Hello all

i too have been stopped at a shop for shoplifting

(it is very stupid of me and i do regret it)

and i have undergone the as before mentioned procedures.

i was told i'll be receiving a letter by RLP to pay a fine and i'm currently waiting on this letter.

i have read on this forum a lot that i should ignore the RLP fine,

however i would like to know how people on this forum know about the lack of significance of RLP.

It has been reassuring, but I would like further reassurance.

I am very worried about my CRB record as i have had no criminal history before,

and i would like further information about why RLP should be ignored,

and why the shop that i have shoplifted from won't call the police after

i have been taken to the back and warned etc.

Many thanks

Hi Pilau

I have created a new thread for your own particular case rather than adding it to somebody else's - it will be seen by more people that way

Would you like to tell us more? Who was the retailer? What were the circumstances? Were the police called?

One thing to say is that providing the police were not called, there is no chance whatsoever of this appearing on a CRB (VBS) check

The option for the police to be called existed at the time of the incident - the fact that they chose not to means that the police will not now be involved. RLP are not the police and have no involvement with the police. They cannot take you to court - only the retailer can do that, and in passing it to RLP they have now concluded their involvement.

RLP will write and tell you that their 'client' reserves the right to issue civil (not criminal) proceedings, but they are most unlikely to do so. The last time that one of RLP's clients took such action having been persuaded to by RLP, the judge threw the case out and seriously criticised RLP's business model.

They will demand money, stamp their feet - they will then get a debt collector to write to you hoping that this forces you to pay, but after that they will almost certainly stop writing.

Thank you very much sidewinder, i was trying to make a new post myself but i am new to this website so i didn't know how, you were very helpful!

I don't want to give too much away as i have heard RLP are monitoring this website,

but it was primark and i was stopped as i left the shop,

taken to the office,

asked to empty my bag and show all the goods.

i am over 18. I didn't speak to any primark staff in regards to this,

as the security team stopped me and took me to the office,

which i believe are employed by a different company.

so the security guards took my driving licence and i'm sure photocopied it

(one member left the room with it) and told me i'll be having to pay a fine

(which i understand people here refer to as a "speculative invoice")

and if i pay that fine then no further action will be taken.

I understand the CAG team and community strongly discourage paying this fine,

however i would like to know if you have any legal background in this matter

and what the certainty of RLP only giving empty threats are.

I apologise if i am coming off as not trusting but i am just very anxious and worried and curious.

Could you tell me what you recommend I do once the letter comes?

Thank you

Pilalu

edit: i got my driving licence back

Thanks for clarifying. Google will give you a multitude of links to RLP's practices and the legal perspective on their claims, and within this forum there are many many cases such as yours.As CAG is a self-help site rather than one which provides specific legal advice, nobody advertises their legal qualification or otherwise, so it is always wise to double check where possible, and to seek independent legal advice if you deem it necessary.

The most important thing to read however at this stage is known as the 'Oxford Case' where RLP persuaded their client (a high street retailer) to issue proceedings to recover the amount demanded in their speculative invoice. The judge in that case determined that the claim was without foundation as the claim was for significant disruption to the business and for diverting staff from their normal duties, however the staff were carrying out their 'normal duties' in apprehending a shoplifter, and that the amount of £137.50 claimed was plucked from thin air and was in no way a reflection of any cost to the retailer. It is also worth pointing out that of the hundreds of thousands of demands sent out, only a minute percentage have gone to court, and even fewer where the case was defended. The Oxford Case, whilst it did not set a binding precedent, is a persuasive argument, and due to this, any client of RLP would be very nervous of putting themselves in a similarly embarrassing - and expensive - position.

http://www.farrarsbuilding.co.uk/latestDetail.php?A-Retailer-v-Ms-B-and-Ms-K-Oxford-County-Court-9-May-2012-99

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?356933-Oxford-Retail-Loss-Prevention-A-Retailer

