DCB Legal - Letter of Claim - multiple pcn's

KeithP

nomoredebt said:

The letter is dated 2nd May 2023.

With a Claim Issue Date of 2nd May, you have until Monday 22nd May 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 5th June 2023 to file your Defence.

That's four 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'.

Of course everywhere I have written 'you' or 'your' I mean the named Defendant. Everything must be done in the name of the Defendant.

nomoredebt

Yesterday my husband did the acknowledgement of service.

He is currently in the process of writing up his defence.

Is there a limit on how long this can be as it sounds like it's going to be quite big?

Also once he has done it am I able to post it on here to get it checked over to see if it sounds OK?

Boat_to_Bolivia

Grizebeck said:

nomoredebt said:

Hi @Grizebeck sorry I did not see your message.  So have just checked.  He has x7 from 2017 and they are days apart.  He has x6 from 2018 they range from days apart to 3 months later (where he has 2, days apart).  He has just got another letter of claim today with the above plus x1 more and this one is from 2019.

Pm me when you get a claim form. I will assist you off forum

I hope you have taken @Grizebeck up on his kind offer.

Of course you can post your defence here, but you only need to post the paragraphs you write or amend.

nomoredebt

I did contact @Grizebeck but he is unable to help currently.

Thankyou, I will post it when he has completed it.

nomoredebt

Could you please have a look at the defence my husband has written and let me know if he needs to amend any of it.  Many thanks in advance.

The defendant considers himself a hard-working family man with a wife and ten-year old twins. Approximately twelve years ago the defendant was struggling to work as an HGV driver, working 13 to 15 hours per day and also looking after the needs of the defendant’s bed ridden father regards doing his shopping, cleaning, gardening, paying his bills, and liaising with the carers whom visited 3 times a day.

During this time the stress was starting to take a toll on the defendant. Things came to ahead when the defendant suffered 3 mini strokes. Although the defendant suffered no lasting physical effects his mental health took a nose dive, regards stress, anxiety and depression. Because of the mini strokes the defendant automatically lost his HGV licence for one year. The defendant spent a few months recovering and visited Open Minds part of the NHS that helps sufferers to cope with mental health issues.

The defendant also took medication. A year later the defendants father passed away and the defendant had to sort out his funeral and clear out his home all of this added a further burden on the defendant’s mental health along with a build-up of debts arising from the defendant’s time off work. The defendant managed to pick himself up with the support of the defendant’s wife, and have been working in full-time employment ever since. The only time the defendant got inner peace was to drive into McDonald's, read his paper and have a coffee or two. This quickly became his daily routine. The defendant didn't realise at the time that this was becoming his comfort zone away from the outside world and was spending more time there. All the staff at McDonald's know the defendant as a regular customer. Then parking tickets started to come in and the defendant could not cope and just put them to one side. The signage at the car parks at the time was very small and sparse. The defendant didn't realise that it applied to customers as well as non-customers. The letters started to look like they were coming from a different company and solicitor. The style of the letters was very unconvincing especially the solicitor ones. There was a massive onslaught of scams occurring at this time and even more so now. The letters stopped arriving for a long period of time.

Then in December 2022 the defendant received a parking ticket from a McDonald's at North Hykeham near Lincoln, the defendant’s wife paid the fine on that occasion. This triggered a bombardment of further demands and intimidating letters for fines dating 2 to 4 years ago, for ever increasing amounts. The defendant was told that he is on a "mugs list" i.e. people that can be easily intimidated into paying the fees justified or not. It must be also be considered that when a camera takes a picture of your vehicle on entry and exit, the total period is classed as parking, however on regular occasions cars can take typically 5 to 25 minutes slowly moving in the drive through zone, caused by people making large orders, waiting for these orders, waits for people sorting out order disputes and difficulties with card payments.

