Please help, CCJ claim form issued.

Gillan.99

Hi ,
I have done a lot of looking around on the forums to try and find information on a situation I am in with BW legal and now County court business centre after receiving a claim form a couple of days ago.
I my car was parked in Newcastle city centre last year (29/08/2015) a ticket was issued . The ticket was PCN from VCS (Vehicle control services limited) . After some research online I was advised to ignore all letters which I have done from receiving the first letter up until now.
All in all I think I have received about 5 threatening letters, after a couple of letters from VCS it was then handed over and started receiving letter from BW Legal which I have also ignored and then a couple of days ago I received a claims form from the county court business centre.
The letter states that I now have a total of £235.78 to pay and if I do contact them by 23rd August 2016 then a CCJ may be entered against me .
Really unsure what do from here , can anybody give me some advice on what to do from here, do I have to reply to this letter or should I continue to ignore like I have done previously? Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Stephen.

Quentin

You did not see advice here to ignore.

You now do need to act!

Assuming that this is a genuine claim from court you should first acknowledge the claim to get yourself an extra 14 days to prepare a defence.

Read up about this in the newbies FAQ thread near the top of the forum where you will also find links to more resources for help and advice on court.

You can put your draft defence up here for comments

Edit your op to remove all mention of who was driving!

Gillan.99

Thanks Quentin,
So i should have paid this in the beginning then is that correct?
All advice i was given the past was that unless it was a ticket from the council ignore all letters.
There is so many posts online about vps and bw legal just scamming money out of people with these tickets?
Thanks again .

The_Deep

There is plenty of stuff on here and ppp about this firm and their imaginative claims. They are in fact operating at the very edge of legality. No reputable firm of solicitors would operate in this sector, and the whole industry is awash with scammers.

Read this and his other blogs on Gladstones

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/bw-legalgo-legal.htmli

Quentin

Gillan.99 wrote: »

So i should have paid this in the beginning then is that correct?
All advice i was given the past was that unless it was a ticket from the council ignore all letters.....

Not correct!


(Also not correct that you should have ignored it - that isn't any advice given here!)


But you still have the opportunity to defend the court claim.

Gillan.99

Thanks again for the reply,
On what terms should my defense state? Do you think there is a chance i could still get out of paying the fine ? Sorry this is all totally new to me!

Redx

it usually is, which is why you should read other recent 2016 court case threads , like this one

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5505546

same advice to you as I gave in post #2 in that one only this week

and this one too

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5478608

read , research , acknowledge , defend

peter_the_piper

[QUOTE=Hi ,
I have done a lot of looking around on the forums to try and find information on a situation I am in with BW legal and now County court business centre after receiving a claim form a couple of days ago.
I my car was parked in Newcastle city centre last year (29/08/2015) a ticket was issued . The ticket was PCN from VCS (Vehicle control services limited) . After some research online I was advised to ignore all letters which I have done from receiving the first letter up until now.
All in all I think I have received about 5 threatening letters, after a couple of letters from VCS it was then handed over and started receiving letter from BW Legal which I have also ignored and then a couple of days ago I received a claims form from the county court business centre.
The letter states that I now have a total of £235.78 to pay and if I do contact them by 23rd August 2016 then a CCJ may be entered against me .
Really unsure what do from here , can anybody give me some advice on what to do from here, do I have to reply to this letter or should I continue to ignore like I have done previously? Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
.[/QUOTE]
Its not a CCJ form, its a county court claim form. The only connection it has with a CCJ is if you lose the court claim and do not pay what the court orders. NO parking/debt company can issue a CCJ, they are exaggerating/lieing to get you to pay up without going to court where they stand a good chance of losing both the case and money.

Quentin

@op


You need to be anonymous here as the PPCs do monitor this forum and your posts here can be used against you.


If you have inadvertently used your real name as your board name you do need to get this changed straight away by contacting MSE.

Quentin

@OP


Following your change of your board name you need to pm peter the piper (#8) and ask him to edit your old name out of the quoted post contained in #8

Coupon-mad

Gillan.99 wrote: »

Thanks again for the reply,
On what terms should my defense state? Do you think there is a chance i could still get out of paying the fine ? Sorry this is all totally new to me!

It is always new to everyone here with a court claim (people don't collect them, it's always new) but they all manage to read other defences and bung in one that does the job, basically. This is not a fine and not a summons - it will not be a formal/criminal scary court scenario - so stop panicking. It is a company chancing their arm at a charge. You CAN defend it and win at a hearing or get them to discontinue if your defence shows them you are assisted by a forum and know your stuff.

So, read other threads. I hope by now you have acknowledged the claim online and got yourself another 14 days (28 days altogether from the court forms being served) to work on a defence. There are LOADS here, practically templates you could copy.

As it's VCS, also check the car park signs, get photos this week. Show us the wording because sometimes there are Excel signs up even though VCS (a different firm) issued the PCN...that's a good thing for you if so! Even if they are VCS signs, show us the 'contract' words and also look to get some proof of how some areas are badly signed or the words are so small and high they are illegible. All of that will form part of your photo evidence later and we need to see it to make sure you cover the basics in this initial defence bullet point stage, because you cannot add new defence points later on without paying court fees. So get it all in there now after some reading during your 28 days.

No-one is telling you to pay this and it would be stupid to do so now.

Be aware NOT to reply to any private message offering to 'help' which normally might come from a newbie with less than 1000 posts on the forum. You never know who that is, parking firm or someone with an agenda. So stick to the open forum and do name and shame any poster who pm's you about this matter.

Tell us you've acknowledged it in the name shown as the defendant (is that you?). A third party can't do it. Then show us your photos of signs and your draft defence, having read lots of other BW Legal defence threads. There are several, mostly about Excel, not VCS, but the defence would be based on similar defence arguments you will see in your search results. Basically, as keeper you cannot be held liable...and the signs are normally at fault too, and VCS don't own the car park so you can argue 'no standing to form contracts or sue in their own name, etc., etc.

You CAN do this. Do not pay to make it go away, there is no point at all, no risk of a CCJ as long as you do not ignore any court deadlines.

Even a lost hearing would cost a fair bit less than £235.78 because these firms inflate the claim but would not normally be able to get that much, in court, not when well defended. And we do defend well on here. We will help so get reading/searching and taking some signage photos if you are local enough (don't get another PCN!).

Tell us more - is it an alleged overstay in retail park (free) or an alleged shortfall in pay & display money paid, or what?