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Flyyyte

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Flyyyte last won the day on February 3 2012

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  1. Hopefully you've been able to get this sorted out. Can you update us because you're not the only one encountering problems with Currys returns.
  2. I've already expressed my gratitude to all those who responded to my OP. The advice received was invaluable in helping me determine which way to go, a decision which came down to whether or not I want to bother with Europarks or not. On due consideration, ignoring it seemed inadvisable; there is enough in this situation to infuriate, and even though my time is valuable, my self respect is actually more so. My wife and I have a familiarity with several different aspects of civil Law, though not this particular one (had such been the case, I would never have posted here.) As things stand however, I'll not be posting anything else on CAG unless by way of an update in the event of further developments, the sharing of which news would hopefully be of relevance / benefit to others. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Cumbria, it seems Euro Car parks is on a roll; our (so far minimal) research has turned up this gem, albeit the situation as described there has no resemblance to our own. Still worth a read though for anyone interested in how Euro Carparks is giving every appearance of trying to make its money out of finessing the definition (or trying to finesse the definition) of what is a parked vehicle and what is not: https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/17703804.fury-over-car-park-operation-at-marks-and-spencer-store-in-kendal/
  3. Sincere thanks, ericsbrother, for your post and apologies for this unintentionally belated reply. Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated. I've decided my time is worth too much for me to get into a dispute with this company at this ateg. I've appealed on the basis that their claim is without justification because they have chosen to withhold evidence essential to support of their allegation. I've also put that in writing and sent it as a pdf attachment to the online "appeal", seeing as how they deliberately omit to provide room online for any textual submission, but insist on having attachments" instead. Well, they now have mine. I take your point about their 'generic waffle'. My wife and I regularly shopa t M&S, Penrith, and until that last visit, its car park had been pay-and-stay, with a partial refund being made by the store according to how much you spent. The pay to stay machines had all gone by the time we made that last trip, so we took particular care to find the new notices with their tediously lengthy Terms & Conditions, and are absolutely certain that the free customer [parking limit was 2 hours -- hence, why we made damn sure we were in and out within that time. Euro Car parks is onto a nice little earner if it thinks it can get away with intimidating people into paying it whatever it demands because they live too far from the location to be able to check the Eurocar parks signage. If the company wishes to deny it's running a [problem], then it can tell me that in due course. Meantime, I want the DVLA to explain how come it is endorsing behaviour of this kind. I hadn't had time to redact the documentation but have done so now. It's attached herewith. Protection of Freedoms Schedule 4.pdf
  4. Thanks, everyone, for the prompt responses and advice. Just to clarify -- and many thanks to Mrs O'Frog for posting the advisory link -- the correspondence received from Euro Car Parks is NOT in the guise of a "penalty charge notice". Rather, it is headed: NOTICE TO KEEPER and, further down the page, features a large oblong panel whose boundary is delineated in red ink. Within that panel appears this text: PARKING CHARGE NOTICE AMOUNT DUE: £85.00 Beneath that is the text quoted in my OP incorporating the unsubstantiated accusation that I broke the Terms & Conditions of parking there (but without going into detail as to what those T&Cs actually were.) As lookinforinfo has so accurately discerned, the car park notice which both my wife and myself read and took note of allowed up to 2 hours free parking if you were an M&S customer, which we collectively were. We parked up at 12.19pm and left around 10 minutes short of 2 hours later. I agree with lookinforinfo that the amoeba responsible for trying to make a living out of this kind of 'enforcement' activity are as likely to be incapable of adding up as they are of punctuation, and so I can foresee that the Parking Charge notice was issued in error. Equally though, I can also see how profitable it must be for any unscrupulous business in this sector to deliberately withhold important facts in pro forma monetary demands for breaching signage T&Cs, gambling that as the target might be too far from the specified location and unable to readily return to it, they will therefore pay up. I don't believe the correspondence I've received is entirely unique to me, rather that it is a sample of the stuff winged out by Euro Car Parks to all alleged offenders, the staff responsible for the letter's despatch not having much sense of geography either, but just hoping that there's a lot of miles between the alleged offender's address and the address of the car park where the alleged parking breach occurred so that they won't be able to go back and check what the T&Cs are. I'm not going to undertake at an early date a 40-mile round trip to re-check the signage, particularly as both myself and my wife are entirely clear in our recollection of what it actually said, as is our memory of how we legislated for that in terms of our less-than-2-hours-parking-duration. When we do return, we will -- as lookinforinfo recommends -- seek out the store manager; and be interested to learn (if the information is available) if any /how many other M&S customers have been in touch with the store about the same issue. I don't know why, but my hackles are a bit high at the moment, the nagging thought that there's more to this than just an innocent mistake by an incompetent organisation. I think I'll run a quick google search into local newspapers of recent date, see if anyone else has had a punitive experience at that location -- and, perhaps, paid up: some folks in this part of the world do still write a Letter to The Editor when "outraged" about traffic wardens, parking tickets, and what they describe as "parking fines". Pending that, it seems to me that responding promptly via the so-called Euro Car Parks appeal process to say I don't have any idea what they're talking about or claiming for because of the regrettable absence of relevant fact is the best course to follow -- doing so as much for the record as anything else, seeing as how this outfit would never have bothered me had it not been for a government agency selling my name and address data to it, a point I shall be making to the DVLA in due course. There. Thanks everyone. Looks like I've now just made the decision for myself.
