BW Legal Letter of Claim (Newcastle Airport)

jonnnn12 · 18 November 2018 at 1:17PM

Hello

I have received a letter of claim from BW Legal, on behalf of UKPPO Ltd, stating that I need to pay £160 for a parking fine by 8 December or they will issue a claim against me in the County Court.

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle but not the driver (when the so-called contravention took place).
The alleged contravention took place in February 2018. Since then i have received letters from UKPPO, then from a debt recovery agent, and now from BW Legal.

The alleged contravention is 6.3 - Parking in prohibited area (i believe this is a byelaw of the newcastle airport, however it is publicly accessible road to everyone). The driver dropped someone off at the barrier of the Hilton hotel next to Newcastle airport (it was a matter of seconds), then they reversed away from the hotel barrier and drove away.

They are stating that if it goes to County court, i will be liable for the following:-
Principal Debt + Initial Legal Costs = £160.00
Estimated Interest = £5.52
Estimated Court Fees = £25.00
Estimated Solicitors costs = £50.00
Estimated Total = £240.52

The initial parking charge was £60 and then became £100 after i failed to pay it.
They say that the £60 extra (on top of the £100) is due to Total Debt Recovery costs,

Please can you give me some advice as to what my next steps should be?

Thankyou
Jon

KeithP · 18 November 2018 at 11:12PM

You need to respond to that Letter of Claim.

Please read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread for suggestions on how you might do that.

Coupon-mad · 20 November 2018 at 2:26AM

But no template please, forget those.

Just send a SAR to the parking firm, and a holding letter to the solicitor - as per all the other LBC threads during November.

PLEASE PLEASE no template reply from the NEWBIES thread (I can't edit it yet).

jonathanhudson1980 · 20 November 2018 at 9:58AM

Hello sorry to jump on this thread but I am in almost exactly the same situation.

The only difference being that my alleged contravention took place in Nov 2015.
Excuse my ignorance but what is a SAR please and where do I find copies of this and the holding letter to the solicitor ?

Thanks for any help in advance.

The_Deep · 20 November 2018 at 10:07AM

£240 is more than the law allows, they are trying to scam you into paying monies to which they/their client is not entitled. They know this but keep adding on scam casrges.

Even if they won in court, the most a judge is likely to award them is iro £175 - £200, the rest is low-rent solicitor scam money. Report them to their regulatory body, the SRA, for claiming for costs they know are not allowed.

http://www.sra.org.uk/home/home.page

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. It has even been suggested that some of these companies have links with organised crime.

Watch the video of the Second Reading and committee stage in the House of Commons recently. MPs have a very low opinion of this industry.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSitting)

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by in the not too distant future..

Coupon-mad · 21 November 2018 at 3:01AM

jonathanhudson1980 wrote: »

Hello sorry to jump on this thread but I am in almost exactly the same situation.

The only difference being that my alleged contravention took place in Nov 2015.
Excuse my ignorance but what is a SAR please and where do I find copies of this and the holding letter to the solicitor ?

By looking at other LBC threads. Anyone can write a ''holding letter''. This is NOT about templates.

Google SAR or read the NEWBIE FAQS thread (no link, see my signature).

No replies here as it's unfair on jonnnn12. This is his thread, about his case.

jonnnn12 · 21 November 2018 at 8:08PM

Thanks for your advice. I have requested an SAR from UKPPO. I will write a holding letter to BW Legal.

However, UKPPO have just responded asking for proof of ID (passport, driving licence, utility bill). They have also enclosed a letter which explains it more but the letter is addressed to a completely different person and different address.

I believe that they have made a DPA error by supplying me with someone else's name and address.

Can I use this in some way?

Thanks
Jon

Coupon-mad · 23 November 2018 at 2:06AM

Absolutely!

Send an online data concern complaint to the Information Commissioners Office, saying two things:

1. This scumbag PPC delayed a SAR request by unreasonably demanding excessive ID data from you (passport, driving licence, utility bill) when they already have more than sufficient evidence to know who you are, from the DVLA registered keeper enquiry they already made.

and

2. Scumbag PPC also enclosed a letter which is addressed to a completely different person and different address!

and

3. Scumbag PPC make it very difficult to appeal or complain to their Trade Body because the so-called IAS is anything but independent. You have concerns about their data sharing, because the IAS has conflicts of interest and should not be an approved ADR at all, being run by the IPC Trade Body who also have connections with Directors of Gladstones Solicitors, who start court claims for this parking firm. A vicious circle of incestuous connections that make any data provided for appeal unsafe, as it will also be used against the appellant by Gladstones. So no attempt at appeal to this Parking firm then the anonymous 'IAS', has any hope whatsoever and the data processing leaves much to be desired. The IPC watered down their Code of Practice once they got DVLA approval 4 years ago (demonstrated by the Parking Prankster's careful Blogs showing the Code of Practice points removed). And UKPPO and the IPC refuse to provide a complaints email address - in fact there is no easy way to contact that Trade Body without 'registering' a shedload of data about yourself in order to break through their wall of silence.

Upload proof of all that, to the ICO and sit back and see what happens.

The ICO take ages so it won't be quick (and they won't get the PCN cancelled, I doubt) but all complaints are good and add up, to a huge mountain we are trying to create so the ICO start sniffing around parking firms in a more focussed way, as they will begin to see the pattern of data abuse, ANPR flaws and 24/7 excessive use, GDPR breaches and general scamming.

Hopefully the ICO might start breathing down the necks of some of the worst perpetrators in 2019 and even better, banning them from getting DVLA data or suspending their ability to use ANPR. Even if that happened to just one PPC, we would all laugh for ages about it!

jonnnn12 · 2 December 2018 at 5:18PM

Thanks for your advice

I have sent a complaint to ICO.
I have also received data from UKPPO following a SAR request, it just consisted of print screens from their computer system and some photos that i can barely see.
So I have told them that this is substandard and need to see proper photographs.

I have also been advised to ask the DVLA the reason they released my information and the date it was requested.

I have asked BW Legal to pause the process for 30 days. They haven't replied. I emailed them again and they have again failed to reply.
Is this normal?
Should i presume that they are not pausing the process?
Just i have until 8 December to send a reply to them refuting their PCN

Regards
Jon

Fruitcake · 2 December 2018 at 5:32PM

I doubt BW will respond or delay proceedings. It's quite likely they won't even read your emails, or may just ignore them and bulldoze on hoping you will crumble and pay.

Keep up the complaints. The ICO have said that asking for photo ID is unreasonable as the scammers have nothing to compare it to.
They also say that asking for extra ID when they already have an existing relationship with you is unreasonable, as already advised by C-m.

I believe the SAR request linked form the NEWBIES is quite detailed, and the scammers should respond to every point you make.
For example, if you ask what countries the data is held in, they must respond, etcetera.
Complain to the ICO about each and every point where they have failed to respond.

jonnnn12 · 16 February 2019 at 4:59PM

Hi I just received a County Court Claim form and I need to respond within a couple of weeks.
Can anyone help me with this? What is my best line of defence?

Regards
Jonnnn12

BW Legal Letter of Claim (Newcastle Airport)

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