Weightmans has found itself in another data scandal over misuse of Credit Checks.
A couple of weeks I wrote that Weightmans employees (Damian Carter and Jessica Kraja) had accessed client Case Files, to pursue their attempted defence of contempt proceedings.
Not long after that I was contacted by the owner of a website called “Weightmans Steal Credit Files“.
In this case the owner of the website had become an adversary of Weightmans on ‘the other side’ in litigation – and it became apparent that Weightmans had been running credit checks on the Defendants. So much is explained by Weightmans’ Head of Compliance James Holman in a letter dated 16 July 2012:
It appears that the credit checks that were ran were “hard” as they had left a footprint on the credit file; hard checks are legally only allowed to be carried out when a person consents and for ‘proper purposes’ such as credit cards, mortgages, bank loans, etc.
Having lots of hard credit checks can cause your credit rating to be downgraded. They are also rather exposing – for example they show loan balances, mortgage balances, credit card balances, and so forth. Not the sort of personal financial information you want your opposing solicitors to be handling, or even worse handing back to their clients……or even worse accessing from a Case File 6 years later and downloading to their personal devices!
Quite how Weightmans were able to persuade the credit reference agencies to perform these hard searches is anyones guess; as you need a proper reason and the consent of the credit holder.
James Holman may sound a familiar name…… he of course is the Head of Compliance at Weightmans who refused to investigate the misconduct of Damian Carter and Jessica Kraja back in 2021; a matter now with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Carter and Kraja could well face prison if found guilty of contempt of court.
Holman has had some involvement in the more recent customer file data breach……which involves him sending snarky correspondence and achieving nothing more than that…….meanwhile the company’s customers are still waiting for their SAR’s to be returned!
The bottom line is that there are some brilliant firms of solicitors out there – and a firm is ultimately made of people, so it would unfair to taint Weightmans as a “terrible firm”. However I’ve written about Damian Carter‘s conduct, and James Holman seems to be a totally ineffective Head of Compliance (or at least accepting of questionable practices) – and these are Partners at Weightmans. It’s a Partner’s job to set the culture of a law firm, and set out what is and isn’t accepted practice.
Seemingly what is considered acceptable practice at Weightmans is always ethical or legal behavior……
Weightmans in another data scandal over misuse of Credit Checks.
One thought on “Weightmans in another data scandal over misuse of Credit Checks”