Using the government's Money Claim On Line (MCOL) service

Nurby

I was thinking of using MCOL to claim repayment of a £450 deposit paid to a company in respect of a small double glazing job that was cancelled within 7 days "free of any charges".  However I have seen some horrendous reviews of the service on Trustpilot alleging rank indifference and/or incompetence of the staff.  Is MCOL contracted out to the private sector?  Anyone throw any light on their performance? 

tacpot12

I've used MCOL and it worked well. It's really just system for managing court cases. The staff who deal with your case are Ministry of Justice employees as far as I know, although the MoJ will have outsourced the development, and possibly the technical support of the service to an IT company.

I never had any contact with any member or staff or the judge throughout the process, so I can't comment on the staff attitude. 

Clowance

we used them to get a refund from Virgin Atlantic this year. It all went smoothly and we got the cost back too, eventually. Had waited months until we did this. You should first send a "Letter before action", wait 14 days for response/refund and then begin MCO. 

tacpot12

Clowance said:

we used them to get a refund from Virgin Atlantic this year. It all went smoothly and we got the cost back too, eventually. Had waited months until we did this. You should first send a "Letter before action", wait 14 days for response/refund and then begin MCO. 

The time you need to wait before the LBA and starting your claim isn't fixed at 14 days. You need to give the other party the amount of time that is reasonable under the circumstances, and this depends on what the problem is and what you have asked them to do about it. 14 days should be sufficient for a refund to be processed if the facts of the case have already been established, and the other party just hasn't processed the refund yet. If the facts still need to be confirmed, you might need to allow longer, but you can still use the LBA to apply pressure; the other party shouldn't be allowed to dawdle. 

Nurby

Thanks both, that's reassuring. Started my claim, found a mismatch between what I was seeing on screen and the MCOL guidance and discovered that I had somehow been lured into the CMS (Civil Money Claim) system.  It's a beta product at the mo very much like MCOL but although the project started in 2017 there's no guidance available - or none that I can find. I'm building my claim in each and will choose when I have a little more information. 

Savvy_Sue

Are you sure CMS is a legitimate .gov.uk route? And not some 'helpful' site which will do some of the work for you and charge for the privilege? 

I may just be cynical in my old age ... 

Nurby

Agreed. Whenever doing anything of a financial nature online I'm über-cynical. It's legit - you can find both MCOL and CMC on the same government page here https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim