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    • Thank-you dx, What you have written is certainly helpful to my understanding. The only thing I would say, what I found to be most worrying and led me to start this discussion is, I believe the judge did not merely admonish the defendant in the case in question, but used that point to dismiss the case in the claimants favour. To me, and I don't have your experience or knowledge, that is somewhat troubling. Again, the caveat being that we don't know exactly what went on but I think we can infer the reason for the judgement. Thank-you for your feedback. EDIT: I guess that the case I refer to is only one case and it may never happen again and the strategy not to appeal is still the best strategy even in this event, but I really did find the outcome of that case, not only extremely annoying but also worrying. Let's hope other judges are not quite so narrow minded and don't get fixated on one particular issue as FTMDave alluded to.
    • Indians, traditionally known as avid savers, are now stashing away less money and borrowing more.View the full article
    • the claimant in their WS can refer to whatever previous CC judgements they like, as we do in our WS's, but CC judgements do not set a legal precedence. however, they do often refer to judgements like Bevis, those cases do created a precedence as they were court of appeal rulings. as for if the defendant, prior to the raising of a claim, dobbed themselves in as the driver in writing during any appeal to the PPC, i don't think we've seen one case whereby the claimant referred to such in their WS.. ?? but they certainly typically include said appeal letters in their exhibits. i certainly dont think it's a good idea to 'remind' them of such at the defence stage, even if the defendant did admit such in a written appeal. i would further go as far to say, that could be even more damaging to the whole case than a judge admonishing a defendant for not appealing to the PPC in the 1st place. it sort of blows the defendant out the water before the judge reads anything else. dx  
    • Hi LFI, Your knowledge in this area is greater than I could possibly hope to have and as such I appreciate your feedback. I'm not sure that I agree the reason why a barrister would say that, only to get new customers, I'm sure he must have had professional experience in this area that qualifies him to make that point. 🙂 In your point 1 you mention: 1] there is a real danger that some part of the appeal will point out that the person appealing [the keeper ] is also the driver. I understand the point you are making but I was referring to when the keeper is also the driver and admits it later and only in this circumstance, but I understand what you are saying. I take on board the issues you raise in point 2. Is it possible that a PPC (claimant) could refer back to the case above as proof that the motorist should have appealed, like they refer back to other cases? Thanks once again for the feedback.
    • Well barristers would say that in the hope that motorists would go to them for advice -obviously paid advice.  The problem with appealing is at least twofold. 1] there is a real danger that some part of the appeal will point out that the person appealing [the keeper ] is also the driver.  And in a lot of cases the last thing the keeper wants when they are also the driver is that the parking company knows that. It makes it so much easier for them as the majority  of Judges do not accept that the keeper and the driver are the same person for obvious reasons. Often they are not the same person especially when it is a family car where the husband, wife and children are all insured to drive the same car. On top of that  just about every person who has a valid insurance policy is able to drive another person's vehicle. So there are many possibilities and it should be up to the parking company to prove it to some extent.  Most parking company's do not accept appeals under virtually any circumstances. But insist that you carry on and appeal to their so called impartial jury who are often anything but impartial. By turning down that second appeal, many motorists pay up because they don't know enough about PoFA to argue with those decisions which brings us to the second problem. 2] the major parking companies are mostly unscrupulous, lying cheating scrotes. So when you appeal and your reasons look as if they would have merit in Court, they then go about  concocting a Witness Statement to debunk that challenge. We feel that by leaving what we think are the strongest arguments to our Member's Witness Statements, it leaves insufficient time to be thwarted with their lies etc. And when the motorists defence is good enough to win, it should win regardless of when it is first produced.   
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    • We have finally managed to obtain the transcript of this case.

      The judge's reasoning is very useful and will certainly be helpful in any other cases relating to third-party rights where the customer has contracted with the courier company by using a broker.
      This is generally speaking the problem with using PackLink who are domiciled in Spain and very conveniently out of reach of the British justice system.

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      OT APPROVED, 365MC637, FAROOQ, EVRi, 12.07.23 (BRENT) - J v4.pdf
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British gas switch woes


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Hi folks,

 

looking for any advice/info. Apologies in advance - this is all a bit long winded !!

 

We switched suppliers from BG last year. Supplied meter readings when we did etc.

We were paying BG by monthly direct debit.

We switched November last year and the supplies were swooped around the 18th and 20 th Dec last year. (we were getting gas and electricity from them).

 

Earlier this year I got a mail from BG saying we owed them £430.

Next day another email saying we owe £260. Later that day another saying £589.

 

I contacted them via email/message and asked what was going on and asked if they could explain how we could owe so much when we are paying with a monthly direct debit. When I submitted the query I also supplied more meter readings as the website asked.

First reply gave me dates they stopped supplying gas/electricity and asked me to confirm meter readings. Same email said that they would re-issue a final bill.

 

Replied to this and explained I gave readings when I made the enquiry as requested.