  5. To be blunt, OP, one approach to this horrendous problem of yours is staring you in the face: Helen McCardle. She is the reporter bylined in the Evening Times report (above). The problem faced by many victims of criminal behaviour is that they can't get newspaper publicity of their plight because media works on the basis that if a story is already running, then it's an established fact and can be capitalised upon in future. |If it isn't already running, then maybe it's not a story at all. Remember: the definition of "news" is that which the Editor of one paper thinks the Editor of another paper is going to publish next day. Victims of fraud etc can't 'break through' a newspaper's reluctance to publicise their situation, and are thus so often left with the desperate hope that the unimpressive showbiz offering 'Watchdog' from the BBC is the answer to their ills. It isn't. Watchdog is a national publicity platform and isn't in the habit of going national with the tale of a single individual's experience. Nor does it employ an investigative team to go out and dig up the facts on a case to see if others, elsewhere, have been affected. It waits and waits and waits and maybe one day gets around to actually screening an item that's been under consideration for many a month, though not necessarily to any individual's particular benefit.. Although you don't realise it, you have already got yourself into a strong position thanks to the good luck of the reportage of the Traffic Commissioners. You're attached to a "running story" now . . . one that has broken out through no efforts of your own, and which should be regarded as a horse upon which you should ride forthwith and, hopefully, steer. Don't let it gallop out of sight. You even have the name of a regional newspaper journalist to contact, one already flly acquainted with much of the background and highly likely to be well disposed towards you.. It's also a fact of life that police-follow-Press as much as Press follow what the police are doing. Let the journalists ask the police what they're doing in regard to the investigation and prosecution of this man -- though of course, you're going to have to use your own imagination and resources to locate the items you believe to be "lost", and retrieve them as fast as possible. Do not leave them (assuming they are still there, and haven't already been disposed of) in the hands of that company and its proprietor. Newspaper reports are here today, fish 'n chip wrappings tomorrow. Hopefully there's still time for you to capitalise on the recent media interest in this man and his business by contacting that named journalist as soon as possible. Good luck!
  6. I have, over the years, sympathised with many motorists caught up in the great bounty hunt of private parking penalties. But it never occurred to me that I'd be one of them: so much for naivety /optimism. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went shopping at a Marks & Spencers store some 20 miles away from us. It had a small car park within which customer parking was free for a prescribed period of time. We read the notice in the car park and are convinced we abided by its T&Cs. Wd did not, however, take a photograph of the signage. Today, a preposterous letter has arrived from that pillar of probity, Justice and goodwill to all, Euro Car Parks, saying parking charge notice amount due: £85.00, payment to be made by 22/11/2019. (There's the usual oh-so generous "discount" for paying early: £35 knocked off the bill.) The barely literate accusatory section of the so-called 'Notice' reads as follows: "We are using cameras to capture images of vehicles entering and leaving the car park to calculate their length of stay. The signage, which is clearly displayed at the entrance and throughout the car park, states that this is private land, (sic) the car park is managed by Euro Car Parks and sets out the terms and conditions of the car park by which those who park in the car park agree to be bound. This Parking Charge notice x123456789yz has been issued as the vehicle was in breach of the following terms and conditions: your vehicle was parked longer than the maximum period allowed The vehicle was parked at Marks & Spencer, (location and postcode), by remaining at the car park without authorisation, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the signage, the Parking Charge is now payable to Euro Car parks (as the Creditor). Obviously, I'm not going to pay this bunch of illiterates £85, £50, or anything like it. But I find it hugely irritating that it has sent me a demand for money without any substantiation of claim (other than a couple of fuzzy photographs of my vehicle's number plate). My first thought was that it was laziness /incompetence / stupidity that brought about the omission, whereas I'm now of the opinion that the omission of the actual T&Cs which I'm alleged to have so expensively breached is an act of deliberate withholding, the company's hope being that I will actually live too far from the location to be able to revisit it and check out the signage for myself. Must be a nice little earner, if you're Euro Car Parks, and you can extract sums of money from gullible vulnerable people to whom you have deliberately denied actual evidence of claim, i.e., the specific wording of the T&Cs allegedly breached. Just to clarify: the "Notice" says we parked from 12.19.42 to 14.10.14 on the day/date in question, that duration being