Euro Car Parks / DCBL - Notice of Discontinuance

ctutrainman

Hi all, thought I'd give a summary of my story after following all the very useful advice on the threads in here.

Anyhow:

December 2021: Alleged breach of car parking at a Euro car park

December 2021-January 2022: Various letters of demands for £100 PCN - ignored

January 2022-April 2022: Various letters of demands from Debt Recovery Plus for £170 - ignored. Abigale Wheeler (Collections Manager) and Andrew Hunt (Legal Manager) clearly are very busy people.

December 2024-February 2025 - Various letters of demands from DCBL (Debt Collection Bailiffs Ltd.) for £170 - ignored. Kim Heaton (Collections Manager) is another very busy person.

March 2025 - Letter of claim issued by DCBLegal - reply form sent as per wording on thread. Sarah Ensali (Head of Bulk Litigation) must be another very busy person.

April 2025 - Claim form received from CNBC - £303.64. Acknowledgement of service completed via MCOL.

May 2025: Defence submitted - as per general defence wording examples.

June 2025: Email from DCBLegal stating that they intend to proceed with the claim. Early copy directions questionnaire received. Offered to settle - ignored.

July 2025: Form N180 directions questionnaire completed and sent.

August 2025: Mediation telephone appointment confirmed for September 2025.

September 2025: Mediation appointment - alas no agreement reached. The claim was for £303.64, they offered to reduce this to £243. I offered £0. They offered to reduce to £183. I offered £10. Alas, no settlement. It's a shame they didn't take to my generosity.

October 2025: Notice of transfer to my preferred court.

February 2026: Court hearing date scheduled for April 2026. Witness statements to be completed by mid-March 2026. Trial fee to be paid by claimant by early March 2026.

End of February 2026: Notice of discontinuance received from DCBLegal.

I am genuinely astounded by the amount of hours and input that has gone into this. The amount of money being made by these businesses trying to extort and intimidate people by fake and hyped up letters is unbelievable. What also shocks me is the amount of court admin time that must also be going into these claims, which get ultimately discontinued. Something needs to change. I hope my timeline and NoD helps with this in a small way!

Anyhow… current back at the start of this process with another parking firm. Lets see how we go. Many thanks to everyone for posting advice and help, and for my faith in the process holding out!

Gr1pr

well done, but needs a redacted picture of the N279 document

yet another one for the thread of shame, calling @Umkomaas

ctutrainman

NoD screenshot shown now hopefully!

ctutrainman

Oh and lastly, I had weekly (iPhone highlighted suspected scam) phone calls and recorded automated emails from DCBLegal throughout the back half of last year. These ramped up, especially with a court date set. All ignored, no call backs.

Coupon-mad

Yay! 😃

You won, as predicted but still a relief.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

Your timeline is the same or similar to the circa 800 discontinued examples in the DCB Legal thread of shame by @Umkomaas.

Something needs to change. I hope my timeline and NoD helps with this in a small way!

I hope so too.

I will show this and Umkomaas' thread to the MHCLG this week.

We see you, DCB Legal.

In our experience, Umkomaas' thread of discontinuances demonstrates evidence of a deliberate, proven MO in EVERY SINGLE CLAIM WE'VE SEEN that they have filed for ECP, UKPC, Smart Parking, Group Nexus, Parkmaven, ParkingEye and others who have signed up for this contract, which wastes court time massively.

This has been going in for years.

We have seen zero hearings for those operators when it's DCB Legal running their little game.

Given DCB Legal issue around 10% of all small claims, and in most cases (the only exceptions being TCP, Excel and VCS) they show no intention whatsoever, to reach hearings, why hasn't the MoJ stopped this abuse yet?

The statutory Code won't even touch this and the SRA won't look at it because - even though we know some legal firms are fronting the court filing fees and handling cases as if the Claim was their own, with IMHO far too close monetary vested interests - champerty & maintenance isn't illegal any more.

And DCB would merely say they are 'following instructions by the parking operator' so the SRA do nothing and the law firm completely evades any scrutiny.

Shocking abuse of court, IMHO.

Only in Britain would this be supported by a taxpayer funded, Claimant-favouring system.

Umkomaas

Thank you @ctutrainman for the copy of your NoD . I can now get this counted in the DCBL Legal thread of shame. 👍