Letter Before Claim - Defense?

pub1900

Hi. My partner has a letter before claim. I couldn't see any like this, so am unsure what I should do as a defense. I have done a timeline below and am uncertain whether this should be the basis and what I should include? Everything at this point? Any help or more relevant links gratefully received. Thanks

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25-10-2017 xx:xx Partner (P), daughter aged 20, foster daughter aged 12 and friend of family aged 13 arrive @ station
Try to pay three times with a valid debit card. Think they have been charged but not received any ticket or receipt.

25-10-2017 9 mins later. P calls Britannia on 03455 555 888 from daughter's phone. Operator talks them through trying it for a fourth time but still no ticket. She says there must be a fault. Took P's details and said she had made a note of what had happened and that if P's bank statement showed more than one payment she should get in touch. Believed had paid and were entitled to park. Telephone bill shows that three minute call.

02-11-2017 Britannia issue parking charge

04-11-2017 P receives charge and uses their web site to contact them. Only way she can see to do so online is via the 'appeal' form. She explains situation and gives details of telephone number used and what had happened. Expectation was that they would check their records and cancel the charge.

06-12-2017 Britannia employee (according to their own logs) only checks whether there is a valid ticket and does not investigate any of the information given by P.

06-12-2017 Britannia allegedly issues a rejection of the appeal. This letter is clearly a template letter which does not address any of the points raised. This letter included our opportunity to appeal to POPLA but we do not believe that this letter was actually sent, so that we were denied our change to appeal. We did not receive this letter and replied promptly to all other communications.

14-03-2018 Britannia issues Final Reminder.

19-03-2018 P emails Britannia. Makes it clear that they have been notified of their error on two occasions and that they were clearly at fault and she had not received any proper reply from them. She said she felt harassed and intimidated and if they did not cease, she would be invoicing them at an hourly rate for dealing with their error. She said she wanted a resolution within 3 working days.

26-03-2018 P receives email which merely says that the appeal had been logged and reviewed and re-sent their previous reply with a demand for payment. Did not address the substance of the email on 19th March

04-04-2018 Letter issued by Debt Recover Plus (DRP). Refers to "our client". Charge is now stated as £160!

11-04-2018 P calls Britannia and goes over what happened on the day in question. Britannia say they have no record of a call on 25-10-2017 as they "failed to log" the call and "do not record calls". Say that we should have appealed to POPLA and that we cannot now appeal any more. Say that we didn't provide the call logs (which we didn't as we were told that they were logging and just to 'get in touch' if there was a problem). Britannia do agree to give until the close of the day to pay £60

11-04-2018 P calls Britannia and tells them she will not pay as it is not owed and it was their mistake and they should at the very least look into it. They refuse and say that the debt will stay with debt recovery.

11-04-2018 P emails Britannia pointing out their fault yet again and reiterating that she had four witnesses. Also that she believes they failed to send the letter which resulted in her losing her ability to appeal to POPLA. Request all information held under the Data Protection Act.


12-04-2018 Britannia reply with information held on P. Does not include log of original call. This information does include logs of the other calls despite what was claimed. Say PCN has been passed to DRP and they have no further comments.

16-04-2018 P has received the call logs. Emails them to Britannia stating again that Britannia are at fault. Clearly shows the call to them.

16-04-2018 P emails DRP. States that Britannia have been provided with full evidence and we expect the charge to be cancelled. Also that she does not believe that the debt has been purchased by DRP and therefore does not intend to enter into any further correspondence with DRP. Tells them not to contact her and Britannia should contact her directly

16-04-2018 DRP issue a 'Notice of intended court action'. As per her previous email, P does not respond.

28-06-2018 SCS Law issue Letter Before Claim. Charge is now shown as £100 again. Say they do not consider it suitable for ADR.

Quentin

Everyone is politely asked to read up on this in the Newbies FAQ thread near the top of the forum before starting a new thread

Court action is covered in detail in#2

Study that post which advises from what to do regarding response to the lbcca right through to the hearing

System

Seems that there is a solid defence of "impossibility" (won't make a comment about their woeful systems of not recording a call where there is evidence of a call being made)

See the newbies thread on how to respond and follow up with a Subject Access Request to Britannia, DRP and BW. The last one will be interesting as they would have to claim legal privilege to refuse and it appears it is their unregulated (non-legal) section that is sending out these letters.

