My rights regarding a High Court Enforcement regarding an unknown debt

MT1966

It's for an injury claim for my grandson which was never followed through after the insurers went with joint liability

The money that the solicitors were pursuing D for was for legal services they allegedly provided.

DullGreyGuy

MT1966 said:

DullGreyGuy,

The monies are related to unpaid legal fees that she never even knew about.

The invoice was actually addressed to D's son, who is under 18.

The fact she never received a single letter, invoice, final demand, nor any notification from the solicitors or the court that they were taking the matter to court. After speaking to Fraud Action, they came to the conclusion she has been the victim of identity theft.

Yes, they are a large company but just because they are a large firm, doesn't necessarily mean they are a good one. Just look at the reviews online. I am still waiting for them to email me original copies of all the letters they claim to have sent to D, but as yet I've had no response.

Look at the reviews of any of the factory injury law firms who have the scale to be able to deal with the volumes of referrals insurers generate and you will see they are all very similar. Some of these firms, unlike Carpenters, offer broader corporate law etc services in addition to their PI work... if a corporate used trust pilot or such as a way of deciding which law firm to use they'd never get any business. It seems to come with the territory for these types of setups. 

So presumably A's insurer has been spoken to and it clarified why they havent settled the bill given the lawyers were instructed under that policy?

But she does have the letters etc from the start of the case? You mention she was the Litigation Friend, was this confirm by the courts? What happened to the claim? Did she formally retract the claim on behalf of her son or did she just move address and not bother to update the solicitors?

user1977

MT1966 said:

It's for an injury claim for my grandson which was never followed through after the insurers went with joint liability

The money that the solicitors were pursuing D for was for legal services they allegedly provided.

So where’s the identity theft?

MT1966

She doesn't have any letters from the start of the case, never has done. No Client Care Letter, no nothing at any point in time time.

No, A's insurers never contacted her  (A) except to inform her that they had admitted joint liability.

The only things she has are emailed copies of the solicitors final bill, which they put my grandson's name as the addressee instead of D, he is a minor.
And the final demand which said if she didn't respond within thirty days they would take it court to get a CCJ.
These letters were dated July and Sept 2022. These emailed copies were sent to her last week, 16 Feb 2023, and nothing has been heard from them since. It had her name on the letters as "Litigation Friend" that's how we knew.
We don't know what happened to the claim, they don't reply to any emails and you can't get through to them by phone.

"A" informed the insurers that "D" was not pursuing the claim for her son, as far as we were concerned that was the end of it.

So, to clarify.
Sept 2018 RTA occurred, "A" informs insurers and gives contact details for "D". Shortly after both grandson & "A" sent appointments to attend a medical. Neither of them heard anything heard back.
Oct 2019 "D" moves to a new address. "A" contacts solicitors with new address. Between Sept 2018 and Oct 2019, no letters were sent to either A or D.
Nov 2021 "D" moves to new address, no contact with solicitors to update address as no contact between them since the accident and D did not even know of their existence as "A" had been dealing with it in so far as she informed them of D's first change of address in Oct 2019.
Feb 2023 "D" receives a Notice of enforcement from DCBL (HCE) with 7 days notice to pay, notice had a CCJ number on it as well.

MT1966

user1977 said:

MT1966 said:

It's for an injury claim for my grandson which was never followed through after the insurers went with joint liability

The money that the solicitors were pursuing D for was for legal services they allegedly provided.

So where’s the identity theft?

The identity theft comes from the fact D never received any correspondence from the solicitors at any point. When she requested a copy of all the original letters they claimed they had sent since 2018, all they emailed her were three attahced documents. An invoice letter, a final statute bill that was addressed to my grandson (a minor), and final demand threatening court action. 
These three documents were so poorly worded and the grammar was appalling I doubted their authenticity. I found an article online, 'How to spot a bogus solicitor' and paragraph 6 mentioned poor spelling and grammar could be a sign of a scam. 

I therefore reported my daughter's case to Fraud Action and they assessed it was a case of identity theft.

So I can only presume that someone was pretending to be my daughter and for some unknown reason they were using the solicitors. The solicitors had been chasing my daughter, unbeknownst to her, and the High Court enforcement finally got hold of her.

SpudGunPaul

MT1966 said:

user1977 said:

MT1966 said:

It's for an injury claim for my grandson which was never followed through after the insurers went with joint liability

The money that the solicitors were pursuing D for was for legal services they allegedly provided.

So where’s the identity theft?

The identity theft comes from the fact D never received any correspondence from the solicitors at any point. When she requested a copy of all the original letters they claimed they had sent since 2018, all they emailed her were three attahced documents. An invoice letter, a final statute bill that was addressed to my grandson (a minor), and final demand threatening court action. 
These three documents were so poorly worded and the grammar was appalling I doubted their authenticity. I found an article online, 'How to spot a bogus solicitor' and paragraph 6 mentioned poor spelling and grammar could be a sign of a scam. 