Of all the threads below this one in the forum, not one person has returned to say that having failed to pay RLP, proceedings were issued. In fact all that has happened is that RLP write a series of 4-5 letters, getting increasingly desperate in tone, and making wildly exaggerated threats about legal action, CAG being a bunch of layabout criminals, and your failure to engage in pre-action protocols. After passing details to one of the lowest debt collectors in the business and still getting no payment, RLP will then tell you that they are recommending that their client issues proceedings for the full amount, and they then move onto the next victim to leave you free from further dealings with them. Yes RLP do monitor the forum and make efforts to try and identify people from what is written and to then tell them that they are making serious mistakes in listening to our advice.

For the record, we at CAG most certainly do not condone shoplifting - you have done a very silly thing, and hopefully will have learned enough to not repeat this event. If not, then the next time could result in police attendance and a criminal prosecution. Our position is that this is the correct procedure for retailers to follow, and that there is no place in the justice system for a private company to profit in this way, or for that company to harass and pressurise people in the way that they do - with some being vulnerable people or minors incapable of understanding their situation. Some are also purely the victims of innocent mistakes.

We understand that the whole process can be intimidating, and that there is an inclination to simply pay up to make it go away, but quite honestly that just serves to legitimise their actions, and the only way to deal with unethical bullies such as these is to not play their game. Cut of their source of income and stand up to them!

So, our advice is simple. Either completely ignore any letter that you are sent, or send a simple response stating that any liability t RLP or any company that they claim to represent is denied. Any more than this and they will

Hi pilalu

A comprehensive answer from Sidewinder, just to add, in the past RLP have referred to the 'Magna Carta' the year 1215 in their speculative invoices.

Please don't pay, RLP have no more legal right to any sum than I do, you wouldnt pay me if I wrote to you asking for money would you ?

RLP whole legal basis for claiming any sum is based on the flimsiest of law, when properally examined as the Judge did in Oxford then it was found nothing was owing..full stop..the proper way for any company pursuing sums is to have full judicial scrutiny, any company that seeks to avoid this such as RLP and various others (ACS Law springs to mind) is simply hoping that by sending a few letters with legal tersm that peoplke will be scared into paying up.

Whilst many here do not have full legal qualifications many of us have been very succesful in court actions, I myself have faced my landlord, solicitors and even counsel yet have been 100% successful and have been awarded thousands of pounds and denied my incompentant landlord several thousand.

Thank you sidewinder, rebell11 and Andy, i appreciate it.

RLP will then tell you that they are recommending that their client issues proceedings for the full amount, and they then move onto the next victim to leave you free from further dealings with them.

just to clarify, the whole point of this oxford case and such is that primark will ignore RLP's recommendation to prosecute me and just let me go?

also is there any chance of primark retrospectively reporting me to the police on my attempted shoplifting (without going through the hassle of taking me to court and making me pay however much rlp want me to)? Because the thought of this has worried me a lot too and it affecting my CRB report.

of course, i do completely regret the act and it was completely stupid and i won't do it again!

Thank you very much.

You are getting confused here.

There is no risk of prosecution, that part (Criminal) is over with.

RLP work on a completely civil basis, they have no connection with criminal courts.

Criminal courts are there to proseciute people for crimes, civil court are sperate and are for people claiming debts, etc.

There is no debt, RLP are simply claiming that your actions caused a loss to their client, but this has no legal basis, the Judge in Oxford looked into this in greatr detail and awarded RLP/The Store £0 and questioned the legal basis for the claim and also how the amount was calculated.

If there was no police involvement there will be nothing on any CRB record, in any event CRB checks are there to protect yound people from sexual offenders, petty unrelated crimes even if reported would most likely be ignored, stop worrying.

In any event, paying RLP would make no difference to anything, you'd just be £145 worse off !

There are different crininal security checks such as SC/DV level but unless you are applying to work in security related jobs these are not worth thinking about.

Hi

I did a search last year regarding prosecutions by Primark and found precisely none!