longer than the maximum time allowed. I'm not disputing the timing.As can be seen, the duration is less than 2 hours, and as both my wife and I remember from our viewing of the signage, up to 2 hours free parking was granted to Marks & Spencer's customers. (And yes, we have our credit car records as proof of being exactly that). We might, next week, tootle off out into the country again and pop into the store's car park just to refresh our memory. For now though, I'm not about to engage in Proustian discussion with Eurocarparks, but instead appeal the notice on the basis that the claim lacks substantiation. The fact that Eurocar parks thinks it can get away with behaving like this (thank Gawd we don't live 200 miles from the car park in question) is something I might subsequently wish to take up with the DVLA, seeing as how it is as much a profiteer in the civil parking charge recovery racket as any. However, given the fact that the letter-of-claim is unsubstantiated in its most crucial aspect, I'm tempted to file a succinct online appeal pointing out that the company's conduct is unreasonable and unprofessional, and that absent proof of claim, I am not prepared to consider the matter further. (There are 28 days to appeal via eurocarparks.com online form). Question: what would you do? IGNORE . . . Or APPEAL??
  7. Have you been able to get any further in regard to your £36.75p rebate? Top Cashback has given you the runaround, in much the same way it appears to so often treat its users with contempt. This £multi-million company is, in fact, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and appears on the FCA's Financial Services Register as an "Appointed Representative", this being the formal term for its regulatory status as "a firm or individual that can act on behalf of another firm (its principal) that is authorised in the UK or regulated in another EEAA country. The principal is responsible for the appointed representative's activities." [my emphasis] Where you are concerned, you were sold a regulated financial product (home insurance) by a business regulated by the FAC, the essence of sale being that a portion of the money you paid would be rebated to you. As you received no such rebate, you were mis-sold. The mis-selling of any financial product in the UK is taken seriously by the regulatory authorities, as demonstrated by the punitive costs incurred by the banking sector in regard to mis-sold PPI. Though Top Cashback is currently not subject to much greater regulatory oversight -- it certainly should be -- it is, in this instance, unable to avoid the perhaps inconvenient reality that it was, in your case, the Appointed Representative of Nationwide. Please disregard then, any carefully constructed gibberish from Top Cashback and instead file a written complaint with the insurer in its capacity as principal. Your complaint should state the time/date of purchase of the insurance, and the date(s) and content of any subsequent online contact with Top Cashback. Be aware that your complaint must be fact-based. It would not be enough to say that you bought the policy on the basis of the promise extended at that time (by the principal) on its Appointed Representative's (Top Cashback) website. If you have no such proof -- ideally, screenshots of the transaction as it progressed, and at least one screenshot showing Top Cashback's confirmation of your visit -- then your complaint stands almost no chance of being accepted. If, however, you know you can provide supporting evidence of your complaint -- and this is what we're talking about here: your correspondence with Nationwide MUST be headed: "COMPLAINT: Mis-selling of a financial product" -- then you will be seeking from them the sum of £36.75p + a £60 compensatory payment in regard to the stress and inconvenience caused to you. Because you are invoking a complaint in regard to the mis-selling of a financial product, an 8-week period now kicks in, during which time Nationwide must, by Law, accept or reject it or make you a compromise offer (for example, the £36.75p, but not the £60 compensation.) You should know, however, that due to the nature of the complaint, you are entirely at liberty to accept the £36.75p whilst at the same time continuing on with your request for £60 compensation. If after those 8 weeks have expired and you are still not happy with the outcome, you can lodge your complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service. If the FOS decides that your complaint merits further investigation, it will contact Nationwide and require it to pay over a sum amounting to several £100s, this being the non-returnable fee that has to be paid to finance the FOS's inquiries. For obvious reasons then, businesses mindful of their own bottom line are mindful of the money to be saved by settling a complaint before it reaches the FOS. So. There's the answer. Complain, with supporting evidence, to the principal (Nationwide) about the mis-selling of its financial product (home insurance policy) and seek payment of the outstanding rebate and compensation, allow a maximum of 8 weeks to elapse and then if the matter isn't settled, file your complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service. As to Top Cashback, don't believe anything that any of its representatives write or say. Keeping well clear of it. * Apologies for not spotting this post of yours until just now, when I was browsing the forum for something different.
