Why am I unable to obtain the evidence the financial ombudsman used to reject my complaint?

The request was refused by Financial Ombudsman Service Limited.

Dear Ms Smith,

I would like to ask you to carry out a review regarding my FOI 891 request. You gave a hint that the information to prove the fifth decimal place 1 PIP value exists. You refused to deal with my FoIA request by wrongly stating that the information is my own personal data because it identifies me. We are talking about the base unit (1 PIP) of the foreign exchange market, and that who uses the term in what way. The ombudsman falsified the term and failed to disclose his evidence in the documents - because it does not exist. By answering my question you will not get anywhere close to my personal data or my complaint. It would be a third party information, if it existed. It would be widely available public information, if it existed. In what way would the base unit of the forex market be related to my person? It is not personal data, it does not identify me and I am obviously not the subject of that data. Meanwhile, the Independent Assessor and the senior manager’s team confessed that the data does not exist. The ombudsman made a fraudulent decision. I wonder what information you want to sell for £10.
On the other hand, in the Financial Ombudsman Service’s Director’s Report and Financial Statements 2010-2011, the previous Independent Assessor, Linda M Costelloe Baker, stated (page 64.):
”In a small number of cases I found that the Ombudsman Service had caused avoidable loss. In mid 2010, when complainants asked for copies of documents held on the Ombudsman Service’s case file, they were often told they needed to make a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act and pay the standard £10 fee. Under the Ombudsman Service’s policy of natural justice and transparency, complainants are entitled to copies of evidence that the Ombudsman would rely on in order to reach a decision and I recommended that the £10 fee should be refunded.”
The evidence, which said to be proving the fifth decimal place 1 PIP value, is all I want. It is outrageous that it was not disclosed in the ombudsman’s decision. If you have any information regarding the non-existing fifth decimal place 1 PIP value theory, as you suggested you have, please provide me with that information. Case file request or FoIA request, I do not mind. Using the FoIA was my last chance to get the information I should have been provided with long time ago.

My original request (FOI 891):
The ombudsman rejected my £5,000 complaint, alluding to mysterious information […] but did not disclose what that information was. I asked them under the FOIA to provide me with that evidence which shows that the 1 pip value can be the fifth decimal place of the quote, and someone uses the term that way, as the ombudsman said so. They gave me the following link:
http://www.saxobank.com/support/financia....
"Pip stands for percentage in point, the smallest increment by which a Forex cross price changes. Most currency pairs are quoted to four decimal places, meaning that a movement from 1.1850 to 1.1851 for a currency pair would constitute one pip. For a particular position, you can calculate the value of a single pip using the above formula. For instance, you know that the EUR/USD is quoted with four decimals, so for a given position you can multiply the position amount by the value of one pip, or USD 0.0001. So, on a EUR/USD 100,000 contract, one pip would equal USD 10. On a USD/JPY 100,000 contract, one pip is equal to JPY 1000 because USD/JPY is quoted with only two decimals (meaning one pip = JPY 0.01)."
This is from a general glossary and the description proves my point that the 1 pip value relates to the fourth decimal place of the quote. It obviously could not be used to reject my complaint. I find it morbid that they sent me information which proves my point, to justify the rejection of the complaint. It is either a mistake or a very bad joke. They obviously provided me with false information in response to a FOIA request. I would like to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Please provide me with the information (evidence), which convinced the ombudsman that the fifth decimal place of the foreign exchange quote is the 1 pip value.

Response from the Information Rights Officer:
I have carefully considered your request and unfortunately I am unable to provide you with the information that you have requested.[...]The information you have requested is in relation to your complaint file. This information constitutes your own personal data because it identifies and relates to you. The Data Protection Act 1998 defines ‘personal data’ as: “data which relate to a living individual who can be identified - (a) from those data, or (b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller, and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual”. This type of information is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by virtue of section 40(1), which states: “Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.” This exemption exists because there is already a statutory regime under which
individuals can obtain copies of their own personal data – namely by making a subject access request under the Data Protection Act 1998. Accordingly, we will not be providing the information you have requested under the Freedom of Information Act, but we will be handling your request as a subject access request – please see the below. If you would like to proceed with a subject access under the Data Protection Act, please provide me with £10.00 in payment of the processing fee. [...] Once we have received your payment, it can take up 40 calendar days for a request to be processed. I hope that my response addresses your request; however, if you do not consider that we have fully complied with the Freedom of Information Act, there is further information overleaf...
Yours sincerely Louise Smith Information Rights Officer

Yours faithfully,
Attila

Information Rights Officer, Financial Ombudsman Service Limited

Dear Mr Toszegi

I acknowledge receipt of your email. As you are unhappy with the response to your original request, we will internally review the request and provide you with a response to this review by 27 June 2014.

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Officer| Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza | 183 Marsh Wall | London | E14 9SR
Email: [email address]

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Attila left an annotation ()

An analogy: What the ombudsman ruled was like saying 1 yard is equal to 30 feet, and not 3. Of course, that is nonsense and there is no evidence to prove that. That is why the evidence was not disclosed. In the meantime, after I filed this FoIA request, the senior manager’s team and the Independent Assessor confessed that the information does not exist, and the Independent Assessor told me that she discussed the issue with the Information Rights Officer. So the Information Rights Officer knows that this data does not exist, yet she wrongly qualified it as personal data and asked me to pay £10 for it. Neither the value of 1 yard nor the value of the foreign exchange market’s '1 PIP' are my personal data. There is no way to identify me by talking about the terms. The Information Rights Officer was not helpful to say the least. Actually, it is fairly hostile approach.

Information Rights Officer, Financial Ombudsman Service Limited

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Toszegi

We have now completed our internal review of your request. Please see our response attached.

Yours sincerely

Information Rights Officer| Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza | 183 Marsh Wall | London | E14 9SR
Email: [email address]

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Dear Information Rights Officer,

Thank you for your email. You said: “The only information this service holds IN RELATION TO YOUR REQUEST can be found within your complaint file. Having looked through this information I am satisfied you have been provided with this information previously. […] This is because all the information IN RELATION TO YOUR REQUEST has been sent to you, in the form of an email[…]. We do not hold any further information IN RELATION TO YOUR REQUEST.”

Deceptive wording. The problem is the ‘IN RELATION TO YOUR REQUEST’. I might have received all the data you have, but I have never received any data IN RELATION TO MY REQUEST, and you know that. I have not been provided with any evidence that could be used to support the ombudsman’s decision. It was not fair from you to suggest otherwise. My request was the data proving the ombudsman’s nonsense fifth decimal place 1 PIP value theory that he used to reject my complaint. There is nothing in the mentioned emails or within the complaint files about that.

It is funny how you do your best to avoid the confession that the data does not exist, while all the other participants (senior manager's team, independent assessor) confirmed that the data does not exist. First Ms Smith wanted me to make a Subject Access Request and paying £10 for the info, now you say I already have the info so you will not provide me with that. The data does not exist, that is why I am unable to obtain it.

I consider my FOI request refused because you (or anyone else) were unable to provide me with any evidence which could be used to reject my complaint, however I cannot see any point to escalate the issue.

Yours sincerely,
Attila