RLP don't want you to know this. If you went on to the RLP website and looked at the case 'they' have taken to court, the last one was in July 2012. I say 'they' as RLP do not take anyone to court. Only the wronged party-the store can do so.

The letters you will receive are designed purposely to be intimidatory by nature and (in my opinion) are just this side of being lawful. I would love to see the letters scrutinised by a barrister or judge to see what they say.

It appears to me that RLP's implication that they are working for or have some sort of connection with the criminal justice system (i.e the 'initially agreed with APCO' quote) is deliberatly misleading and only used to scare recipients of their letters into paying up in what is clearly a purely civil matter.

It appears to me that RLP's implication that they are working for or have some sort of connection with the criminal justice system (i.e the 'initially agreed with APCO' quote) is deliberatly misleading and only used to scare recipients of their letters into paying up in what is clearly a purely civil matter.

I remember reading a while back that ACPO demanded RLP remove references to them after they realised what RLPs modus operandi was.

Edit: From Hansard. 22nd March 2011

The company has also clearly misrepresented the position. Until last November, RLP’s website stated that “we have established operating procedures for Civil Recovery and agreed guidelines with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS)”.

However, in October last year, the assistant chief constable who leads on retail crime for ACPO wrote to Jackie Lambert at RLP stating:

“Whilst there may have been agreements in the past about exchanging data and operating civil recovery with ACPO…there are no such agreements in place now and indeed on several occasions over the last few years I and my colleagues have asked that such references be deleted. Please remove from your website any and all references which state or imply that RLP operates its civil recovery in agreement or cooperation with the Police Service. Clearly if you have an agreement with an individual force you could make reference to that, but I know of none.”

In November last year, ACPOS said:

“At no time have ACPOS entered into any formal agreement with RLP or assisted them in any civil recovery”.

Also Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) have published many reports on companies such as RLP and how they operate, worth Goggling.

You keep saying RLP's "fine", it is not a fine,

a criminal court imposes fines after you have been found guilty of a criminal offence.

Councils and other authorities can impose "penalties" and RLP can do neither.

They will wrap their demand up in all sorts of legalese,

try and convice you of a moral duty to pay them (why??)

and threaten you with all sorts of consequences that are little more than blackmail.

The best thing you can do if you get letters from them is to keep them filed somewhere but ignore them.

The circumstances of these demands are all the same so you might think that RLP

have some input to the security of the stores they claim to be acting on behalf of,

they dont, they just charge the stores to sign up and then keep the money they recover

from the invoices they send out.

By the way,

the Association of Chief Police Officers is registered as a private members club.

They have no legal powers but use their position as a pressure group

Oh right! I see.

So the fact is that I will not receive any punishment for not paying the invoice, criminal or civil?

And will the debt collectors actually come to me for the payment???

I appreciate everything everybody is contributing to me. You all may have saved me upwards of £100, and more importantly, plenty of stress.

Out of curiousity, has anybody on CAG said that they paid the invoice? if so what was the result?

Thank you again.

Pilalu

Out of curiousity, has anybody on CAG said that they paid the invoice? if so what was the result?

Not exactly the same, but in another thread, someone paid up to DWF and then promptly got further demands for £1000 - See: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?412795-DWF-and-Sainsburys-slightly-different-problem-to-everyone-else

If you pay, you get tagged as a "sucker" and could become the target of further spurious and questionable claims for cash payments. Please have a read of Jessica's Story - Then look at Ms Lambert's demands with fresh eyes.

Oh right! I see.

 

So the fact is that I will not receive any punishment for not paying the invoice, criminal or civil?

And will the debt collectors actually come to me for the payment???

 

I appreciate everything everybody is contributing to me. You all may have saved me upwards of £100, and more importantly, plenty of stress.

 

Out of curiousity, has anybody on CAG said that they paid the invoice? if so what was the result?

 

Thank you again.

