BWLegal County Court Claim - Should i admit part claim?

loftytop15

Hi all,

Firstly, I've read the newbies thread and learned a lot on this forum already, so thank you for all the info.


My county court claim:
BWLegal, Issue Date: 19th Oct 2022, Claim: £175.40, Court fee: £35, Rep costs: £50, total: £260.40
Claimant: Britannia Parking Group
Date of "breach": 22/01/22 - very recent from the claim dates I've seen on here!

A lot of the county court claims i've seen on here are for people who've got good reason to dispute the whole claim against them.
In my case, I accidentally went on RingGo app, selected the nearest car park and paid for an hour. Turns out the car park actually used PayByPhone. (I swear there was a RingGo sticker on the side of the machine, but I cannot remember). On the RingGo app it also said the car park was 0 miles away, thinking I had got the correct one, but theres another car park adjacent to it.

I initally appealed with proof of my payment from RingGo, with a response from Britannia being a bunch of jargon that made it sound like I had not paid at all to my confusion.
Only much time later, on perhaps the 4th/5th letter of them chasing me up I realised I paid using the wrong app.

Now they have shoved a load of fees on top. I made a genuine mistake, should I do the AoS at all? Or should I admit partial claim for the £105.40 (minus the ridiculous £70 fee and the court + legal rep costs) and admit to only realising my mistake now as part of my defence.

Or should I dispute the whole claim as the worst that could happen is £175 charge


Thankyou, advice appreciated.

Grizebeck

No you never "part admit"

Please re read the NEWBIES thread

Coupon-mad

Seconded. Defend the whole claim.

KeithP

loftytop15 said:

My county court claim:
 Issue Date: 19th Oct 2022

With a Claim Issue Date of 19th October, you have until Monday 7th November to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 21st November 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service guidance.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

loftytop15

Thankyou all, Should any of my defence include that i genuinely tried to pay, but ended up paying on the wrong app?
What specifics should be I writing as part of my defence?

Thankyou

Coupon-mad

Yes, of course it should.

The Template Defence thread tells you that para 3 is 'your' section about the facts and what went wrong.

loftytop15

BWLegal called me today (no idea how they got my number)...do i need to answer these calls? I hung up straight away. Will be filing defence today/tomorrow

Fruitcake

A 'phone call is not worth the paper upon which it is writ. They will record it and use anything to their advantage and to your detriment that they can.

You have until next Monday to submit your defence, so I suggest you post your draft here for the regulars to check over. Only post the parts you have amended, not the whole of the template.

Coupon-mad

loftytop15 said:

BWLegal called me today (no idea how they got my number)...do i need to answer these calls? I hung up straight away. Will be filing defence today/tomorrow

Tell them to get stuffed if they ring again.

And that you will be responding to the claim form in time AND you also plan to respond with your evidence to the Government's Public Consultation.  You will be telling the DLUHC what BW Legal do to people by adding an extortionate £70 per PCN as soon as they get their grubby mitts on a case, which gives them a more generous costs sum than intended under the Civil Procedure Rules.

loftytop15

I'll be honest, im struggling here as i really dont think i have much to my defence.

2. 

It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question.

3. The defendant was at Milton Keynes picking up food and so entered the car park.

The defendant checked the VRM on how to pay, noticed a RingGo sticker on the side of the machine and so began to open the RingGo application on their smartphone to pay for parking. The defendant then paid for parking on the RingGo app by selecting the nearest car park (which said ‘0 miles away’) on the app.

The defendant believed this was the correct way to pay for parking, only to find out later that the app needed was in fact ‘PayByPhone’ after debt collection letters arrived, when the amount for the fine was already over £100.

The defendant believes that the parking would have been £0.90p for an hour or less, so to receive a PCN for over £100 is absurd.

Coupon-mad

 noticed a RingGo sticker on the side of the machine 

You should make a bit more of this.  RingGo was advertised, then?  If so, then you were misled by the signs.  It is trite law (Consumer Rights Act 2015) that ambiguous signage must be interpreted in the way that most favours the consumer.