  8. Yes, I'd noticed last year, or perhaps even earlier, a solicitor of the same name as the esteemed Mr Crossley on the books at Rodney Warren's south coast law firm: http://www.rodneywarren.co.uk/our-legal-team/ and thought that the description of their Mr Crossley, as well as the photograph of their Mr Crossley: http://www.rodneywarren.co.uk/our-legal-team/andrew-crossley/ was uncannily reminiscent of the pathetic wreck of a shyster said by his peers to have brought the entire legal profession into disrepute. Given so great an insult to the standing and repute of lawyers everywhere, it was quite clear to me that no law firm with any respect for itself or its clients would ever consider having such a (literally) disreputable character on its books. I concluded, therefore, that the formerly bankrupt Andrew Crossley who specialised in civil litigation designed to intimidate and harass for financial gain is absolutely not the same Andrew Crossley who specialises in Civil Ligation and only has the best interests of his clients, and the larger public, at heart. It's all pure coincidence.
  9. Thanks, blackknight. It's not an issue about the warranty though, but about the point you made: the 'extra level of comfort' for a PCP customer. In this instance, I'm assuming that ownership of the car has passed from the factory gate to the finance company (which is more than likely independent of the manufacturer though trades under the manufacturer's name.) What my relative does NOT want to have to contend with is a faulty vehicle that, though covered by manufacturer warranty, is then off the road for varying periods to be repaired. He's paying a monthly amount for a vehicle to be in his keeping, not a garage's. It's that point which I'm trying to clarify: if in the event that things do go pear-shaped, just what pressure can he exert to ensure he does not have loss of usage / enjoyment etc as a result? Already he's worrying about whether or not the vehicle will be all right. It's not a level of anxiety I'd be prepared to tolerate -- a £25,000 car that's 10 months old and, literally, you don't know if it's going to break down within the next few weeks?? I agree wholeheartedly with you about the Internet complaints though. They can be misread as to how representative they are. That said, there are also God knows how many who don't post on a forum and aren't members of one -- which includes my 75-year-old relative. . .
  10. A family member decided 10 months ago to replace his ageing car with a factory-ordered brand new one. He opted for a PCP deal having first undertaken extensive homework about total interest payable and likely future value etc. Of all the options open to him, the PCP deal together with further incentives he negotiated with the supplying dealership most suited his circumstances. Until recently, he had no cause for complaint. But then the symptoms of one or two faults (or a single inter-related fault) affecting engine and auto transmission became evident. The car has been into the supplying dealership which immediately sought the manufacturer's involvement. Some preliminary work was then undertaken according to the manufacturer's guidance, pending further work which will be carried out two months' hence at its first service. The car, which has one 9,000 miles from new, is said to be perfectly usable until the time of that service and that in any event, anything and everything is covered under the manufacturer's warranty. Fair enough. Except: delving into the Internet to research his car's emergent problems, he has discovered dozens (literally) of posts on motoring forums going back over several years, all of them complaining about the same problem(s) and about the hoops it was necessary to go through to get them fixed. In some cases, the manufacturer replaced the engine and transmission under warranty -- though only at the end of protracted arguments where some consumers were concerned. Also in some cases, the vehicle was off the road for up to a month while those repairs were completed. What isn't clear from any of those Internet posts is whether or not the posters had financed the purchase of the car outright from their own funds; whether it was with a bank loan; whether it was hire purchase; or whether it was a PCP. That actually strikes me as being of crucial importance. Currently, my relative's car is still showing symptoms of inherent faults, albeit those symptoms are now less noticeable than originally. He is resigned to living with them and to abide by the dealership's / manufacturer's guidance. However, he is worrying about what might happen if it turns out that the vehicle becomes unusable due to failure, or if he is ultimately told that it will be out of his possession for a lengthy period due to the possible scale of repairs required. The word 'possession' prompted me to post this query on here, because it seems to me that he doesn't 'possess' the vehicle in a strictly legal sense (i.e., of ownership), rather that he and the manufacturer entered into a contract -- brokered by the supplying dealership -- via which he pays a monthly premium to the manufacturer's finance company and the manufacturer in turn supplies a car fit for purpose and usage. Am I right in thinking that in the event of -- and I must stress: 'in the event of' -- the situation becoming worse and the vehicle failing to perform / being unavailable to him for short periods or an extended period, the essence of the issue here is as more about breach of contract than anything else? Advice appreciated; though things seem to be under control at the moment, it's surely as well to be fore-armed by being forewarned of a consumer's position when it comes to the PCP of a new car and what happens if that car develops problems early in its life. Thanks.