Pilalu

There is no punishment for paying the invoice as its not legally owing untill such time as a court has decided it is, even then you would simply be given an opportunity to pay and if not a CCJ issued and then possible enforcement, but that won't happen as RLP have no intention of going near a court again. Does their lack of action imply that they have no confidence of winning ?, thats upto you to decide

Debt collectors normally just write a few times, occassionally they will say they will visit but this is very rare as it would normally cost more to visit individuals, in any event, they have no more powers than you or I, all they can do is ask for the money and thats it.

If any dca comes to your home, tell them in any way you like where they can go.

Im a fan of a bucket of water out of an upstairs window or letting my dogs roam the garden.

Hello CAG.

A few weeks ago

I have had a problem where I had been stopped at primark for shoplifting,

and i have asked some questions on my previous post which can be found on my account page

(I'd attach a link but I do not have enough post counts)

The letter says that time is taken in advising police,

however in the thread above i was told the police were not involved at all.

citizensadvice (DOT) org (DOT) uk/uncivil_recovery (DOT) pdf

Sorry about the format of the link, but i do not have a high enough post count.

However, in this document, at the bottom of page 18 it is said that.

"Many demand letters from RLP have stated that

“the personal information that we hold [on you]” will now be

“held on a national database of civil recovery incidents”

that

“may be used in the prevention of crime and detection of offenders

including verifying details on financial and employment application forms”.

In correspondence with Citizens Advice,

RLP has stated that it does

“not operate the database to obtain payment of [demands]”.

However, it is clear from some CAB-reported cases that fear of being included on the database

was a key factor in a decision to pay the sum demanded,

especially where the recipient was a young teenager.

In fact, such money was paid in vain,

as RLP has recently confirmed that a person’s name is added to its database even if the sum "

Just to clarify,

the police were not called to the incident,

but does that not matter,

meaning my name is now on this database?

And would primark have called the police after I left?

I understand these questions may be repeating from before but I have been left very confused.

Thank you

Pilalu

uncivil_recovery.pdf

Ignore them. The only database you will be on is rlps database of potential victims. Jackie loves to mislead you so youll be scared into paying her demands.

That letter is also a bog standard one she sends out. Have a good laugh at her and get on with your life.

two threads merged

please keep to one thread

RLP nor their database can harm you in anyway.

ignore them totally

forget the whole episode

and get on with your life.

dx

Sorry dx, i apologise for that.

Having got my own letter (the one i mentioned before isn't my own), "time is taken in advising police" is not mentioned

my letter is quite different to the one i read, meaning have rlp written a special letter for me rather than the bog standard one renegadeimp has spoken about?

The letter i received has mentioned the law quite a lot. it justifies that i have to pay rlp the sum of money.

would I get in trouble if I don't pay them?

What are rlp entitled to do to me if i don't pay?

Will they do that?

Thank you

Will I actually go to county court / county court judgement?

pilalu

Read all of the replies you have had in this thread....all of the answers have already been given.

As dx says, forget it and move on with your life.

However in this thread I've been told that there is no legal backbone to the money they want me to pay, yet the letter makes it evident that there is.

This has made me very confused, so i apologise for any repetition.

However in this thread I've been told that there is no legal backbone to the money they want me to pay, yet the letter makes it evident that there is.

The letter, assuming it is the same as the others RLP send out, will suggest that there may be grounds for the "claim". However, this has been tested in court (see the Oxford case) and the basis has been found to be groundless at best.If you are still in doubt, scan the letter and post it here - We can then pull apart the claims and show it for the hogwash it is.

However in this thread I've been told that there is no legal backbone to the money they want me to pay, yet the letter makes it evident that there is.

 

This has made me very confused, so i apologise for any repetition.

There is no legal backbone for a claim from them. She is trying to trick you into paying. jackie is a very very shady woman who will do anything to get money from you. Ignore her and she'll run away. She always does. Please. Believe the advice you are being given from people that know what she's like. Stop believing the person who is sole motivation is to try and get money from you.