A week ago, TalkTalk was hacked.
The company claims that hackers don’t have enough information from the hack alone to steal money from their customers. It’s unable to confirm how many of the 4 million customers were affected.
Having failed as a business to protect their customers’ confidential information (one for the Data Commissioner, surely) they have compounded this by treating their customers very badly. For example, they refuse to waive cancellation fees unless the customer has actually lost money. Their CEO is unrepentant.
Thinking about this the other day, it occurred to me that TalkTalk must have breached their own Terms & Conditions when they didn’t look after the data properly and that customers would be able to challenge them on this, and therefore terminate contracts without penalty. Turns out that is indeed the case, as This is Money explain in this helpful article.
Companies need to take data protection seriously. TalkTalk doesn’t Walk the Walk.
Customers should talk with their feet.