  11. The Grauniad article makes it abundantly clear that the customer registered an Amazon account 14 years ago and has returned 37 items in the past two years. The article also states that the customer has purchased 343 items, though perhaps due to lousy subbing, it isn't clear if that total accrued in the past two years or over the full 14. But that's by-the-by. The key stats are 37 returns in 24 months. Wow. That's some going. I've been a registered Amazon customer since 2002. I have no idea how many items I've purchased in that time -- many, many hundreds -- but I do know I've had legitimate cause to return four. 4 returns in 168 months. I've also been a registered eBayer since 2001, buying and selling hundreds of items in those 15 years. In that time I've found it necessary to give just one neg and to return just three items. I don't count myself as being extraordinarily lucky with my purchases. Rather, I reckon I'm just an average Amazon customer / eBay member. Where the allegedly vexatious Amazon customer is concerned, this individual is either the unluckiest individual there's ever been, or her / his transactional expectations have been consistently unreal. If I was running a pub and the same customer kept coming in to order a beer, taste it, and then rejecting it because it wasn't any good, I'd ban that individual from ever entering my premises again: I'm running a pub, not a product research laboratory set up for the benefit of someone on a free ride. Where eBay is concerned, those who sell on it can be as good, bad or ugly as those who sell on Amazon -- or on any street market, anywhere, seeing as how the latter are the real-world forerunner of both. Nowadays I actually use eBay more than Amazon, because unless I'm after the back-up to be derived from a purchase that's direct from Amazon or Fulfilled by Amazon then it's plain daft to fall for Amazon's £20 order minimum when an easy cross-check of the item on side by side browser pages will show that the same Amazon seller is also on eBay, selling the same item most usually (a) for less and, even more significantly (b) post free. One of the things most noticeable, back in the days of eBay's help-each-other forums -- killed off by eBay on the obvious though unstated grounds that it exists to take commission, not criticism -- was the sheer number of buyers who really shouldn't be let out on their own: failure to read a listing; failure to research a seller's ID history, location, and feedback record; failure to take even the most elementary self-protection. There's no reason to think that type of buyer has vanished. What surprises me about this thread is that some posters seem to regard buying from an Amazon seller as the same as buying from Amazon. Of course it isn't. Rather, it's the exact same as buying from an eBay seller, the only difference being that you can't, ever, buy anything from eBay anyway; you can only buy on eBay. As for Amazon's banned customer, his Amazon vouchers are void because his customer account is void. He may well have a legitimate argument in regard to that aspect but as the Grauniad article fails to state the amount involved here -- a fiver? Or £50? -- then who knows the scale of loss? It's up to him to take action for recovery. Whether or not he goes through 37 different law firms over the next 24 months will, of course, be his decision .
  12. Honeybee: Sincere thanks again for the LiP information. I've now browsed this site and noted a number of helpful references. I've copied / pasted text into Word docs where appropriate as well as screencaptured other items. Finally, I've followed various links to other reference resources including Law articles, Form N260, and the Bar Council Guide to self representation. I tend to work quickly so am hoping I've not missed too much on this initial LiP foray; I'll have more time tonight to re-read in more detail. The sheer volume of helpful information here continues to astonish and I've been happy to make a small donation just now, a fraction of the amount any Law firm would've required. I've also -- now that I've read Form N260 -- made an exact note of research time spent here, that is, the period from the time of my last post to the time of this. Armed, now, with knowledge I clearly lacked hitherto, I shall put further thoughts of civil action on hold, and wait to see what emerges in the course of the handling of my formal complaint. Once again: my sincere thanks to you, Good Sister and BazzaS.
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