that the data is accurate and up to date. Compensation for these claims can vary as there is no specific formula for calculating compensation for data breaches as they are fact specific. Sums can range anywhere from a couple hundred pounds right through to tens of thousands for the most egregious breaches. The court will usually consider how the breach came about, when you became aware and what you did to inform the company there was in accurate data, the company's reaction to your notice, did they act deliberately, how long it took the company to act etc. As a guesstimate, I would say anywhere between £250-£2000 as an average amount of compensation I have seen being claimed.

You could also argue defamation but that is very expensive and can only be started in the High Court so I would recommend against this option unless you have deep pockets or you are willing to risk a 5 or 6 figure sum of costs order against you if you lose.

The compensation award may be increased where you have suffered other losses like a failure to obtain credit because of the adverse entries on your credit file or where your credit card comapany has reduced your credit limit following the entries but the onus is on you to show that those losses were a direct result of the adverse entries. You do not need concrete evidence of this but enough to show that but for the adverse entries, none of these events would have occurred.

Finally, just a word of caution, going the legal route is demanding and stressful and you have to meet deadlines sometimes very short ones so you need to be on top of it otherwise you risk losing your claim or worse, having your claim struck out. 90% of the work is preparation so don't think you can just swan around taking your time because there is no guarantee of a win - anything can happen on the day and the side that wins is the one who persuades the judge more.

You may want to consider accepting the Ombudsman's decision and taking the £300 compensation which means you do not have to go through the hassle of legal proceedings. Of course the company may ignore the decision anyway but if you did have to go to court, you have a binding decision and means you don't need to prove anything other than seek a court order for the debt and force the company to act.

[Samm1]

The common claim against companies is a breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 by failing to ensure that the data is accurate and up to date. Compensation for these claims can vary as there is no specific formula for calculating compensation for data breaches as they are fact specific. Sums can range anywhere from a couple hundred pounds right through to tens of thousands for the most egregious breaches. The court will usually consider how the breach came about, when you became aware and what you did to inform the company there was in accurate data, the company's reaction to your notice, did they act deliberately, how long it took the company to act etc. As a guesstimate, I would say anywhere between £250-£2000 as an average amount of compensation I have seen being claimed.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain this process to me. Where would I start? Would it be through small claims court or somewhere else?

Just to give you a bit more background information, the problem was that the broadband company had applied a £40 fee to my account for not returning their router, but I had actually returned it to them in time using the return label they had provided, and the tracking information shows that it was delivered to them, I actually had around £20 credit on my account so the whole time that they were reporting missed payments to the credit agencies, it was them who actually owed me money. That was just a brief summary, please let me know if it makes any difference to the viability of my case, or if you need more information.

[R0b]

Hi,

I think before you start your claim you need your evidence and you should make a subject access request to the broadband company for all information about your account including your account history, any notes on your account, correspondence etc. Once you have all of that you can then look at the evidence and formulate your claim by sending a letter before action.

Have you got any screenshots of your credit file as evidence or downloaded a copy of the report with the adverse entries?

[Samm1]

Hi,

I think before you start your claim you need your evidence and you should make a subject access request to the broadband company for all information about your account including your account history, any notes on your account, correspondence etc. Once you have all of that you can then look at the evidence and formulate your claim by sending a letter before action.

Have you got any screenshots of your credit file as evidence or downloaded a copy of the report with the adverse entries?

Yes, I have got lots of screenshots which were provided to the Ombudsman, I think they really helped my case and they were the main reason for the Ombudsman deciding in my favour because they clearly show that the error by the broadband company was the only negative aspect on my credit report, everything else on my credit report was perfect. My understanding is that they're not disputing this error, they were actually offering me £150 before the Ombudsman investigated the case, do you think that has any effect on my situation and the potential court case?

Should I go ahead and send them a letter before action? I was also wondering if this case would go through small claims court, or another entity?

[R0b]

Can I just check, have you already rejected the Ombudsman's decision or are you still within the time limits to go back and query the decision? I'm wondering if the next step might be to question the amount awarded by asking them to reconsider and provide evidence which we can refer to some case law also to support and explain why the £150 offer is a low ball offer considering the damage and issues caused to you, both financially, stress.and inconvenience.

If that's not possible then yes, the next step would be a letter before action, but you need to carefully craft it and in a particular format. I guess the key question to ask yourself is, do you think the £150 sum is reasonable based on the events that have occurred. If not, why do you think this and how much compensation would you be willing to accept?

[Samm1]

Can I just check, have you already rejected the Ombudsman's decision or are you still within the time limits to go back and query the decision? I'm wondering if the next step might be to question the amount awarded by asking them to reconsider and provide evidence which we can refer to some case law also to support and explain why the £150 offer is a low ball offer considering the damage and issues caused to you, both financially, stress.and inconvenience.

If that's not possible then yes, the next step would be a letter before action, but you need to carefully craft it and in a particular format. I guess the key question to ask yourself is, do you think the £150 sum is reasonable based on the events that have occurred. If not, why do you think this and how much compensation would you be willing to accept?

I've already rejected the Ombudsman's decision as there was a time limit. Due to the adverse entries, my loan application was denied and I missed a business opportunity because of that, I also wasn't able to switch mortgage providers to get better mortgage rates so I'm paying a higher interest rate as well, so the companies actions have had massive negative effects on my finances which in turn have caused emotional distress and inconvenience for me. Based on those few examples of how I've been affected I don't think the £150 offer was reasonable, however, I have no idea what figure I'd be likely to win in small claims court but I'd really like to teach this company a lesson so they won't mess up other people's lives, in your experience, what's the maximum people have been able to claim in cases similar to mine?

[R0b]

Hi,

I've attached two example documents. The first is the letter before action which you need to send first as part of the pre-action protocols. Note that you will need to amend this LBA because it is a little old and refers to Vodafone so you will need to update the contents to reflect your current situation. The second document is a template for the Particulars of Claim which is what you will need when you start the claims process. I'm attaching this now so you can familiarise yourself with the contents and start working on it whilst you are waiting for a reply on the LBA.

What I suggest you do is complete the LBA and fill in the gaps to suit your issue and then if you want to upload it on here for feedback I can see if there's anything missing and give you some pointers. Just make sure your personal information is redacted so replace anything identifiable with XXXX or something like that.

Once you are happy with your LBA, I would suggest you send it by email to the usual customer support email address and also to the data protection officer email address, which you would normally find in the privacy policy terms. The subject line of your email should be titled something along the lines of "Letter before action - breach of data protection" and you might find by doing it this way, you are likely to elicit a response at least from the data protection team who may pass it on to the relevant team or their legal team instead of hanging around waiting for a non-response from someone who doesn't have a clue from customer support.

Any questions, let me know.