Raw Deal: Damart made sure Isobel had a warm and woolly Christmas

THIS is a nice story, with a happy ending, and it is quite “warming” at Christmas.

There is, however, a subtext that we should all be aware of.

It started with a fairly common problem. Mrs Isobel Adlard, of Bonar Bridge in Sutherland, ordered an item from Damart, the warming, woolly specialists.

Isobel placed the order on September 29, but had no acknowledgement. She phoned, only to be told the order was never received.

That was strange, thought Isobel, because the cheque she’d included with her order was cashed on October 4.

Clearly, something was wrong.

When nothing had happened for three further weeks, Isobel sent a copy of her bank statement, by recorded delivery. It showed the cheque had indeed been cashed.

She phoned again on November 4, to be told the surprising news that they hadn’t received the recorded delivery letter either.

But when Isobel checked with the Post Office, their records showed the letter was delivered, and signed for, at 7am on November 5.

She was perplexed by this, so wrote to Raw Deal.

We got in touch with Damart via email and pointed out that it looked very much like they must have received the order, and also the recorded delivery letter. Could they have a look at this please? Perhaps double-check what had gone on.

They replied that they would check their records. And, after some further debate (see below) they eventually fulfilled Isobel’s order – and gave her a bunch of flowers by way of an apology for all the trouble.

Raw Deal commends Damart for their actions.

And all’s well that ends well…mostly.

Got a consumer problem? The Sunday Post’s Raw Deal team can help

During Raw Deal’s exchange of views with Damart’s public relations firm, at one point we were told that: “Due to data protection we would not be able to discuss this issue any further with you”.

Now that got Raw Deal’s dander up a bit.

The Data Protection Act is designed to protect members of the public. Its overriding aim is to limit what large organisations do with information they hold, how long they hold it, what they do with it and who they can pass it on to. It exists to protect people.

Raw Deal wasn’t asking for Isobel’s date of birth, social security number or bank account details. We wanted to sort out what was clearly a mistake with a mail order item.

We felt that we had been empowered to speak on Isobel’s behalf, because she had written to us for help. The last sentence on her letter was: “I’d be grateful if you could sort this out for me”.

So we told the PR firm we weren’t pleased with the response and pointed out that, undoubtedly, Isobel had intended us to speak on her behalf. We promised, if necessary, we could trouble her again to ask for a written waiver to her data rights.

We did, however, then get a response. It read: “We’re sorry to hear Mrs Adlard didn’t receive our usual high standard of customer service and had to write to you.

“We have now called Mrs Adlard and explained the item she ordered is not available in her size but have offered an alternative which she is happy with.”

We at Raw Deal were very pleased that Isobel was to get her order, or an acceptable alternative.

But there was no mention of why the original order was lost, why Isobel was told her order didn’t exist or what happened to the registered letter she sent.

The Data Protection Act is a good piece of legislation. It should not, however, be used as a wall that PR firms can hide behind when they don’t want to explain mistakes.