N1 County Court Claim Form

Chris_Justice

Quick question for the knowledgable members of the forum:

Is it legal to print out and send an N1CPC claim form directly to a 'defendant' without engaging in the official small claims process? On the claim form shows the 'amount owed', defendant details, claimant details and court address but has no date or claim number. They have essentially downloaded the online form, filled out a few boxes and sent it as a scare tactic.

Cheers

anewman

Only respond to actual stamped court papers. Any clue as to which scam outfit is doing this?

landmark

They deserve to be prosecuted!

If I received something like this kind of hoax, I would report it to the police as soon as possible.

sarahg1969

Is there a letter with it? If so, what does the letter say?

Chris_Justice

The letter contains all the usual garbage about how i haven't paid their fine and they are taking me to court if i don't resolve it soon etc etc.
They are persisting with refering to it as a 'Penalty Charge Notice' rather than a parking charge notice and as I understand it the use of the word penalty is a touch fraudlant. I'm going to scan all the correspondance i've recieved and upload it on here soon as its from a company (shoal) which doesn't have much coverage on here yet.

Is it actually legal to send out fake court summons?

Coupon-mad

Chris_Justice wrote: »

The letter contains all the usual garbage about how i haven't paid their fine and they are taking me to court if i don't resolve it soon etc etc.
They are persisting with refering to it as a 'Penalty Charge Notice' rather than a parking charge notice and as I understand it the use of the word penalty is a touch fraudlant. I'm going to scan all the correspondance i've recieved and upload it on here soon as its from a company (shoal) which doesn't have much coverage on here yet.

Is it actually legal to send out fake court summons?

It has been done before by other scammers like OPC - they even sent out fake MAGISTRATES court papers by all accounts. The fake papers were pointed out to a County Court judge when they lost another Small Claim (they went a bit mad with these recently) but he bought their story that it was a mistake...Nothing was done about it.

But I would say it falls within harassment which is a criminal offence:

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=03_harassment

Report them to any relevant authority who will listen.

taffy056

Isn't this just another reason why these people are beyond redemption ? Really issuing fake court papers is a disgusting breach and if its not illegal it should be!

Coblcris

This depends upon the contents of the letter.
If they say that 'this is what we intend to file' then they are in the clear.
If they represent it as an actual court claim then they breach the County Courts Act 1984 S.135.

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=County+Courts+Act+&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=739035&ActiveTextDocId=739224&filesize=943

AlexisV

If they say that 'this is what we intend to file' then they are in the clear.

Not necessarily in my opinion.

Intent is an issue. If you send out these forms to everyone and have never taken anyone to court and never intend to, I think you're looking towards fraud.

Hadeon

The link below is to a post I made on another thread recently which is relevant to the subject matter of this thread also.
Note that the small claims court judge in the case considers that the issuing of 'fake court papers' is a valid tactic by debt collectors.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/36931804#Comment_36931804

trisontana

Hadeon wrote: »

The link below is to a post I made on another thread recently which is relevant to the subject matter of this thread also.
Note that the small claims court judge in the case considers that the issuing of 'fake court papers' is a valid tactic by debt collectors.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/36931804#Comment_36931804

Shame on the judge!