UKPC DCB Legal claim discontinued

Coupon-mad

Coupon-mad said:

Of course you must respond with more than that; your evidence and your dispute.  But as it's 'on hold' you can do your substantive response towards the end of the 30 days you already bought yourself.

As per above advice, have you done the substantive response yet ?  As I advised, you must respond robustly to DCBLegal.

Moneysavingexpertmember777

I haven't. I will take the opportunity now to reply with the info they are asking for along with my robust defence:

Proof of permit
Showing that one ticket relates to permit not being displayed properly - which can be taken as an admission of me having the permit in my car
proof of me living there and supplied permit
proof of one sign not being taken with my car in shot photo of car not with sign in shot and there for not signposted correctly

I think thats all I can add... 

Coupon-mad

That sentence is too long to understand...

Moneysavingexpertmember777

Coupon-mad said:

That sentence is too long to understand...

Rewritten it would be 

I'll supply my email to them today which will include a robust defence, including 

1. Proof of permit
2. Proof of me living at the address at the time
3. Email with Permit being issued to me 
4. One ticket they've given me relates to permit not being displayed in full sight - which can be taken as an admission that the ticketing officer saw the permit and decided to give me a ticket anyway 
5. One 'invoice' doesn't have a photo of the car and the sign in the same shot, The sign that is in a seperate photo was much further down the road

Is there anything else and generic that I am missing?

My thanks for taking the time to respond. 

Coupon-mad

Yes, the usual robust stuff written in previous examples of how to tell DCBLegal to get lost.

Search the forum (always change 'best match' to 'newest) and try some or all of these keywords

Dear Sirs pre-action protocol cease and desist

Moneysavingexpertmember777

Hi There, 

So with my 30 days soon due to expire (thursday this week) I have created an email which I plan to send DCB Legal very soon around the unfair invoices that I received in 2018. This is my response to their LoC - any feedback much appreciated, @Coupon-mad I have emulated some of the wording that you have created for another forumite, and although a different case, thought it was important to highlight as I feel the same kind of stress and anxiety. 

Not only is the permit visable in one of the pictures the enforcing officer took, there are no pictures showing my car near any UKPC signs or evidence that the signs are positioned near the entrance of the road or to near where my car was parked. On both photo's also that the officer took and attached of the signs the image is low-res and writing, completely unreadable. 

Name xxxxxx

DCBLegal Reference number: xxxxx

Requirement for DCB Legal to Cease and Desist

To whom it may concern:

As previously mentioned, I want to get in contact to refute the parking tickets which were wrongly issued to me on the 12th November 2018 and 19th November 2018 whilst I was parked outside my flat in XXXXX

 At both times of the tickets being issued the flat I was renting had both a permit and a visitor permit issued to me, yet despite the permit being just visible in my windshield the parking enforcer decided to move ahead and issue the tickets anyway with UKPC, up until this point, refusing to rescind the tickets. An example of another ticket which was issued by UKPC whilst my permit was on display can be viewed below: (ticket mid left of windshield, permit bottom right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

                     

 

There were a several emails between myself and the landowners who were clients of UKPC back in 2019 four months after the tickets were issued. I reached out to them as I wasn’t getting any replies from UKPC at the time (please see attached the emails making contact to UKPC with a follow up due to all correspondence going unanswered). The landowner came back to me with the below, highlighting that the agreement was that as long as a vehicle is displaying a permit, old or new, I should not be ticketed see below and attached. Below this response is the initial email from the agent I rented from highlighting that the resident (myself) has had a permit for two years, again this is attached to the email: 

Thank you for your email and the photos attached. I am sorry to hear that your tenant has received a parking ticket whilst displaying their permit, I have passed this over to my contact at UKPC as the agreement with them is that as long as a vehicle is displaying a permit old or new style they should not be ticketed.

(email below from agent I was renting property from to UKPC and LandOwners:

Dear Sirs,

Our tenants on XXXXX has been receiving parking ticket for some time despite displaying permit, photos enclosed for your reference. Further to the email, also enclosed herein, we had purchased a new visitor permit for the tenant on December 2018 and the tenant holds their permit since 2 years. Hence, could you please shed a light on this issue?.

We await your response.

 There have also been wider issues that UKPC endured wrongly issuing residents of XXXXX whilst parking their permitted vehicles, this can be seen in the letter, sent by the landowners in April 2019 after working with UKPC for some time. The tickets that were wrongly issued to me were issued 5 months prior to this letter being received. This highlights further the countless issues that residents and myself endured with UKPC.

The two ‘invoices’ that are in question that have escalated up to DCBLegal have six photos sent over from the DPO. The ticket in question issued on the 19th November 2019 has the below photo. Again, the invoice can be seen in photo a; left mid windscreen with the top of the permit bottom mid-right. To coincide with this, all six photos at no point show the car next to, or near any clear or visible UKPC sign highlighting parking restrictions and infringements. The one photo taken with the UKPC sign has no bearings as to where it is in relation to the car, even then the writing on the sign, below ( photo b) is unreadable.

(a)

(b)

The ticket issued a week earlier (12th November 2018) again is parked outside my flat and has no bearing as to where the signs from UKPCs are placed in relation to my car, again the one sign that there is of the parking instructions are not within shot of my car and therefore highlight that I couldn’t have possibly seen what the restrictions highlighted by UKPC were. Parking signs have to be visible to drivers at all times.

 

Any debt is disputed & denied and the letters from DCBL and DCB Legal is causing me a great amount of stress and anxiety, the failure for UKPC to respond to my previous emails 4 years ago married with threats of bailiffs and ‘taking my property away if I can’t pay’ highlighted in bold at the bottom of your letters it unrelenting.

