county court claim - parking at coop

hassony77

I've emailed the Acknowledgment of service to the county court email yesterday, and received the auto reply from them to confirm receipt

so I have until the 11th of June to send my defense

Coupon-mad

Defence not 'defense' (sorry to be pedantic but it needs to be well worded and spelt - maybe your PC changed it to US spelling?!). In the NEWBIES FAQs thread you will find post #5 of it is all about defences and what to do when, examples of cases won including CEL v McCafferty (appeal) which is binding.

hassony77

The co-op have emailed me back asking of I tried to contact the parking company

Should I day the truth that I hadn't or should I say that I mailed them a letter explaining I was shopping at the coop at the time ?

Stroma

Don't lie to them, just say you were shopping on that day, and leave it at that, it's not relevant whether you contacted the company, and it's basically nothing to do with them. Just reiterate that it's their land, and they are responsible for the actions of their agents.

Coupon-mad

hassony77 wrote: »

The co-op have emailed me back asking of I tried to contact the parking company

Should I day the truth that I hadn't or should I say that I mailed them a letter explaining I was shopping at the coop at the time ?

Oh for the love of God you are not exchanging pleasantries, this is a court claim against you, horrendous harassment of a shopper, how dare they judge how you handled the fake PCN (junk mail to most people for years) that you should NEVER have been harassed with in the first place?

Tell the Co-op 'yes' you tried to find out how to deal with the fake PCN and you moaned to Co-op staff in store about it (who offered no solution), so you considered it a scam as outed on Watchdog for years. You saw the scam as junk mail as many people have done for years and you have done NOTHING WRONG.

Say that you are aware they are in dispute with CEL and that they are paying these off for customers.

If they are not consistent in your case, you will hold the Co-op liable if you have to defend the matter in court since this entire operation was misleading and unfair and you were a genuine shopper at the Co-op. The Co-op should have been far more careful when contracting with agents who would have a detrimental impact on customers. And they are liable for the actions of their agent as they are a customer facing service-provider.

Entering into a contract which allowed a mere site agent to actually allow them to sue Co-op customers routinely, is categorically not on, whether a customer contacted the scumbag firm or not. It smacks of Somerfield and Parking Eye, and poor old Somerfield ended up being sued by Parking Eye when they dropped the firm after PE had sent misleading threats out. In the court case ParkingEye were found to be 'guilty of the tort of deceit':

https://www.facebook.com/AldiUK/posts/534253409945459 And we believe that B&Q got so fed up they allegedly paid off their PPCs to get lost & ended contracts.

Obviously your PPC is CEL but they use similar threatograms, similar ANPR methods - and their Notice to Keeper letters are not even compliant with the POFA 2012, so they cannot even hold a registered keeper liable. And they lost a case on appeal in Feb this year which is a binding decision on any other county court claims they throw at people.

Go on the offensive. NO MORE 'PLEASE AND THANKYOU' - this is harassment and a court claim for £215!! Tell the Co-op you are minded to email Watchdog and the press and your MP.

hassony77

Thanks Coupon-mad

it seems the strong approach worked :-)

just received this email from the coop

Good Afternoon Mr Sexy

A cheque has been requested in order to pay this charge directly to the car parking company for you. This should take around 7 days to fully process and will ensure that this case is finalised for you.

I shall let you know once the cheque is received back in the office.

Thank you for your patience in this matter.

thanks for all your help

Coupon-mad

You need to email or send a copy of that to CEL immediately and you need to send the court forms back with a holding defence if you have not already done so. To the effect that the principal (the Co-op) is settling the claim despite the fact that there was no genuine pre-estimate of loss and CEL have no standing in the car park. But that if CEL proceed with the claim, you will then provide a full defence when the Claimant provide further particulars. In event event it is denied that you owe any money at all to the Claimant and if it proceeds it will be defended in full.

If you've already sent a defence, fine. But if not DO NOT DELAY AS YOU'VE HAD THE COURT PAPERS WEEKS. People lose by default if a claim goes undefended.

hassony77

I sent the defence back on monday, before the 28 days deadline

Do I need to do anything now?

Coupon-mad

Nope. Good one! Just chase up the Co-op if nothing seems to happen in good time.