Forecourt Eye

pinkerton_angel

A friend of mine has just received a letter from these guys as he is the registered keeper of his daughter's car.
The letter says she put over £100 of diesel in her car on a date in July at a garage in Kent on pump 3.
Her car is petrol, she was in Cornwall on the date concerned and her car was at home (nowhere near Kent), her car would also not take over £100 worth of fuel.
The 'evidence' they have sent consists of 3 photos.
One of her car with numberplate showing and 2 people sat inside wearing white t-shirts, clearly parked at pump 1. No date or time stamp on photo. (She has visited this garage in the past)
Then a receipt showing the amount of diesel taken.
Then a third photo showing half a car (no number plate showing), car is a different colour, has now miraculously had a roof rack fitted and a guy in a blue t-shirt. Pump 3 showing on CCTV screen.
Clearly they are trying it on and trying to solicit money from an innocent party.
There doesn't appear to be any right of appeal. Can't get through to any phone number for the company.
Where do we go from here in terms of appealing and defending this?
I've also told him to log this with police and trading standards as this is clearly fraud.
Any advice?
Thanks

tacpot12

1. Report the numberplate as cloned to the DVLA.
2. Assemble the evidence:
  proof she was in Cornwall (e.g. receipts and bank statements)
  proof the car was in Cornwall (does she have a Dashcam?). Did she take any photos where her car was accidentally included in the photo?
  proof the car has a petrol engine (V5)
  proof of the car's fuel tank capacity (try to get an authoritative figure from somewhere)
3. If the friend owns their own home, they might have home insurance. Ask if they have legal expenses cover as part of their home insurance. If they do, they can contact the legal helpline for support with this. If the matter goes to court, the legal expenses insurance should cover their defence, but will  only do so if they have been engaged from the outset. If they don't have legal expenses insurance, write a Statement of Truth that provides all the evidence to the garage owner and sent it to them by post. Your friend should get a Proof of Posting from the Post office and keep copies and a log of everything that happens from now on.

Reporting to the Police as fraud seems excessive as the third photo could have been included in error. 

If she has used the garage in the past, then the photo where the people in white teeshirts can be seen might be of her, and could be a problem with her defence Ideally, she would have receipts (or more likely) bank statements that show days when she purchased fuel from the garage. As she admits to having used the garage, I think any judge should expect the garage to produce timestamped photos to show the offence in question, so that there is no doubt that your friend didn't pay for the fuel on that occasion. 

Hope she manages to sort this out. 

Alderbank

It might be worth your friend reading some of the other threads about this company, such as this one a couple of weeks ago for instance:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81555789#Comment_81555789?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=forecourt+

pinkerton_angel

tacpot12 said:

1. Report the numberplate as cloned to the DVLA.
2. Assemble the evidence:
  proof she was in Cornwall (e.g. receipts and bank statements)
  proof the car was in Cornwall (does she have a Dashcam?). Did she take any photos where her car was accidentally included in the photo?
  proof the car has a petrol engine (V5)
  proof of the car's fuel tank capacity (try to get an authoritative figure from somewhere)
3. If the friend owns their own home, they might have home insurance. Ask if they have legal expenses cover as part of their home insurance. If they do, they can contact the legal helpline for support with this. If the matter goes to court, the legal expenses insurance should cover their defence, but will  only do so if they have been engaged from the outset. If they don't have legal expenses insurance, write a Statement of Truth that provides all the evidence to the garage owner and sent it to them by post. Your friend should get a Proof of Posting from the Post office and keep copies and a log of everything that happens from now on.

Reporting to the Police as fraud seems excessive as the third photo could have been included in error. 

If she has used the garage in the past, then the photo where the people in white teeshirts can be seen might be of her, and could be a problem with her defence Ideally, she would have receipts (or more likely) bank statements that show days when she purchased fuel from the garage. As she admits to having used the garage, I think any judge should expect the garage to produce timestamped photos to show the offence in question, so that there is no doubt that your friend didn't pay for the fuel on that occasion. 

Hope she manages to sort this out. 

Thank you. There is no evidence the numberplate has been cloned, just that they have included a photo of her car on a different date.
The incident was clearly committed by the person in the 3rd photo at pump 3 as it says on the details of incident and the CCTV that this was pump 3.
The car wasn't in Cornwall, she was in Cornwall without her car. Her car was at her home address 3-4 hours from Kent or Cornwall.
I would say it's clearly fraud as the 3rd photo is the 'evidence' and they have just used her car's photo to try and get money. They are clearly different cars and people (and pumps!)
Thank you for the rest, I will advise him to do all that and see where that gets us.

