I emailed the club in question and found out the right person to talk to. Please find below the email I sent to the manager of the club (this was after initial emails asking whether my complaint would be emailable):

Ian,

Thanks for the confirmation.

My complaint is that of identity and the processes B***** Bar employ on their doors. On Saturday night I escorted my fiancée (who was out to celebrate her 21st birthday) to Bakers Bar and entered the queue, I waited and when I got to the head of the queue, I was then asked for my identification.

I am twenty three years of age and was a bit shocked to be asked for my identification but not wanting to cause a disturbance, I gave my UK drivers license to the doorman who asked for it in the first place. Expecting him to just check it and give it back to me, being satisfied about my age, he then continued to pass my identification through a card scanner.

This is the part I wish to complain about.

As the doorman swiped my card, I immediately asked him what this was for, I was told that it was so they had my details if I was to get into trouble. Not satisfied with this answer I said to the doorman that I didn’t wish for him to do so and to do so he would need my permission (which was irrelevant now he passed my card through the scanner). His reply was that of “Thousands of people pass through these doors and you are the only one with a problem about it”. At this moment, my fiancée, who was by now very disturbed by the fact she had her card scanned too, removed herself from the queue and asked me to accompany her to another nightclub.

I feel as if this is a breach of data protection and confidentiality. My details are now on your system even though I can quite honestly say I haven’t entered your club on that night. Under no circumstances whatsoever did I authorise this person to scan my card or even relinquish my details other than to have my age checked visually.

B***** Bar have no data policy from which I can assess what will happen with my details if I had authorised this, I have no guarantee that you will not use these details to fraudulently clone my identity or sell my details onto another third party.

I feel obligated to obtain legal advice regarding this matter, not only do I feel as if I have had my details taken without a need to (or with permission), my fiancée also missed out of going to the venue which she chose to celebrate her 21st birthday because of what seems to be a very dark area regarding identification. I also do not now feel I cannot return to this club and feel compelled to warn my friends and family about the measures you take in order to gain entry to the club.

Does B***** Bar have a data protection policy? If so, may I have a copy of this?

I appreciate any response you have to this matter.

Yours Faithfully,

Me

I am awaiting a reply from the guy, again, I will let you know what happens.

At the weekend, it was Katie’s birthday. We had a lovely day on the Saturday, people came over for a BBQ and we sat and drunk most of the afternoon. Around 10:30pm we headed for the town centre and the nightclubs. Whilst waiting in the queue, the bouncer walks upto me and asks for my I.D…….I mean I may look only a tad over 18, but hand it over to him anyway. Next thing he is scanning my driving license through a scanner and I’m like WTF?!

Here’s how it went:

Me: Excuse me, what you think your doing?
Bouncer: Scanning it just in case you get in trouble, then we have your details.
Me: I don’t want you having my details thank you very much, thats my information to give you, for a start you didnt even ask for my permission.
Bouncer: Thousands of people come through these doors every night and your the only one with a problem, I’m not going to explain to each and every person why I’m doing it.

I get dragged out of line and we don’t head into the club.

Having time to think about it and decide what to do, I will try and take action. People were handing over bank cards and other pieces of identification, who knows what they will do with it, they sure could clone my card and clone my identity, for some people clone their bank cards and spend their hard earned dinero’s.

I will be writing to them and requesting information and possible compensation.

Stay tuned.

Following on from this post, I picked up my car today. Upon walking into the mechanics, he started telling me what went wrong. He pulled out the actual disc that that housed the bearings, half of the cylinder shape had worn off, he then showed me the how the bolt would sit normally and what would have happened had I left it, the bolt would have fallen through the disc and could have caused some real damage.

He went on to tell me that I should seek recompense from Ford as the car is only two years old and also highlight the problems when we tried to get Ford to take a look at it as it was under warranty. They wanted us to get it to them, this was not possible as the wheel could not be put back on to move the car as the hub was virtually non-existent! I will be drawing up a letter and hope to claim back the £160 that I had to spend on the parts and labour.

So as you might have guessed, I am not too happy with running a car at the moment.

I had been told time and again by my disgruntled parents that having a car is like throwing money down a bottomless pit and until now I wasnt inclined to agree with them.

I bought my car with the view to save as much money as possible, the car itself is a diesel so it has good mileage to the gallon, it has low emissions so my car tax is only £55 when others are £105 and I only have to fill the car up once a month. This meant my car wasnt the biggest money burner.

The last couple of days the car had been making screeching noises as I turned to the right, I thought it could be a loose wheel at first. As the days passed, it progressed from just turning right into churning away metal on metal when I was driving normally. So today the car was booked in to see the mechanic, I get a call around lunchtime. Bad news.

Turns out the bearings had completely disintegrated and the wheel was probably one journey away from the wheel falling off and me crashing into a ditch. The mechanic had to order a whole new part and it looks to be another day until it comes, I get the feeling it could be stretching the bank balance as you cant just replace the bearings in the car, you need a whole new part which obviously will cost more.

Expect a car based rant tomorrow!

I had Sky TV installed today, what a f**king effort.

The arrangement was for us to recieve 4 x Sky+ boxes, one for each room and basically have it all setup and left for us to use. We had paid for the boxes, arranged the channels to be added to the package and awaited the installation.

The installation dudes turned up 11am and got straight to work, they drilled all the holes and got stuck straight into getting our TV system set up. Then came the bombshell. Turns out you need to have a phone socket in every room! We only have the one phone socket and that is downstairs, three of the boxes were meant to be housed upstairs!

Cue some phone calls to Sky and we manage to work out that we can add the one Sky box downstairs and one in my room, they have phone points. The installation dudes get back to work and start laying phone lines and cables so we can use it in the rooms. They have been at the house for nearly three hours by this point.

Another bombshell is dropped. We only have 3 Sky Digiboxes and one Sky+ box, not the 4 Sky+ boxes we were meant to have. OK, just shove it in and we will sort it out.

Two hours pass and they install it all finally. Next thing to piss us off is the fact that the packages we ordered arent all installed. Another phone call to Sky.

Sky offer £30 for the nuisance, my mother basically says “F**k that”. She is told that she can write to Sky and complain, oh she will do.

I can see us having the four boxes were orignally wanted, some compensation and I can see us getting it installed for free, thats the beauty of having a mum like mine

The box I have in my room:

The call me Mr Internet, Internet is my game. If there is something cool, I know about it. If there is something new, I have already used it. Never been hacked, never been conned, never been victim of credit card fraud with my online payments………until now.

I have recorded the message I got on my voicemail, you can listen to it here.

They said that because I hadnt used the card for 6 months it was probably a credit card generator, they knew I was genuine and that I was liable for the purchases, they will send me notifications on what they will do, I sign them and it should all blow away. The account is closed, I never used the card and didnt intend to, I should have closed it earlier.

Doh!