If they want to pick a fight then give them one.

pub1900

Hi Quentin. Yes, I read those thank you. All the ones I could see did not seem at all similar to me. Did I miss a specific one? The replies I could see were about things like signage etc and specific points of law which as far as I can see do not apply in this case.

pub1900

Thanks IamEmanresu. I will look at that one. Thanks for the advice.

Umkomaas

so am unsure what I should do as a defense.

No need for any defence (Note - not defense, this isn't the USA!) at LBC stage.

25-10-2017 xx:xx Partner (P), daughter aged 20, foster daughter aged 12 and friend of family aged 13 arrive @ station

Was the car park one belonging to the railway? Are Britannia claiming this is a Penalty Charge under Railway Byelaws? Do you have photos of their signage? If not, you need to get some pronto.

28-06-2018 SCS Law issue Letter Before Claim. Charge is now shown as £100 again. Say they do not consider it suitable for ADR.

To whom does the letter tell you to pay? DRP?

'Britannia and court' not often seen in the same sentence! And over just a single PCN where it would cost them 3 times what they could recover?

http://www.parkingappeals.info/companydata/Britannia_Parking_Group.html

Quentin

pub1900 wrote: »

Hi Quentin. Yes, I read those thank you. All the ones I could see did not seem at all similar to me. Did I miss a specific one? The replies I could see were about things like signage etc and specific points of law which as far as I can see do not apply in this case.

Do you mean the responses to the lbcca??

That is step one!

(Are you sure this is a lbcca??)

pub1900

Umkomaas wrote: »

Was the car park one belonging to the railway? Are Britannia claiming this is a Penalty Charge under Railway Byelaws? Do you have photos of their signage? If not, you need to get some pronto.

It was a railway car park. I haven't seen anything mentioned about Railway Byelaws. Do I need to ask them specifically? We don't have signage photos. Do we need them? It was not as though we have raised any issues with signage. The PCN was not issued on-screen but from a camera. We are unlikely to be going near that station in the foreseeable future.

Umkomaas wrote: »

To whom does the letter tell you to pay? DRP?

The SCS Law letter says that they "act for Britannia Parking Group Ltd"

Umkomaas wrote: »

'Britannia and court' not often seen in the same sentence! And over just a single PCN where it would cost them 3 times what they could recover?

The whole thing seems crazy to me - they've screwed up but just won't listen or look at the facts as far as I can see. Waste of time and money. Do you think there is any point us invoicing them? They said they want to recover costs from us.

Thanks

Quentin

Search here for railway land byelaws and find out who the landowner is

Please answer whether or not a lbcca has been sent

Umkomaas

The SCS Law letter says that they "act for Britannia Parking Group Ltd"

We know that already.

The question I asked is this:

To whom does the letter tell you to pay? DRP?

Please answer it. We don't ask random Qs for the sake of it, they have important meaning for you in having our help to rid you of your problem!

We don't have signage photos. Do we need them? It was not as though we have raised any issues with signage.

But the signage is the contract you will have entered when using the car park, of which Britannia now say you've contravened the terms and could be opening a legal case against you.

If you can't be bothered getting an understanding of why you're being pursued, you're leaving yourself wide open and not in a good position to challenge/defend.

Do you think there is any point us invoicing them?

For what? Have they entered into a contract with you? You can't just invoice people without a reason. And if you're thinking of 'harassment', there's a very high bar you'd need to get over before you had any chance. A couple of letters from them/debt collectors won't do it.

pub1900

Quentin wrote: »

Search here for railway land byelaws and find out who the landowner is

Please answer whether or not a lbcca has been sent

I'm trying to find out who owns the land, although Network Rail say it could be 20 working days to get a response. I have a friend who works for them as engineer so I'll see if he can help.

"Please note that this letter is to be considered a letter before claim for the purpose of the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. Please read this Pre-Action Protocol and the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct which outlines the Court's powers to impose sanctions for failing to comply with its provisions". So I think it is, but I just spent most of my evening reading a thread (4754020) which is linked from the NEWBIES thread and it was then pointed out to be from 2013 so I'm back to square one with that.