Keep_pedalling

Write back to them pointing out that they have made an error and the pictures show two different cars on differing dates, your car is petrol not diesel, the timestamp on the picture of your car does not match the date of the offence and that the driver of your car did not visit that filling station on that day, so you will not be paying for the fuel and you expect that to be the end of the matter.

I suspect this is more !!!!!!-up than a fraudulent claim so don’t accuse them of fraud. Hopefully that will be the end of the matter, but keep all documentation on this in case they are stupid enough to try and pursue this through the small claims court. 

pinkerton_angel

Keep_pedalling said:

Write back to them pointing out that they have made an error and the pictures show two different cars on differing dates, your car is petrol not diesel, the timestamp on the picture of your car does not match the date of the offence and that the driver of your car did not visit that filling station on that day, so you will not be paying for the fuel and you expect that to be the end of the matter.

I suspect this is more !!!!!!-up than a fraudulent claim so don’t accuse them of fraud. Hopefully that will be the end of the matter, but keep all documentation on this in case they are stupid enough to try and pursue this through the small claims court. 

Thank you. Bit more than a **** up if they've not even used a photo from the same day/time period I would say but yes thank you we will try that and see we go.

Umkomaas

Forecourt Eye, part of the UKCPS private parking firm. Very used to trying any trick in the book (or even outside of it) to extort money from motorists. 

Definitely do as advised above and read this recent thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81555789#Comment_81555789?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=forecourt+

Write to the DVLA and ask them which organisation procured your details - as I advised in that thread. 

Alderbank

Lots of filling stations seem to subscribe to their 'services'.

One of their nasty little tricks is that they share with their members a database of the reg numbers of vehicles which they claim have been involved in cheating one of their members (such as your daughter's car). According to threads on Reddit this can lead to being blacklisted on member forecourts until the alleged issue is resolved.

Coupon-mad

This needs legislation or incorporating into the Parking Code of Practice as it's really similar.

Copied this post and images I shared, from the linked thread. Complete joke of a firm, apparently connected to UKCPS:

There's insufficient evidence and no contract with ForecourtEye. Game over for them in terms of using small claims to try to dress up alleged theft as if it is a contract law agreement!

Have you all seen their signs?!

I have. They are every bit  as laughable as awwwd Trev Whitehouse's efforts.
Loosely stuck on a pillar seven feet up.
HALF the size of an A4 sheet of paper!


And the £100 doesn't appear on most of these signs. Spotted it in that image? I don't think it's even there. No contract.

Here's the back:

That's placed next to an A4 sheet.

The person who picked that one up off the pavement outside a garage forecourt told me it doesn't even stay stuck on their fridge, let alone to a wall or pillar!

They use poor glue no better than a post-it note, yet these are *supposedly* designed to withstand conditions in polluted and unsheltered outdoor sites.

Looks like someone's created these in their back bedroom.

Yes, some of them do have £100 in 'big' but are so ripped & weather-beaten and the other text so tiny that the terms can't be read.

I saw this one on a trip out & about:



They can't invoke keeper liability either but they pretend they can.

It's like a house of cards. It'll blow over if you as much as sneeze at it! This is best ignored under the circumstances.
Certainly the OP should ignore Trace Debt Recovery when those letters arrive. Nobody engages with them. Very interested to see if Moorside Legal try a court claim.

There's NO CCJ DANGER as long as you don't move house without telling Trace & Forecourt Eye, and come here if you get a claim.

Do not ignore that!
But no paying.

What fun if this goes to Moorside and they use boilerplate POC about the POFA. It would be a classic case for Contestor Legal's 'no win no fee' strike out service.
I'm not surprised that UKCPS is behind all this. Interested to see from the DVLA who requested your data.

pinkerton_angel

Alderbank said:

Lots of filling stations seem to subscribe to their 'services'.

One of their nasty little tricks is that they share with their members a database of the reg numbers of vehicles which they claim have been involved in cheating one of their members (such as your daughter's car). According to threads on Reddit this can lead to being blacklisted on member forecourts until the alleged issue is resolved.

Yes it did say in the letter that the numberplate would be blacklisted.

Half_way

I can do a simple free check on a car, usually for tax/mot status on the dvla site.
this check shows make, model and colour.
I use this to check my MOT and tax due dates.

If i can do this simple check then so called professional company's should be doing so to ensure their data is correct and they are GDPR compliant.
If they are not then hit them with a breach notice and treat it as a breach of GDPR/Data protection and go after them on that basis, and at the same time go after the company that operates the petrol station (usually a franchise and not the brand of the fuel company ie BP )As they are jointly liable for the actions of their agents