McDonald's on Grimsby Road, Cleethorpes has got so fed up with regular customers getting tickets and managers having to ring the parking company to get them cancelled, some at a cost to McDonald's of another extortionate fee of £25, that they have now told the parking company UK Parking Control Ltd to remove the cameras and signs. Seven of these alleged offences against the defendant were served at McDonald's on Grimsby Road, Cleethorpes. I consider the amount of extortionate extra charges to be excessive and questionable. In fact, The Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities report published in February 2022 which has temporarily stalled for a final impact assessment but incoming in 2023, statutory Code of Practice in the section called "Escalation of costs" stated "The parking operator must not levy additional costs over and above the level of a parking charge or parking tariff as originally issued". The parking company and their solicitors have also used escalation tactics in the form of their letters of claim.

The first letter of claim that the defendant received was dated 8th December 2022 and the claim was for £1,600 for 10 alleged offences, with 30 days to pay. Then on the 15th December 2022, 7 days later the defendant received another letter of claim for £1760 for 11 alleged offences with 30 days to pay, the previous alleged offences plus another one. Then 8 days later on the 28th December 2022 the defendant received yet another letter of claim for £2080 with 30 days to pay, for 13 alleged offences the previous alleged offences plus 2 more. The final letter of claim was dated 16th January 2023 and was for £2240 with 30 days to pay. This was for 14 alleged offences, the previous alleged offences plus 1 more. Over a period of 39 days the alleged amount due as escalated from £1600 to £2240, a sum of £640.

These escalations of charges are akin to demands typical of extortionate practices. On the 2nd May 2023 a County Court Claim was issued to the defendant for a claim of £3287 this is a further increase of £1687 on the original letter of claim issued on the dated 8th December 2022 or £1972.80 which includes court fees and the parking firm’s legal representative.

Considering the original fine for the alleged 14 offences at £50 a time which is a total of £700 as now escalated to a demand for £3287.80 excluding court fees an increase of £2587.80 or an increase of 269% !!!!, this demand amount is totally unjustified bearing in mind the cheapness of fully automated letter sending or robo-claims as they are also known as.

These escalated demands have caused a considerable amount of toll on the defendant’s mental health as the defendant struggles to stay afloat mentally and financially regards supporting the defendant’s family and also struggling to carry out tasks at work due to escalating stress and anxiety, further inflamed by lack of sleep. This has put further pressures on the defendant’s role as breadwinner and father to the defendants two children and has put a considerable strain on the relationship with the defendant’s wife.

The defendant has not entered into any contract with UK Parking Control Limited due to non-awareness, sparsity of signs and the smallness of text. The defendant is a regular customer of McDonald's of all the sites the alleged offences have supposed to have taken place.  The defendant refutes the claims and the implied allegations against him, and find the escalation of fines to be extortionate and unjustified. The defendant can supply to the court all evidence for all remarks and paperwork made in my statement of defence.

 

KeithP

Sorry, but that looks nothing like what a Defence should look like.

Did you follow the guidance in my earlier post that should've led you to an 'already written for you' template Defence?

Boat_to_Bolivia

Did you follow @KeithP's advice regarding writing a Defence?

You need to look at the Template Defence thread, a sticky at the top of this forum. That will give your husband a better idea of what his Defence should look like.

What you have now is more like a Witness Statement.

Grizebeck

That isnt a defence

Coupon-mad

These aren't fines. Don't call them that.

Just use the Template Defence as everyone does.

B789

As it is UKPC/DCB Legal, use this defence template and just change paras #2 and #3. What you put in those two paras is just a very simple statement of fact. Everything else is expanded on much later in a witness statement.

You are dealing with a bottom-dwelling duo who care not one iota about any mitigation or the state of your mental health. They just want you to cave in and pay them. You are being taken for a ride in a scam. Do not pay a penny.

Use the template defence and what you put in #2 and #3 is just a very brief description of what happened. ie. "The Defendant was a patron of McDonalds. Any signs were not prominent and could not form a contract."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5r7vbqttho3q948/2023 defence.pdf?dl=0

It couldn't be any easier that that to do your defence. Remember, you are only answering the woefully inadequate PoC in the claim which we all know says nothing and is ambiguous. The onus is on the Claimant to prove everything so don't feed them anything they can use because they forgot to put it in their claim.