BW Legal LOC

TKNVD

As per the advice in the newbies thread I am starting a thread. I recieved a Letter of Claim from BW legal regarding a parking charge notice recieved at a Pub in 2016. If I do not reply by the 1st of February the letter states I wil be taken to court without further contact.

I have raised this with the landlord of the Pub and they have agreed to send an email to have the ticket revoked. Just in case this is unsuccessful, I understand I still need to reply to the letter but am unsure of what I should write, I remember reading a guide on here but have been unable to find it in that newbies thread?

The form makes no mention of the Practice Direction but just contains an "information sheet" telling me to reply within 30 days using their attached "Reply Form". I do notice that the form has a tick box and section on "I need more documents and information.", is this equivalent to a SAR and can it be used in the same way?

I am feeling quite overwhelmed by this and it is not coming at a good time, I am loathe to pay these absolute scum but I just dont have the time or will to sit writing a million letters and formulating a defence to take to court.

Your help and advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

The_Deep

Half a million should be enough.

Please do not think of paying, they will only buy more rubber boats to bring Iranian accountants and dentists to our shores.

The whole industry is a scam, relying on threats of court, and public ignorance of the Law, A bill is currently before parliament which will regulate the scammers, many of whom are ex-clampers.

Hopefully that will take place in the near future. The Bill has passed through the HOC without hitch, and goes to the Lords soon. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially Smart}, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week), hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

beamerguy

Bit confused ..... the LBC letter giving you 30 days, if you must respond by the 1st Feb, you must have got this around the 3rd Jan

It is vital the pub cancels this and you get it in writing
Who is the parking company.

Assume the LBC provided proof of the claim and proof of the costs claimed. No doubt in typical BWLegal style, they have added a fake £60 ??

If you don't get this cancelled, and you should if the pub does not want to be seen as scam and prepared to lose customers, you then need to rebut the claim.

You have 11 days left to get the pub to cancel

Umkomaas

The form makes no mention of the Practice Direction but just contains an "information sheet" telling me to reply within 30 days using their attached "Reply Form".

That's a formal Letter Before Claim and needs to be responded to. See the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2, but there is no template, but if you do a forum search using keywords 'BWL rebuttal' you should find a recent one to use. Please note, it's not the one that contains a long list of questions. Look for something dated mid Nov to date.

HOW TO USE THE FORUM SEARCH FUNCTION:

Hit your 'Back' button to get back to the forum thread list. On the bar just above the threads you'll see the 'Search' function. Click on the 'Advanced Search' button and on the following page place your keyword(s) in the 'Search By Keyword(s)' and make sure the 'Show Results As' button (at the foot of the window) is changed from 'Threads' to 'Posts'.

I do notice that the form has a tick box and section on "I need more documents and information.", is this equivalent to a SAR and can it be used in the same way?

This is where you have the opportunity to request the information you require about the parking event. What you can legitimately ask for is shown in the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. You send this list to BWL with your rebuttal.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/pdf/protocols/debt-pap.pdf

A SAR is something different, it is about personal information held about you and your vehicle. The principal target for this is the parking company, but you can fire a separate one off to BWL too if you wish.

Here's one way of framing a SAR - from Legal Beagles

https://legalbeagles.info/library/guides_and_letters/court/subject-access-request/

I have raised this with the landlord of the Pub and they have agreed to send an email to have the ticket revoked.

That needs to go to the parking company primarily, it can be copied to BWL, but BWL are unlikely to action it. Get yourself a copy too - vital evidence should this get to court.

I think you might benefit from understanding how BWL operate.

Other than the auto acknowledgements and template letters, you will get nothing sensible from BWL - they are dealing with literally hundreds of thousands of unpaid parking charges and are spewing out various threatening letters, using a conveyor belt approach to go through a computer controlled process towards a LBC, and a MCOL Claim - and it is really only at the final stages, as a court hearing becomes a possibility, that there's any real human intervention.

You need to understand that you're not dealing with an old fashioned firm of solicitors, just progressing from a quill and ink operation, BWL are industrial harvesters of debt, using the equivalent of massive combine harvesters to do their work. This is what their website tells you:

A multi-award winning law firm specialising in volume collections, across both regulated and unregulated sectors, who are dual regulated through the FCA and SRA.

We employ around 265 people at our Leeds based office which in turn makes us the largest privately owned debt collection law firm in the UK.

I am loathe to pay these absolute scum but I just dont have the time or will to sit writing a million letters and formulating a defence to take to court.

In which case you're between a rock and a very hard place. What are you hoping for?

TKNVD

Thanks for your replies, I will do as reccomended.

Yes Umkomass, rock and a hard place indeed... guess we'll see if im stubborn enough not to give in to these fraudsters, wont we!? Cheers for pointing me to the info, will put together a rebuttal.

Coupon-mad

You don't need a rebuttal.

You need a SAR and a holding letter like on other BW Legal threads, and the latter is basic and will get the usual tedious and misleading reply you see on the other threads.

Please take time to read the BW Legal threads on say, the first 10 pages of this forum right now. All the same, easy to copy from.

You won't be sending many letters at all but can beat this in court (if need be, having it heard in your absence and objecting to the added costs, so even if you lost, you'd pay LESS than currently demanded).

TKNVD

Bit confused ..... the LBC letter giving you 30 days, if you must respond by the 1st Feb, you must have got this around the 3rd Jan

It is vital the pub cancels this and you get it in writing
Who is the parking company.

Assume the LBC provided proof of the claim and proof of the costs claimed. No doubt in typical BWLegal style, they have added a fake £60 ??

If you don't get this cancelled, and you should if the pub does not want to be seen as scam and prepared to lose customers, you then need to rebut the claim.

You have 11 days left to get the pub to cancel

It is dated 28th December, I didn't get it until last week due to not being at that address (staying with partner). Will go back down the pub this afternoon and have them copy me into the emails they send, the parking company is Britannia Parking.

Yup, £60 exactly. Those must be some highly paid robots... :rotfl:

Coupon-Mad - Having now reread the FAQ after going though some of the threads it's starting to make sense, have SAR ready to post to Britannia Parking and a letter to BWL asking them to put case on hold.

This is where you have the opportunity to request the information you require about the parking event. What you can legitimately ask for is shown in the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. You send this list to BWL with your rebuttal.

[....]

A SAR is something different, it is about personal information held about you and your vehicle. The principal target for this is the parking company, but you can fire a separate one off to BWL too if you wish.

The letter states I must use the reply form to BW legal, should I send this along with the holding letter or does it not matter? Perhaps I'm overthinking it.

Coupon-mad

We never tell people to use reply forms, partly because some victims would actually start to fill out the Income & Expenditure crap too. No need to use the forms.

TKNVD

Okay, thank you.

nosferatu1001

If it telsl you you MUST use the forms, then they are misleading you

TKNVD

Hi,

After sending a letter to BWL asking them to put case on hold, I have now received a response from them saying they will not do so. It states that they are acting on instruction from their client and that the request to restrict processing does not meet the terms outline on the ICO website. I sent exactly what I was told to send on this forum (newbie faq) so that should be correct?

Should I ignore this letter or...? I have spoken to the landowner who has told the PCN issuer (Brittania Parking) to revoke the charge.