Riled into posting again...

Despite having a lot of issues recently which have interested me - Wendy's conversion to the idea of a referendum and missed opportunity to cause some real problems for the SNP, the despicable behaviour of Rangers fans in Manchester and the idiocy of letting people drink all day in confined spaces, the election of Mayor BoJo, Celtic's stunning last minute victory and yesterday's Crewe and Nantwich by-election - I've just not been inspired to post. Presumably just a bit of blogger fatigue. That's all changed though with one phone call.

It's that time of year again - car insurance renewal time and when the notice came through from Diamond it seemed like a decent deal so decided to phone and give the ok to renew. One thing I did want to ensure though was that my credit card details weren't being kept on file. I don't want any company to have the right to take money from my bank or credit card without my explicit permission and when you give companies your details you can't control when they go in and take money. We've learned this the hard way in the past when it has been a struggle to get our money back.

I was a bit taken aback to find that Diamond refused to remove my credit card details from their records. Apparently this was in case there were any amendments to the policy which required payment. When I pointed out that if there were any further payments needed I would decide at the time how best to pay it it didn't seem to matter. Now that Diamond had my credit card details they were holding on to them.

I cancelled my policy and found another - slightly more expensive - quote.

This isn't just Diamond's policy. We've dealt with several companies who insist on this and I really object to it. I wouldn't post my credit card details here, nor would I email them to anyone, so why should I give a company unlimited rights to keep my financial information? Its not as if companies have been entirely successful at protecting customers' privacy and even if they had it's still my right (and duty) to protect my own financial details. Just because something like this is a company's policy and their own method of protecting their incomes doesn't mean that we as customers have to put up with this nonsense.

Its yet another example of corporations controlling the public through their control of databases. We should make sure we know our rights and stand up to these information gathering bullies.