I therefore reported my daughter's case to Fraud Action and they assessed it was a case of identity theft.

So I can only presume that someone was pretending to be my daughter and for some unknown reason they were using the solicitors. The solicitors had been chasing my daughter, unbeknownst to her, and the High Court enforcement finally got hold of her.

Is it your daughters/grandchild's name and did they originally raise a claim?

If yes then there's no identity theft. 

Manxman_in_exile

@MT1966 -  are you 100% sure that neither of your daughters started legal proceedings by themselves against the third party involved in the accident?  That is in respect of injuries suffered by A herself and by her nephew?

MT1966 said:

...The insurers must have instructed the law firm to commence injury claims for both of them...

You see, that seems like rather a bold assumption to me.  If I were you I'd be asking telling daughter A to find out from her insurers exactly what happened.  In particular I'd want to know from them if they had instructed a firm to start legal proceedings, and if so, on behalf of whom?  Just daughter A ,or both daughter A and her nephew?  And again if they did, was the firm Carpenters?

Also - and I hate to ask this - but is it at all possible that your daughter A could have authorised Carpenters to act on her nephew's behalf without daughter D's knowledge?

I don't see how Action Fraud or anybody else could come to the conclusion that this is identity fraud.  After all, it does appear on the face of it to be something your daughter D was (or should have been?) aware of.  Assuming she'd been told about it.

(By "something" I'm referring to the claim made on behalf of your grandson)

Manxman_in_exile

(Sorry had to do a second post as I can't figure out how to do multiple quotes form different pages!!!)

DullGreyGuy said:

...So presumably A's insurer has been spoken to and it clarified why they havent settled the bill given the lawyers were instructed under that policy?...

@MT1966 - your daughter needs to clarify this with her insurer too.  My understanding (which is almost nothing on insurance matters compared to @DullGreyGuy's) is that if A's insurers had retained a firm of solicitors to act on the claims, then when the insurer decided to settle the claim, they would also have taken responsibility for settling the legal fees.  It doesn't make sense that if your grandson's claim was part and parcel of daughter A's claim that daughter D would get a bill but daughter A wouldn't.  If it was all being dealt with properly neither daughter should have been charged any legal fees.

Manxman_in_exile

Hold on.  I've just noticed something.

@MT1966 -  what does this bit mean?

MT1966 said:

... "A" informed the insurers that "D" was not pursuing the claim for her son, as far as we were concerned that was the end of it...

I thought you had said that A had made a claim in respect of both herself and her nephew, and that her insurer subsequently told her that they had settled the claim on a 50/50 basis.  I  assumed that was the claim she had made both for herself and her nephew.

So why did A need to tell her insurer that D was discontinuing the claim?

I'm confused as to how this claim on behalf of your grandson came to be made and who made it.

I also can't see any identity fraud here.  (Well there might be but I don't want to say it...)

MT1966

Manxman_in_exile said:

Hold on.  I've just noticed something.

@MT1966 -  what does this bit mean?

MT1966 said:

... "A" informed the insurers that "D" was not pursuing the claim for her son, as far as we were concerned that was the end of it...

I thought you had said that A had made a claim in respect of both herself and her nephew, and that her insurer subsequently told her that they had settled the claim on a 50/50 basis.  I  assumed that was the claim she had made both for herself and her nephew.

So why did A need to tell her insurer that D was discontinuing the claim?

I'm confused as to how this claim on behalf of your grandson came to be made and who made it.

I also can't see any identity fraud here.  (Well there might be but I don't want to say it...)

So A called her insurers, gave all the details including the fact her nephew was in the car at the time. Would A had to have told the insurers that she wanted to pursue an injury claim for both of them or would they have just done that automatically ?

So I've just spoken to daughter "A", to the best of her recollection, her insurance company informed her about 12 months after the accident it was 50/50 liability. As a result, as she was deemed to have been at fault as well, so was told she would be awarded nothing, but that my grandson, as a passenger would still potentially get something, they also informed her that if daughter "D" wanted to continue, she would have to claim against her sister's insurers but would have to do it on her own (I assume that to mean, using her own resources). It was at this point she told her sister that she wasn't going to claim against her, as she didn't want to adversely affect A's insurance premium. As far as I'm aware, nothing else came from that, neither A nor D received any confirmation that the matter was closed.

This where there is some confusion, if the claim has been resolved as 50/50, then the issue is closed, is that right ? and my grandson would have been awarded an amount which would then be held in trust until he was 18. 

Ultimately, I don't think it's about who said what & when (although it is a crucial part of all this), the crux of this issue is, why did "D" (or "A" for that matter) not receive a single letter through the post throughout this whole thing ?