Blog: Dan E. Linstedt

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Who's DATA is it anyway? Or should I say, Information?

I am blogging on personal experience here, this just happened to me - and I really would like to know just who owns this data anyway? How did it get out of my control? And if it's data about me, what gives this company the right to with-hold it from me when I explicitly ask for it?

Ok - there's this processing company that processes payments for insurance (you probably have one of these too)...

This company not only processes payments, they also cash the check when they receive it. THEN they issue a new check back to the company that originally pays the insurance bill, and that company then has to actually pay the insurance company.

Is it just me, or does anyone see real inefficiencies in the business logic here? But that's beside the point. As the story goes, the processing company incorrectly billed me. So I called them, asked them for an itemized list of what I was being billed for - they said, here it is. I requested that they cancel one type of coverage, and hold the other two - that I would pay the bills from that point forward for the NEW coverage at a much reduced rate. They said: fine, we'll send you new payment coupons.

And so the story unfolds. To make a long story short, they never cancelled the coverage that I wanted removed. The payment coupons came and the bill was very high. I called them again, this time they told me: you should have been told to make this request in writing, we accept faxes. I sent them a fax. One month passed, and again they sent me a nasty-gram saying I was late, and that the amount owed was significantly higher than what I was told on the phone. They claimed they never received the fax, and that my coverage payments were now late. I was given 2 days to fedex a check to them for the full amount, which I did.

Ok - this goes on, and gets deeper. The long and short of it is: the company that owns the coverage sent a letter: do not accept any late payments from me. Except the processing company has another department that deals "with the company that owns the coverage" and they don't talk to each other.

Finally, I was left standing, with no coverage, two checks they had processed and refused to pay-back, stating they had sent the monies out already to the company that owns the coverage, therefore it was not their fault, nor their responsibility to fix this situation.

Ok - this is loaded with faux-pas, but the point of this blog is here: I asked this company for a fully itemized list / accounting of all my records they had on file, along with a fully itemized accounting of all annotations and dates they had in my file, and keep in their computer about me. They promptly stated: NO. We can't give you that information; we can only provide you with a list of the money transactions and dates.

Now I ask you this: The data they collected on me, about me, and for me - does it belong to ME? Or does it belong to the processing company? Howcome some of it belongs to them, yet their willing to release "parts" of it to me with regard to the financial transactions, but not release their annotated records of their phone call, fax, and email discussions with me?

Call me selfish (go-ahead, it's ok) But I believe this data is mine, and I should have every right to review ALL data that is collected ON ME, by any company around the world. We've got laws in place that allow us to see the credit reports, but there are no rights to PERSONAL information that companies collect, and store about each of us. No wonder there's a ton of "information caches" that are corrupted, misleading, and possibly open to identity theft.

What gives an employee of the company the right to see, collect, and review information about me that I can't? Especially if it involves direct exchanges with me and I helped create that information?

Maybe it's the same right they have to say: "this call may be recorded for monitoring purposes" and then not tell you that it is, or is not actually being recorded. Maybe I should tap my own phone and keep my own copious records, or build my own data warehouse on myself.

Then of course the question would rise: "who's right?" But that's another topic for another day. Bottom line, watch your back, watch what you say, record everything - remember nothing, always check your facts....

As I said, personal experience, has happened more than once - despite the business process appearing to be "busted", and lack of ownership and integrity by these companies, they keep our information LOCKED UP so we can't see it, hardly builds trust with the customer (me).

Would love your thoughts and comments,
Cheers for now,
Dan Linstedt

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