As a Litigant in Person I have suffered substantial damage and distress, causing sleepless nights, headaches and extreme worry.  I am only human and will attest to the severe effect on my peace of mind, on oath if required by the Judge if you drag me to court. Your clients are the cause of enormous anxiety for myself and my fiancé right now as we are going through IVF.  

 

Until I sought advice about the issues and was assisted by a layperson to write this substantive reply, my fiancé and I initially believed that bailiffs were about to arrive and we were scared by DCBL's letters. I was seriously upset by what has been painted as if it is a credible threat to my possessions, credit rating and the family home.  I am certain that most people would have succumbed to the crippling pressure DCBL exert.

With this I would like to highlight a possible breach of debt collection rules and a potential complaint to the FCA about DCBL

 

I draw your attention to the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Consumer Credit sourcebook which your staff can read here (May 2020 source 50):

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC.pdf 

 

...which includes mandatory principles including those I have quoted below.  It is noted that DCB Group's various threatogram letters this year say that you are regulated by the FCA and your online 'payment portal' offers payments by instalments (i.e. you offer credit on behalf of clients).  Therefore it is my position that your conduct is bound by the Sourcebook rules. As an FCA member (if DCBL in fact are), you have breached the basic 'clear fair and not misleading' rule and the general requirements:

 

Principle 7 ''a firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading'';  

 

Duty not to use misleading names:

''A firm must not carry on a credit-related regulated activity under a name which is likely to mislead customers about the status of the firm or the nature of its business, or in any other way. [Note: section 25(1AD) of CCA]''.  2.2.3. 

(1) ''In relation to CONC 2.2.3 R, an example of where a name may mislead is if the average customer of the firm is likely to be misled by the name of the firm.

 (2) Examples of the matters concerning a firm's status or the nature of its business about which its name may mislead customers include: 

(a) the identity or nature of the firm;  

(b) its commercial or profit-seeking status; 

(c) its role, including any relationship with any other person; 

(d) the extent of its authority; 

(e) stating or implying that the firm is a public body or that it is related or connected in some way to a charitable, not-for-profit or governmental or local governmental organisation or to the courts; 

(f) the nature of the products or services supplied; 

(g) the cost of those products or services; and 

(h) the scale of the business including its geographical scope. 

(3) A firm which operates under a variety of trading names should take particular care to ensure that customers are not misled as to the identity of the firm, or the nature or scale of the firm’s business''.  2.2.4.   

"A firm must not ignore or disregard a customer's claim that a debt has been settled or is disputed and must not continue to make demands for payment without providing clear justification and/or evidence as to why the customer's claim is not valid." 7.5.3

"A firm must suspend any steps it takes or its agent takes in the recovery of a debt from a customer where the customer disputes the debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds." 7.14.1

"Where a customer disputes a debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds, the firm must investigate the dispute and provide details of the debt to the customer in a timely manner." 7.14.3

If you do not stop your activity whilst investigating my dispute, then DCBL will be in further breach of the FCA's rules.  Bear in mind I am sending a formal complaint to the SRA and FCA about DCBL in any case, so this email is a final chance for you and UKKC Ltd to avoid digging a deeper hole.

 

Any feedback - greatly appreciated. 

My thanks

Coupon-mad

There is no "enforcing officer", no such person works for UKPC!

And the case has not been escalated 'up' to DCBLegal, Down into the gutter, more like, IMHO.

Moneysavingexpertmember777

Thank you, I've submitted my appeal this morning. Johny86 who you've previously mentioned has also sent me over his defence should I need any guidance at a later stage though hope it won't go that far.... I'll let you all know how I get on and once again, want to thank you for all your help during this. 

Moneysavingexpertmember777

So today I received an email back from DCB Legal, in response to the long e-mail I sent them on the 13th March 

We are writing in response to your email dated the 13th of March 2023. 

I note from said correspondence that you are disputing the parking charge notice on the basis that your permit was displayed at the time of the contravention.

Having reviewed this file, I note that you submitted two unsuccessful appeals on the 21st of November 2018. These was unsuccessful as the permit at the times of the contravention was not clearly displayed. However, following this appeal our client responded by offering you a ‘gesture of goodwill’ of £15.00 that required payment within 35 days.  Given that the case has now been escalated to this firm for recovery action, the 35-day period has elapsed and the right to appeal has now been lost. 

Consequently, the outstanding balance of your debt is £320.00 which must be paid 30 days from the date of this email.

To complete this you can contact DCB Legal Ltd on 0203 434 0437 to make payment over the telephone or online at https://dcblegal.co.uk/response/pay-online/

 Alternatively, payment can be made via bank transfer to our designated client account:

 Account Name: DCB Legal Ltd Client Account

Sort Code: 20-24-09

Account Number: 60964441

You must quote the correct case reference when making payment. If you do not, we may be unable to correctly allocate the payment. If further action is taken by us as a result of an incorrect reference being quoted, you will be liable for any further fees or costs incurred.

Please note failure to do so will result in a claim being issued against you without further notice.

B789

Moneysavingexpertmember777 said:

So today I received an email back from DCB Legal, in response to the long e-mail I sent them on the 13th March 

...To complete this you can contact DCB Legal Ltd on 0203 434 0437 to make payment over the telephone or online at https://dcblegal.co.uk/response/pay-online/

Who did you send the "long email" to on the 13th of March? What was that email about?

This response "sounds" like it is not from DCB Legal. DCBL perhaps?