Court summons...for £170?

Airedale_Pete

Thank you for the advice Magpie Cottage but I don't believe for one moment that this would have any effect on their future conduct any more than complaining to hot food takeaways would have any effect on the junk mail that arrives daily.

What annoys me is that they will be sending similar tripe to impressionable people, some of whom may find it distressing and some of whom may feel compelled to pay money to get rid of them. It's another form of 'phishing' exercise except that they are not trying to trick anyone into disclosing their bank account details; they are simply trying to extort money for a debt that doesn't exist.

I could follow your advice and send letters of complaint far and wide but a couple of months down the line, along would come another letter... and another. It's big business these days - if anyone responds.

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat

Airedale_Pete wrote: »

The 'summons' which arrived this morning carries no date of hearing. In order to constitute a summons, it HAS to include a hearing date AND be served either personally, by registered post or by recorded delivery. This unconvincing document arrived by snail mail. It is a rather poor quality print-out of a copy of a summons generated by Northampton County Court and it has NO legal foundation whatsoever. I will ignore it along with all the other threats.

What they don't know is that I am a retired police officer. I am well used to appearing in court and I know what a summons should look like.

I am not sure this is true. In County Court proceedings, the hearing date is typically set once the respsonse has been received, and unless they've changed the law since I last worked on this, the hearing date is only relevant if it's disputed.

Northampton is a bulk outfit - see:
County Court Bulk Centre (CCBC)

Under the name of Northampton County Court, the CCBC deals with 9 out of 10 CPC cases. Defences are received each day both through the post and online. Where a claim is defended it is then transferred to the appropriate local county court. Judgment requests and requests to issue warrants of execution are also received electronically.

I would encourage everyone who received a summons to reply, else a judgment will be issued by default.

And I'm sure that being a former police officer this will stand you in good stead for being confident, however I would encourage you in this instance to research this area well

rizla_king

Airedale_Pete wrote: »

The 'summons' which arrived this morning carries no date of hearing. In order to constitute a summons, it HAS to include a hearing date AND be served either personally, by registered post or by recorded delivery. This unconvincing document arrived by snail mail. It is a rather poor quality print-out of a copy of a summons generated by Northampton County Court and it has NO legal foundation whatsoever. I will ignore it along with all the other threats.

You will end up with a CCJ then.

Police officer or not, you are obviously ignorant of civil procedures which do not require claim forms to have a hearing date as none will be set unless one is required at a later stage. Claim forms under civil procedure are perfectly legally sent by normal post and do not have to be served personally.

IainHL

For the OP in this thread scbnottz, I would suggest rather than going back to the solicitors to ask for another copy of the form that you should contact the CCBC in Northampton. Get them to confirm that a claim has been issued against you, and see what they can do about sending you another copy of the paperwork.

The fact of the matter is that if a genuine claim has been made then the CCBC will send it to you directly, and it is to them you respond (either by post or online). The solicitors acting for the claimant will be named on the form, however you do not need to correspond with them unless you want to for some reason (such as telling them the reasons why you believe there is no valid claim, and inviting them to discontinue!).

Tiddlywinks

To the OP: You need to get a grip of your finances and deal with matters as they arise. You say this debt is for an item you didn't receive. Why didn't you dispute that at the time? Do you have any evidence to support this assertion now?

Stop ignoring correspondence and deal with this - or your debt issues will be hanging over you for a very long time.

To Airedale Pete - there are very real differences between civil and criminal processes. Your previous occupation should have educated you to realise that you never ignore court correspondence. Plus, if you believe the correspondence to be false then why haven't you reported that fact to the court and to police - faking court documents in order to make financial gain (in this case, debt collection) is actually fraud... so, surely, as a responsible member of society you should be actively addressing this.