Caught turning on airport double red lines by camera van

yotmon

peadar wrote: »

So VCS sent a rejection via snail-mail. It seemed to be a mail-merged or templated response, and there were indications they hadn't actually read my challenge. They ignored most of the points of objection, saying that they would instead respond to them in court. I emailed a brief response to VCS (vehiclecontrol.co.uk) to say ok, let's do that soon.

A day later, a named individual (not the one who signed the letter) at sister company Excel Parking (excelparking.co.uk), who also has an email address with Automatic Number Plate Recognition International (anpr-international.com – the server had this as the return-path, both domains have the same IP), opened the email in Outlook 2007 and read it.

So it is being passed around.

Not quite sure if this is legal or not - although Excel is a sister company to VCS they are 2 separate companies, so this could be a breach of the data protection act. Did your e-mail contain personal details such as your name, address and vehicle details. Could be worth looking into, the more you're a pain in their side the more they will want you to go away.

peadar

yotmon wrote: »

Not quite sure if this is legal or not - although Excel is a sister company to VCS they are 2 separate companies, so this could be a breach of the data protection act. Did your e-mail contain personal details such as your name, address and vehicle details.

Yes, it contained those details. As they share that data with all sorts, including their agents (debt collectors and suchlike), presumably they have (somehow) acquired the right to do so with their sister companies. I could check with the DVLA (don't know on what basis they gave the data to VCS in any case), if nobody here knows for sure.

Looks like they're ignoring my request to bring their 'contract' and 'charge' to court and have started a sequence of letters threatening to..bring it to court. I had threatened to pursue them for harassment under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 if they did something as pointless as that (I don't think they have actually read anything I wrote!), as such communications are clearly unjustified in light of my request that we take it to court.

A Court found against British Gas a few years back, establishing potential liability for harassment even when material is automatically generated. I think it would hinge on a systemic intention to cause distress and anxiety, but I am not sure if I'll have the time to put the case together.

peadar

So after seven months of junk mail from a wide variety of outfits, I finally received about a week ago what looks like more of the same nonsense (with fresh demands for additional money), but has the heading "Letter of Claim".

I sent a full written response to the 'parking charge notice' in January, which VCS did not address. I consequently asked them back then to start county court proceedings, given that they said they would only answer my points in court.

There is a bunch of stuff that is supposed to be sent in response to a letter before claim, but do I really need to do this and repeat my response now, just because they've called it a 'Letter of Claim'?

Coupon-mad

Is it from VCS or from BW Legal?

Search the forum for all the other recent ones exactly the same and copy what they've used as a reply. Do not ignore a LBC.

If it's from BW Legal then you will find HUNDREDS of threads on here and on pepipoo which cover it all, we have run out of steam in repeating it all if this is BW Legal, seeing as a search finds everything already said umpteen times over.

Oh, and do not reply to any private message from a poster with less than 1000 posts to their name here. We deal with these issues openly on the forum and any pm could be from anyone at all (even the parking firm) and is not recommended to be replied to/read.

peadar

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Is it from VCS or from BW Legal?

The latter.

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Search the forum for all the other recent ones exactly the same and copy what they've used as a reply. Do not ignore a LBC.

I have - and some say to do precisely that, i.e. ignore it. e.g."The 'Letter of Claim" is simply another debt collection letter - since it is not a genuine LBCC - so there is no need to respond in any event'.

The letter is pretty much indistinguishable from all the other junk mail that I've ignored - 'please pay the balance by..to prevent legal action being taken...to avoid proceedings..pay...how to make a payment..pay...call us today' - with the exception that the words "Letter of Claim" at the top.

The one before that had "Final Notice". Before that a letter promising they'd seek instructions to commence legal proceedings in the form of a County Court Claim Form in the County Court within 16 days (this was well over 2 months ago).

Umkomaas

I'd err on the side of safety and work on providing a response. None of this stuff is precise science, and the Excel/VCS/BWL strategy has, as yet, not fully played out, so with the best will in the world we can't accurately predict how this will all end.

From dealing with many cases here in the wake of Beavis, those who ignore (quasi) legal threats seem the most vulnerable to receiving full-blown court papers. Make sure you're not one of those by responding robustly.

Punch a bully on the nose, and find out just how brave they really are - you've nothing to lose.

Coupon-mad

I think you've read slightly older threads if you think people are told not to reply to a BW legal letter. I can't recall that being advised all Summer. Always respond robustly and complain to the SRA and CSA as you will see in lots of threads (e.g. LoveNorfolk's thread for example).

peadar

The quote was from a 30 July pepipoo post. I've also seen responses that read as if they're submissions to court, but this form letter is identical to all the other 'threatening' letters, with 'Letter of claim' bunged on top of it.

I guess I could copy and paste my reasons for rejecting the claim, which I articulated in full at the beginning of the year. Or attach my original responses.

Now I've actually bothered reading some of the BW Legal form letters from the past few months, it's very clear that they have zero knowledge of my previous correspondence anyway.

Coupon-mad

As well as DEFINITELY responding, you really should be looking to report them to the CSA and SRA.

Easy to do online and ties them up for six weeks, almost certainly stopping any claim from being filed in that time and assisting in getting them into hot water. Loads of examples here but LoveNorfolk's thread has both a copy of a strong CSA complaint and a later post by pappa golf, showing a SRA complaint written by a legally-qualified contact.

yotmon

peadar wrote: »

Now I've actually bothered reading some of the BW Legal form letters from the past few months, it's very clear that they have zero knowledge of my previous correspondence anyway.

And that is exactly the case ! They have sent out hundreds of letters chasing old VCS/Excel debts. All copy and pasted, some slightly tweeked if sent as a reply. Your letter will be the same as hundreds sent out before. I also agree with you that the majority of these letters are just debt collector bluff, but BWLegal I believe have taken the matter further and issued court papers. Whether they have the nerve to attempt a JLA case in the courts is anybodies guess. We all wait in hope !