It doesnt, it just says RONDA. No numbers, no other information and according to the customer services/complaints person Ive been speaking to the driver is unable to give a description of the person he delivered to as he has no recolection of what she looked like even though it was apparantly the last day he worked before going off sick. My 8 year old has better memory than that, unless hes trying to conceal something... I can not believe that a literate adult could make that mistake as a driver, all the houses here have numbers on them. Nor can I believe that a literate adult could accept a parcel for Mr Runk, while knowing that they are not actually Mr Runk, and then sign in a false name by accident. Nor do I believe for one second that the customer services would lie to me and say that they had not been contacted about an accidental delivery, when in fact they had and knew where the goods where. If that is the case, that would mean the picked it up the following day, kept it for almost a week and then delivered in secret, outside of working hours in his own time? Honestly you are asking me to believe that? Even if there were a grain of truth in this, its dubious conduct at best, and surely gross misconduct and breach of contract with the sender at worst and I doubt its legal? Words fail me. Not correct. I searched the small print on the card, and on the website, and this is stated nowhere. But even if it were the case, we did not leave out the actual filled in card, so why was the parcel left? Let alone with an unkown mystery person who apparantly has no address and no description? It was enlightening. Its good to know the people who are guilty of poor practice monitor these forums. You didnt make any deliveries to the 'wrong address' in Chessington recently did you? For the record, BiA agreed to send a courier to my meet Mrs runk at work on Friday and exchange the recovered/damaged for new and will take this issue up with Interlink themselves. Apparantly according to them, this has been happening a lot with Interlink recently and it has been causing them a lot of problems. Many thanks to Mr Shed for the advice last week.

Ok, many many thanks for the lightening fast reply

Hmmm... Ok, there has been a strange development. The dates in the initial post are correct, so the delivery has been missing for almost a week now. Now apart from posting here and lounging about today (Sunday) Ive been clearing up outside and Mrs Runk has been moving the Lime plant that was next to the front door. Mrs Runk went outside just now and there was a white box on our doorstep. Its the missing parcel, there is no delivery note, no invoice and its been opened and it is broken. We havent seen anyone come down our drive, although probably wouldnt have noticed anyone anyway and our immediate neighbours are away. So... There are two possible scenarios that I can see. 1. Someone has signed for the goods, taken them, opened the packaging and broken the goods and then discretely placed the open box on our doorstep. 2. The driver did not deliver the goods, opened the packaging and broken the goods and then after being questioned about it has discretely bought it back and placed the open box on our doorstep. Im not sure which scenario I find worse, whoever it is still has the invoice and so possibly our bank details. So not wanting to be dishonest, I assume that our first course of action is to contact BiA and explain that the goods have anonymously turned up broken this Sunday afternoon and to contact Interlink and do the same and see if we can get a description of the person who signed for the goods. (It would be far easier I feel to pretend this hasnt happened and pursue the 'no goods recieved' route. However as we are honest suckers, there is a principle at stake here I think.) But I am even more confused now about where we stand in getting the goods we have paid for replaced? It does not seem on the face of it, to me at least, to be as straightforwards as it would be if we had recieved the goods and found them broken when we opened the boxes. Or is it? I think Ill wait to see if there is any advice here before I contact the relevant companies on Monday lunchtime.

Thanks for the answer. Its £55. Not a sum thats going to bancrupt us, but its still £55. Thankyou for the advice. Ill be contacting BiA again on Monday to speak to them and Ill keep this thread updated.

Morning all and thankyou in advance for any advice given. Brief breakdown of events: We ordered some educational and posture aids for our son from Back in Action. Monday the 1st we recieve a 'Sorry we missed you' card from Interlink stating the delivery would be attempted the following day. We were both at work so no problem here. Tuesday the second we left a note on the door stating the parcel could be delivered next door or returned to the depot and we would collect it from there. On arrival home that evening the note was still there, no further delivery card from Interlink and no one had been to the next door. Wed the third we checked the interlink web site to track the parcel number and it states that it was delivered to our address at 13.58 and signed for by 'Ronda'. We dont know anyone named Ronda, none of our neighbours know anyone named Ronda and none of our neighbours have seen an Interlink delivery van. We have phoned Interlink customer services who state that as far as they are concerned the parcel has been delivered and signed for. I have lodged a complaint and they have said that they will interview the driver but he has apparantly (and conveniently) gone off sick and so according to Interlink, there is nothing more that they can do. Back in Action customer services state that they have the paperwork and reciepts stating that the goods were collected for delivery by Interlink, and Interlinks own records show they collected it for delivery and delivered it, so there is nothing more that they can resonably be expected to do, they have despatched the goods paid for. Meanwhile we have no goods, a depleted bank balance and what is as far as I can see a fraudulent delivery signature. My next step is to give Interlink until Monday afternoon to come up with a resolution then I am going to contact the police, who I doubt will be interested, to register a theft. So what else can I do? I believe my complaint lies with Interlink and not Back in Action. But do BiA have a responsibility in a case like this and where do I stand legally with either company for any claims for the cost of the goods we have ordered? Thanks for any advice

