POPLA Decision - now a Court Claim

Coupon-mad

Oh no. You could have stopped the claim.

PocketGuy

Hi
In May I posted that I'd had a threatening letter from DCB Legal acting on behalf of The Parking Group for a parking charge that I'd (unsurprisingly) unsuccessfully contested.

The thread is here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6606022/popla-decision-and-legal-follow-up

@ChirpyChicken, @Le_Kirk and @Coupon-mad all very kindly offered advice to inform DCBL that I lived in Porto and required them to remove the UK address from their records and replace it with the Porto address.

I informed DCBL that I had already done this with their Client's DPO and that I had confirmation of receipt of that email. I have indeed done this and sent TPG's DPO a utility bill for the Porto address as proof.

To-date, the only responses I've had have been threatening letters from DCBL, and now a Claim via HM Courts & Tribunals Service as of 19th June which I just picked up an hour ago as I arrived back for a brief visit.

I'm surprisingly unemotional about this (young me would have been *very* angry), but do want to kick these guys in the feels to the degree that they go away and don't bother me any more.

Questions:
1. Am I now in a position where I have to respond to the Claim?
2. If so, is there guidance here on what to do?
3. If not (or additionally), should I write - again - to DCB Legal and provide the proof I gave to their client?
4. Throughout all of this, if I acknowledge receipt of these letters and the Claim, does this not compromise my position or is this a legal technicality where they can't serve a Claim on me as I'm not a UK resident (wrong jurisdiction) irrespective of whether I have sight of these letters or not? Or is there something else in play that I've missed/am unaware of?

Appreciate your guidance, esp. if you have first-hand experience of this.


PS tagging @canuk_canuk whom I understand is having similar issues with DCBL

Gr1pr

If its a continuation of the same case, you should use this existing thread for it, not start a new thread,  one case,  one thread , you can easily edit your thread title etc to something more suitable 

Opening a new thread would be for a new or different case

Umkomaas

Please continue on your original thread and hit the red Report button and ask a member of the MSE forum admin team to merge the two threads please. 

PocketGuy

Umkomaas said:

Please continue on your original thread and hit the red Report button and ask a member of the MSE forum admin team to merge the two threads please. 

Will do. Thanks for the steer.

PocketGuy

Coupon-mad said:

Oh no. You could have stopped the claim.

But I wrote to DCBL and asked them to erase my UK address, etc.
What more could/should I have done?
If they ignore a direct instruction and violate DPA, what can one possibly do?
And what lies ahead of me now...?

Coupon-mad

PocketGuy said:

Coupon-mad said:

Oh no. You could have stopped the claim.

But I wrote to DCBL and asked them to erase my UK address, etc.
What more could/should I have done?
If they ignore a direct instruction and violate DPA, what can one possibly do?
And what lies ahead of me now...?

You should have proved you live/work in Porto which is what we advised, I'm sure.

Obviously you now have the hassle of defending a claim you could have nipped in the bud.

PocketGuy

Coupon-mad said:

PocketGuy said:

Coupon-mad said:

Oh no. You could have stopped the claim.

But I wrote to DCBL and asked them to erase my UK address, etc.
What more could/should I have done?
If they ignore a direct instruction and violate DPA, what can one possibly do?
And what lies ahead of me now...?

You should have proved you live/work in Porto which is what we advised, I'm sure.

Obviously you now have the hassle of defending a claim you could have nipped in the bud.

But I did...
I informed both TPG and DCBL that I lived in Porto and provided the utility bill evidencing this.
They received the emails.
TPG was informed in September last year but still instructed DCBL as if I was in the UK.
DCBL was informed - also using the precise wording I was given here - two weeks before they filed the claim.

How many ways can I explain this?
I'm utterly confused by your response.

What you now appear to be telling me is that - even though these firms were instructed to erase my UK address and use my Porto address, and ignored this instruction and went ahead and filed a claim - somehow I'm at fault for failing to make them do this??

In any event, it seems clear that I now have to defend a claim in what is essentially a foreign country. 
Or pay a £300 charge and make the thing go away.

As these firms evidently can simply ignore requests to change incorrect addresses and plough on regardless, perhaps the advice given out in this forum in this regard needs to be updated by factoring this in.

Coupon-mad

As these firms evidently can simply ignore requests to change incorrect addresses and plough on regardless, perhaps the advice given out in this forum in this regard needs to be updated by factoring this in.

They can't simply ignore it (if you prove you live in Portugal) and our advice is up to date, but you said:

"No, I didn't send DCB Legal the Utility Bill because it was sent to their client."

You could have stopped this claim had you done so. To DCB Legal. They were the conveyor belt churning to issue a claim, not the parking firm.

It was DCB Legal whom you had to stop.

No worries. We are where we are.

They'll discontinue it by Christmas if you simply use the Template Defence plus some facts about the parking event and the fact that this Claimant and their legal reps both know that you live in Portugal but sneakily served a court claim to the old UK address they were on notice to rectify and should have erased. It was only by chance you saw the claim on a visit.

Gr1pr

Your assumptions above didn't include 

Contesting jurisdiction,  or not paying because the possibility of a ccj would not affect you in Portugal , its unenforceable,   Nobody mentioned paying in full either !  For completeness only, you could hire a lawyer to represent you   ( but it's not worth it  )

But simply following the same path as over 602 have done in the discontinuations thread by Umkomaas,  as coupon mad advises above,  should prevail,  at nil cost to you