 

Next email apologised for the delay, said a final bill had been issued but that the meter readings didn't match up correctly They also said something about sending the readings to the new supplier.

To be honest it wasnt clear at all what they were saying.

I replied and asked for clarification. (Never got a reply to this)

 

The same day I get a mail from my bank saying I was going to go overdrawn. When I checked it turns out BG were trying to take money using the direct debit setup.

They had already taken 2 payments (around £60 and around £150) and now they were trying to take a further £330.

These were all taken in separate payments.

I contacted the bank and stopped the final £330 one and contacted replied to the BG email again.

 

Couple of days went by and still no replies - so I started another complaint explaining the whole chain of events and suggested they were in breach of the DD guarantee because they had not notified me of the change in payment amount. I further complained that I thought it was out of order for them to let the account get so far out of whack re payments and that they should have advised me sooner and adjusted the monthly payments accordingly.

 

They say they did advise me of the DD amount so because they sent me a bill via email. They also sent me a breakdown of units used and payments made. They also said that this left a further outstanding £36 or so but they would waive this and the account was now at 0.00

This of course didn't take into account the fact that I had stopped the £330 payment. (Which was showing in the payment breakdown)

 

I replied to this and said that their suggestion that I was told about the change in DD amount was not valid since I had no less than 3 bills from them before the monies were taken. I then received another 2 after that. How was I ever going to know which was the "real" bill !?

I've now had a couple of mails telling me they are looking into it and some follow ups saying the person dealing with the case is out of office currently and other such wibble.

Also they have tried to ring me a couple of times but I really don't want to discuss this over the phone with them.

At the same time I also have another dept from BG harassing me (via email AND telephone) because I have cancelled the DD and they say that I owe around £330. Both of these seem to ring when im not in and refuse to speak to my partner !

 

I'm not trying to get out of paying what I owe but at the same time them taking that cash w/o warning has screwed me up a bit. (Though fortunately the bank didn't charge for this).

And i'm less than content with phone calls from 2 different depts. and general poor handling of this whole situation.

 

Anyone offer any advice or anything for all of this ?

 

Thanks in advance

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Have you actually registered a formal complaint ? Unless you tell them it is a complaint, it won't be treated as such and would delay you going to the Ombudsman if you wanted to.

 

You really need copies of all bills over say the last 2 years, so you can see what bills were based on actual readings and which were based on estimates. Then you can see how any arrears have built up, because you were making DD payments based on estimates which were below actual usage. Ask BG for copies of statements, using a subject access request if necessary.

 

I don't quite understand why the final bill has been such a mess. Normally when you switch suppliers, you provide readings to both current and new suppliers. Your current suppliers just work out what is owed, compared to the readings estimate or actual on the previous statement. Given the largish amount, it sounds like no actual readings have been done for at least 6 months.

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Thanks for the reply !

 

i made the complaints via the british gas website. I dont have 2 years worth of blls and I believe its a paperless account.

The DD amount was whatever they said it was going to be though.

 

£589 is a significant discrepancy though. But regardless of that not actually telling me they would try and take it couple with the harassment from their debt collection dept are really only compounding my frustration.

 

I dont know why its all been such a mess either - it all seemed quite straightforward to me - but it turns out not to have been !

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  • 1 month later...

Further to this (a mere 2 months later) BG have finally attempted to explain what happened. Its around 3 pages worth of waffle as far as I can see.

What it doesnt do is explain why it was OK to try and take almost £600 over the course of 3 days without proper notice. (Although it does attempt to explain WHY it was 3 separate payments).

Neither does it explain why the account could need such a significant final balance (That is to say why given they were getting meter readings they didnt increase the monthly DD amount).

At least I dont think it explains this. Its so long winded its untrue. Seems to me that if its taken 2 months for them to figure this all out then I didnt stand a hope of

a. being able to figure out what went on myself

b. know that 3 payments would be taken from my account over the course of 3 consecutive days.

 

Not really sure exactly how to reply now though - as I mentioned it was such a long and drawn out reply its hard work - more than it should be !

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can we help..

 

 

scan it up to ONE multipage PDF..

upload

please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

and they

are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

This still hasn't been resolved. Last but one mail from BG told me that my complaints had been resolved.

I replied and explained they had not since they still had not acknowledged they have broken the direct debit rules. (IE not given me notice of a change in payment) since the bill amount was different to the amount taken and there were actually 3 payments taken not 1. (As well as the fact that the last mail from them prior to taking these 3 payments was they would contact me with a final bill).

 

I've also asked them to explain why there was such a discrepancy. I provided meter readings when asked so they have have increased the monthly payment amount so there would not be such a deficit. They said this is because they only adjust the figures once per year. I suggested this too was unacceptable.

 

I've never actually disputed the amount - just the way in which it was taken.

 

So I suggested based on the mistakes they have made, and stress and inconvenience they have caused taking such a large payment they should offer some kind of recompense. They have offered me 20% from the outstanding amount. (Which personally I think is a joke considering how long this has all taken).

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