dealing with HO from uk

When I send an email to the club or any other department in the USA I know get a message that due to data regulations they cannot answer and forward the query to the uk office. Has anybody else found this happening ?

Oh dear, that's not good.

I've never had that problem but haven't had any need to contact them for quite some time. I wonder, has this change happened since the tightened GDPR policies in the UK/EU in May?

Having given this more thought, it seems to me that SB can't 'hide' behind data protection to pass back to UK office here. After all, they DO hold our data.

Is there anyone here who is more familiar with DPA and GDPR who can explain this to me - are businesses able to 'cherry pick' in this way? Seems to me they're happy to hold our data for purposes that benefit them but are deflecting customer service issues claiming 'data protection'. How does this fit when a customer approaches a business for information or assistance?

Does anyone remember how robustly SB went about its responsibility regarding marketing and other communication in the UK/EU in readiness for GDPR?

By coincidence my partner has just had cause to email club. I'll update here with the response.

I am far from being an expert on this topic, but I have regularly communicated (from Dallas) with businesses in the UK by email with no issues at all.

This is what they said

"

We have copied in our UK office to assist you. For expedited service please contact them via phone at 0344 338 8615.

This is due to the current EU GDPR restrictions on data privacy and verification processes we must comply with.

We apologize for any inconvenience; please understand we must follow the new rules and regulations for guest data."

This is what they said

"

We have copied in our UK office to assist you. For expedited service please contact them via phone at 0344 338 8615.

 

This is due to the current EU GDPR restrictions on data privacy and verification processes we must comply with.

 

We apologize for any inconvenience; please understand we must follow the new rules and regulations for guest data."

Thought as much, but that's not much use is it?

Dealing with UK office for me at least has always meant woefully poor service and ridiculous delays and now it will be worse because we will have to wait for them to contact Seattle and then await a response passed back to us.

We also clearly need an email address for Club that will go direct to someone in the UK who is adequately trained!

I'm dealing with several overseas companies every day and they have all managed GDPR compliance, so why can't Seabourn, especially given that they are already holding our data.

Revert to snail mail for non urgent queries as it should not be affected by GDPR?

When I send an email to the club or any other department in the USA I know get a message that due to data regulations they cannot answer and forward the query to the uk office. Has anybody else found this happening ?

Yes. It’s infuriating. Happened to me before Route of the Vikings. Delay took over a week to resolve. Would only communicate through uk office quoting GDPR. I feel sure they are misinterpreting the rules. I’ve had some manager gdpr training but I’m no expert

 

I feel sure they are misinterpreting the rules. I’ve had some manager gdpr training but I’m no expert

Same and same.

Seabourn could just comply with (or exceed!) GDPR for all customers and then not worry about it. Just sayin'...

Reply from SB, we received the same response as posted earlier in the thread - told to call the UK office with our query.

So in this age of digital communications Seabourn is taking those of us in the UK back to the heady days of pre-internet. We have to make a call ! It feels like 1993 all over again.

Alternatively, perhaps we UKers could purchase a carrier pigeon to share between us when we need to get a message to Southampton? :)

This has happened to me also. I had to email the Club (they had missed off some of our points) and it seemed to go back and forth and had to be passed to UK because of GDPR although I will say, UK then responded quickly.

However, I imagined this won't happen every time because I have agreed the GDPR.

In one person’s view from across the pond, what did you expect? On the first day of the new regulation enforcement, Google and Facebook were cited for over 8 Billion USD in lawsuits under GDPR. Seabourn (and by extension, Carnival) are only protecting their assets. By referring these questions back to the EU offices, they can hopefully avoid GDPR lawsuits, which in the long run would only result in higher fares.