Is your information safe with car dealerships?

Over the last 8 months I have been fortunate(!) enough to visit three car dealerships, each representing a different marque of vehicle. None have handled my information correctly so chances are they are not handling yours correctly either.

I visited dealership A in April 2014, dealership B in June 2014 and Dealership C in October 2014. Here's the run down of errors made by the dealerships

Dealership A was not registered with the ICO when I visited. They subsequently became registered in June 2014. 

Dealerships A and B have notified me that the MOT is due on the respective vehicle. Both dealerships got the date wrong. Dealership A is out by 6 months and Dealership B is out by 3 months. Given the MOT information can be obtained from the DVLA website they should be keeping that information up to date as required by the DPA. Of more interest is where they got the MOT information from as neither dealership asked me and I have been MOT'ing my car at a local garage rather than the dealership so neither had any MOT records for my vehicle.

Dealership A has been using my email address for publicity purposes without actually seeking my permission to do so.

Dealership B made marketing calls to me without asking my specific permission for this to take place.

Dealership C has been sending me marketing texts again without seeking my permission to include me on their mailing list and the format of the texts does not meet the requirements of the DPA.

Dealership C managed to lose my bank account details, they know not where. Really unimpressed.

My thoughts are that none of the dealerships I have dealt with have a clue how to comply with the requirements of the DPA in even the most basic way. None of the dealerships sought my information in a way that they could use is on an on-going basis, yet chose to do so anyway. As for contacting me about the MOT, that is just sloppy record keeping on their part.

I have contacted all the dealerships, so far only one has replied and their response was that they were fully accredited by the UK distributor of the car make and their processes regularly reviewed as part of the accreditation process. Surely this makes matters worse, that a car manufacturer is justifying the poor information security practices of its dealerships. I would be interested to know if I am alone in this experience so would love to know what your observations are.