Car salesman nicked for stealing customers' data

Gone are the times when all you had to worry about when buying or leasing a car was whether it was an “Arthur Daley”-style former write-off; these days it seems unscrupulous sales people are just as interested in stealing and selling your personal data.

The latest case to emerge follows an Information Commissioner’s Office investigation into former Leaseline Vehicle Management sales consultant Alexander Doré, 44, who, shortly before he resigned, sold over 3,600 pieces of personal information he had taken from the company’s internal customer database.

He then approached multiple competitor companies in Hertfordshire with the information, while claiming that the data belonged to him.
The breach was discovered in November 2022.

Dore has pleaded guilty to unlawfully obtaining and selling data, a breach of section 170 of the Data Protection Act 2018. He appeared at St Albans Crown Court on September 17 where he was ordered to pay a fine of £1,200 and £300 costs.

ICO head of investigations Andy Curry said: “Customers put their trust in any number of organisations on a daily basis to use and store their data in a legal and appropriate way. Mr Doré took advantage of that trust, as well as the trust of his employers, by taking customer information that he then passed on to other companies, purely for his own financial gain.