Data protection act
This is another Virgin Media story.

Some time ago a new neighbour moved in and decided to sign up to Virgin Media. She, however, was a bit dim and couldn't remember the number of the house she'd moved into. As a result, instead of telling them she lived at 38, where she lived, she told them she lived at number 30, my house and so I got her first bill.

Thinking something was up and fearing I would be lumbered with paying for her or that her services and mine would be muddled somehow, I called Virgin Media and explained the situation. They reassured me that there were two accounts and she would be paying hers and I would be paying mine and the address for the services was her house and not mine.

The address for her bills would have to remain as my house, however, because of the data protection act.

Yes, that's right. I was getting her bills, could open them and see who she was calling every month - hardly private - but I couldn't stop them sending me her bills. She had to do that.

Over the course of the next ten months, I rang every time her bill arrived. They told me they couldn't do anything or else they lied and said I needed to write to them. I took the bills to her house but she was never in. I wrote on the envelope to say she needed to call them but she never did.

Then one miraculous month, I got hold of someone with some common sense, a man who was able to look at the records, work out what was going on, realise that they were following the letter of the law but not the spirit and ... change the 0 to an 8.

That was all it took. Poor bloke was probably sacked for doing that but I hope he's gone on to better things.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Fri 24 Feb 2012, 11:23, 2 replies)

We had a twunt neighbor when we first moved in
It was a newly built flat and we were not getting our mail. Turns out that quite a lot of my mail got misdirected. 301 became 310, and Mr. 310 was rarely home. I left him a note as soon as the carrier notified us, as our doors are directly across the corridor from each other, and did he trundle over and tap at my door to drop off the mail? No, he returned the whole lot to the senders, and several weeks went by before I stopped getting the misdirected/returned/resent properly mail.

Years later and I still can barely stand the sight of him. When an agent was showing a potential buyer his place, I managed to fill them in on all the repairs they should check on, including a tendency for his empty flat to spring expensive leaks from all the dried seals (according to the neighbor directly below him). Glad to be shot of him and glad to help out what seems to be a nice new neighbor.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Sun 26 Feb 2012, 10:17, closed)

The thing about the Data Protection gambit
is you have to use it before they do. Point out that they're exposing their customers personal data to an unauthorised third party, and have now been notified that they're doing so. If they continue, you will be making a complaint directly to the ICO.
(bblgoose, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 12:59, closed)