Thankou all for your advice. Just to clarify, as already pointed out there are to seperate issues that seem to have got mixed up. There was in issue in 2007 in which I sorned my car and the dvla apparantly lost the forms and tried to fine me. That was the subject of the original post and what I thought this most recent letter was referring to when I first opened it. This fine is in dispute although I have not heard anything of it since I disputed it in 2007. If an when it ever surfaces again I will absolutely still contest it and will take the advice of Richard M. Thankyou for the advice on that one The 'offence' which is the subject of this letter which I at first thought was the 2007 issue turns out to be from December 2005 when I did allow my tax to lapse for a month. I dont recall it, and I dont recall any letters from the time, but the records show no tax for December 2005 so being realistic I have to put my hands up to it and accept the fact that the original letters and renewal forms got lost or binned or something during a time when I wasnt coping too well with things. As such, although there may be grounds to dispute it and make it go away, it is a chapter of my life Id rather not drag into some dispute over something that the bottom line is, I did actually do. So now I managed to clear up the confusion over what the fine was the easiest (and honest) thing to do is pay it. Thankyou to Britiansworstdriver for your advice and your compasion For the record, life is good now and I am not the same person I was in that dark time. I dont have any issues with talking about it or anything these days, Id just rather not have to drag that period up into an arguement over something if I dont have to. Thankyou to everyone who expressed sympathy for that time though Lastly, I was calling them Bailiffs because thats what they are. The company is Philips Specialist Bailiff services. I concede they are acting in the role of a debt recovery agent, and in that capacity they only have the legal rights of a debt recovery agent and any advice given to me on this issue and the legal rights they have refers to them in the debt recovery role. But I referred to then in name as Bailiffs as the bergundy letterhead states Philips Specialist Bailiff. Thankyou Odds for acting as referee No more argueing now and lets keep this forum for the helpful advice from kind, helpful and knowledgable folk that you all are Be safe all, and if you cant be safe, be sensible

This is also my line of thinking. Thankyou for the thoughts, your right time does make things different. Life is good now. Better than I could ever have imagined back then (Apart from the nice DVLA extracting thier pound of flesh...)

Ive managed to contact them and its not a [problem]. Ive managed to piece the bits together from the helpful person I spoke to on the phone at the dvla fines office. It seems my tax ran out on my car in November 2005 and I didnt tax it untill Jan 2006. So it was a month untaxed and not sorned. My wife died a few months prior so I wasnt paying attention to some things and apparantly renewed my car tax a month late. I dont actually have any recollection of doing this and I dont have any recollection of the letters that ive been told today were sent to me which I apparantly ignored. But then that whole period is a bit hazy in my memory to be honest and looking back I did at one point end up with a heap of unopened letters and bills. I couldnt argue honestly and say there was no dvla letters, the truth is I just have no recollection of a period of around 6 months. So it seems that I have to put my hands up to committing the henious crime 4 years ago of renewing my tax a month late when I wasnt in a particulaly sound state of mind, and pay the fine to the nice people at the dvla. I have enough baggage from that period without dragging it up again. So many many thankyous for the replies, but I think the best option is just to pay it and make it go away. Be safe all, and if you cant be safe, be sensible

Good afternoon all. I got in from work for lunch today and found a threatening letter from a bailiff (Philips Collection Services Ltd). It states that they have been instructed to collect an £80 fine for an offence dated December 1st 2005. If I dont pay immediately the case wil be passed to the enforcement dept for further recovery procedures, and by paying emmediately I will also prevent myself incurring additional costs and a county court judgement and my vehicle may also be wheelclamped. Now I had a little spat with the DVLA a while ago when I sorned my car and the DVLA lost the sorn forms and threatened to fine me. They sent me a letter telling me it was my legal requirement to ensure that thier databases were up to date and as I had not fulfilled my legal requirement I was liable for the fine. I sent a letter back stating that I absolutley disputed thier claim and I would like the case to be heard in court. To date I have heard nothing since with regard to this matter. At the time I asked for advice on that issue here on this forum, the thread can be found here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/dvla/98371-dvla-sorn.html#post915608 And I assumed that it was this. But then I thought, hold on, that wasnt as far back as 2005... so I checked the dates on the above thread and sure enough that was 2007. So I have no idea whatsoever this DVLA fine relating to an offence in 2005 is? Ive tried to ring the bailiff and after about 15 minutes of trying and getting an engaged tone, I managed to get through. To a recorded message telling me I was number 38 in the queue... After 45 minutes on hold I was still only number 21, so I gave up and hung up. There is also a DVLA ref number on the letter but I cant find any number for the DVLA for anyone who is willing to speak to me. I no longer own the car having sold it a while ago, but this clearly does not relate to whoever currently now owns the car. I am concerned about this, what the alledged 'offence' from 2005 is, if the Bailiffs have any rights to clamp my current vehicle on my driveway or the highway, and most of all exactly what I can or should do next. I have phoned two seperate solicitors prior to writing this, and both told me that the best advice they could give me was to pay the £80 fine because if I got a solicitor to act for me, costs would start at £140 per hour, so economicly, the best thing I could do was simply pay up. Im confused, annoyed and slightly worried... Many thanks in advance from anyone who can give me some advice.

