Trolling/Taking down Moorside

SayNoToPCOs

Hi all

Being proud of my thus far 100% success rate against these cretins I'm happy to expend some more time making the crooks at Moorside's lives that bit more difficult.

Recently in receipt of this absolute howler of a 'Letter Before Action' - truly the pinnacle of low-effort mass automated mail-merge letters masquerading as formal legal correspondence.

And that's it! Beyond my address, car registration number and the name of their scummy client, there's no setting out of the particulars of the alleged parking contravention, no establishment of what contractual terms I was allegedly in breach of, nothing! So naturally I've responded with the derision this deserves and asked them to either send an LBC that at least vaguely adheres to pre-action protocols or to sod off.

Given my loathing of these vultures, I've decided to take the fight to the SRA to lodge a formal complaint against their sorry excuse for a "law firm" and personally against their Principal Solicitor / Compliance Officer for Legal Practice. My partner is a solicitor and reliably informs me that any level of SRA investigation is a thoroughly unpleasant experience so I'm only too happy to have them poke their noses into this scammy little operation.

These are the particulars of my complaint thus far:

Named solicitor acts as Principal Solicitor and Compliance Officer for Legal Practice for Moorside Legal Services Ltd. Moorside Legal act as a glorified debt collection agency indulging in dubious legal practices on behalf of Parking Operator Companies, using their SRA registration as a cudgel to wield to lend credence and additional weight to their often meritless, boilerplate mail-merged letters. These are sent to alleged debtors to intimidate members of the public who may be less aware of their legal rights and potential defence into paying often spurious charges under threat of CCJs and additional fees.

Moorside Legal send out generic, minimal effort, automatically generated ‘Letter Before Claim’ documents that contain virtually none of the details specified in the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. I allege that this is a deliberate effort to a) minimise the effort involved on their behalf and b) to deny giving recipients the information required to make an informed decision as to whether they accept the debt being alleged as owed, therefore relying on intimidation and threat of court action to obtain payment by coercion.

As Principal Solicitor / COLP for Moorside Legal, the named solicitor should be aware of the content of Moorside’s standard letters so is either complicit or incompetent.

Moorside Legal make misleading claims in their correspondence in an effort to intimidate recipients into paying to make them go away rather than challenge the debt in court.

Note the misleading claims in the Letter Before Claim made in relation to a potential County Court Claim, including the incorrect assumption that ‘legal costs’ can be added to the balance. As COLP, the named solicitor will be aware that ‘legal’ costs are generally not awarded via the Small Claims track except in cases where the losing party has acted ‘unreasonably’ and that very limited costs can be added to the original debt. To a layperson, this statement implies that full legal costs (reasonably assumed by most members of the public to run to the hundreds of pounds) would be awarded.

Also note the threat against the recipient’s credit rating should a CCJ be awarded. Again, this is misleading as this would only be the result if the debtor failed to pay the CCJ within 30 days. Again, the intention here is clearly to mislead the layperson and intimidate them into paying something they might otherwise challenge.

Moorside Legal add “debt recovery” fees to the balances of alleged debtors. This £70 charge is included in the total balance and has no basis in UK law, being simply the limit imposed by the various Parking Operating Companies’ regulatory bodies such as the IPC and POPLA.

Adding this fee to the balance implies that it would form part of any potential judgement, when in fact this would be tossed out by a judge as not forming part of the original debt, and any additional costs due to the claimant would be limited to the standard Small Claims Track costs.

As Principal Solicitor / COLP, the named solicitor will be aware of the relevant case law and that the £70 ‘debt recovery’ fee would almost certainly be dismissed in court. Therefore they are either incompetent by virtue of not being aware of the case law or not being aware of the charges they are pursuing on behalf of their clients, or are complicit in efforts to charge fees to which they are not legally entitled to the recipients of these letters.

Moorside Legal’s persistent correspondence including multiple letters, text messages and invalid Letters Before Claim in pursuit of alleged debts that are contested, and that the company knows are likely not enforceable, and likely has no intent of seeing through to County Court action as their cases are so thin and poorly constructed they would likely be dismissed without a hearing, can reasonably considered harassment under the precedent set in Ferguson vs British Gas Trading Ltd [2009]. 

This debt collector brings the SRA into disrepute by so visibly using their SRA registration on their poorly constructed legal documentation.

Per the attached Letter Before Claim, the SRA is mentioned prominently at the beginning of the letter. This is clearly an attempt to use their SRA registration to lend credence to an otherwise very poorly constructed legal document. The SRA should be challenging being used in this way and being associated with such poor practice.

My case will be one of thousands from this company, considering their position as a bulk litigant in a poorly regulated industry, and this would serve as a useful case for the SRA to make an example of a ‘law firm’ and encourage better practice and protect the public.

If anyone else has other examples of such poorly constructed boilerplate correspondence being sent by Moorside, please do upload it and I'll append it to my complaint as further evidence of incompetence and malicious intent.

Coupon-mad

Given my loathing of these vultures, I've decided to take the fight to the SRA to lodge a formal complaint against their sorry excuse for a "law firm" and personally against their Principal Solicitor / Compliance Officer for Legal Practice. My partner is a solicitor and reliably informs me that any level of SRA investigation is a thoroughly unpleasant experience so I'm only too happy to have them poke their noses into this scammy little operation.

Brilliant!

More people should attack the scam like you.

ChirpyChicken

Gotta love it

BikingBud

I would suggest it is not to "encourage" but to enforce better b practices.

Top job 🤩

1505grandad

"Moorside Legal add “debt recovery” fees to the balances of alleged debtors. This £70 charge is included in the total balance and has no basis in UK law, being simply the limit imposed by the various Parking Operating Companies’ regulatory bodies such as the IPC and POPLA."

An observation  -  should POPLA be BPA?

Coupon-mad

Also they aren't regulatory bodies.

chrisw

Many of the defences depend on the inadequacies of the legal bodies. If they are forced to up their game, wouldn't this lead to less opportunities to get the cases dismissed?

James_Poisson

"This £70 charge is included in the total balance and has no basis in UK law, being simply the limit imposed by the various Parking Operating Companies’ regulatory bodies such as the IPC and POPLA".

This should be changed it simply isn't true, they are nothing more than approved trade clubs not "regulatory bodies", the latter would infer that they could include the £70 charge if they had authority but they don't. 

Their COP is just made up as a guide to suite their agenda to favour wherever possible their paying members.

Coupon-mad

chrisw said:

Many of the defences depend on the inadequacies of the legal bodies. If they are forced to up their game, wouldn't this lead to less opportunities to get the cases dismissed?

Fewer opportunities if they did up their game. But IMHO they aren't capable if it.

Car1980

My partner is a solicitor and reliably informs me that any level of SRA investigation is a thoroughly unpleasant experience 

I presume your partner is going to reply on their headed paper and make a number of demands under the PAPs?

Finding out that they are threatening to sue a represented person will surprise them.

doubledotcom

Every one of their LoCs are identical. They are so easy to beat. Just had a Moorside claim thrown out because of their pathetic PoC which NEVER comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) and I am now guiding the defendant through a costs order for their unreasonable behaviour.