Thanks for the quick reply. As for the £80 charge, it is stated on the magistrates court summons as Costs already incurred: Billing Authority for obtaining this Summons. But as the plaintif is not now being summoned to court, is it a legal charge? The way I was interpreting Estoppel was the fact that it can be applied to debtor and debt as well as contract law, after a phone call it was agreed in principle that there would not be a problem if a payment was skipped providing that payments were made during the October period. Effectively a verbal contract that is noted on the account? But that agreement was then reversed without notification when the court summons was issued? That would mean that the way I am applying it, is the agreement was made and noted that increased payments were to resume during October, and the council then broke this agreement by issuing a court summons, making the £80 charge void. I was also not sure about the fact that the case is still going to be heard, even though an agreed payment plan is in place and a liability order will still be obtained, and then held in a file as a threat against any further default for the rest of the year. As I understand it, you obtain a liability order to recover a debt and execute it to recover said debt. Obtaining a liability order to keep on file just in case its needed at some point in the future appears to me to be a questionable tactic at best and certainly not what I understand a liability order to be for. Im not sure but I believe that it could also damage a credit rating as the liability order will be recorded by the credit reference agencies would it not? Ive tried to read up on it but I cant seem to find a definitive answer if Ive understood the law correctly. I dont have a problem with fines being levied for wrongdoing, but this is just over zealous and unreasonable. Its not even about the amount of the charge to be honest because Ive already written a cheque to cover it for her. Its the principle of the way shes been bullied that I dont like.

ok, Im trying to sort this out for a friend who is just getting more and more stressed and flustered over this as it goes on. Its hopefully not too long winded and Ill try to keep to the relevant points only. From here on she will be refered to as Sally. Ok, first thing that has been done is a letter has been written to Sutton Borough Council giving me permission to speak to them and deal with this on behalf of Sally, so I now have the ability to write and phone and disuss her account on her behalf. The scenario: Sally is a single mum but works full time and uses a childminder to collect her son after school. She is also a home owner and works hard for what she has, and as you can imagine money is tight. She just changed jobs in September to a better paid one and one in the field for which she is currently studying and going to college in her spare time. She gets some Working Family tax credit but no other financial support or benefit of any kind. In August Sally was aware that with the change of jobs, the slight gap between the finish date and the start date of the new job and not getting paid till the end of the first month in arrears (which would be October) meant that she didnt have enough money to pay everything for a couple of months Prior to this she has never been in any debt with the CT office and so does not have a record as a bad payer. - On the 9th of September she phoned the Sutton Council tax office and explained that she was starting a new job and was having to borrow money for food for the next month and a half (which covered CT payment due on 1 Sept and 1 Oct) but when she was paid in October she would catch up by paying 50% extra for the remainder of the payment period and catch up. The CT staff on the phone told her that although she couldnt officially make the arrangement that she was asking for, provided payment was made during October there should be no problem. Her account would be marked up and commented that she couldnt afford payments for this time. She was told that warning reminders would be sent out automaticaly by the computer. (I have checked and it is on record that this call took place, and that there would be no payment for the stated reasons untill mid/end of Oct) On the same day Sally cancelled the direct debit so that a payment couldnt be taken and cost her bank charges too. - 27thAugust a letter from the CT office arrived stating that the bank had informed them the DD had been cancelled. - 21st September a payment reminder was recieved. As she had been told these were sent out by automation it was ignored. - 25th October (a few days before a payment was about to be made) the next corespondence from the coouncil was recieved. A summons for a court hearing due to be held on the 15th of November seeking payment of the entire amount, plus £80 costs. - 28 October. On my advice made a £100 payment online to the CT office. It was a sunday and I figured that when Sally rang them the following morning it would prove she was not trying to avoid making payments, but genuinely just needed a bit of room for two months. - 29 Oct Sally rung the CT office and was told that the court summons was to be withdrawn and she would not have to go to court. She had to set up a new monthly DD which included the outstanding amount, plus the £80 admin fee for the summons. Now the questions. There is no issue with the repayments by direct debit for the outstanding amount. It what was understood was going to happen anyway. The issue is with the £80 fee that has been added. My understanding of the law is that costs for a court summons can only be recovered if the summons is executed and the case goes to court. If the summons is withdrawn or stopped, any associated costs also have to be removed from the debt. - 2nd of November a letter is recieved from the CT office stating the following: Thankyou for your recent communication. Detailed below is the special payment arrangement that was offered to you on the 29th October. As has been explained to you the Council will be going to court to apply for a liability order at the court hearing to cover the outstanding balance. Provided the new arrangement is adhered to, no further recovery action will be taken and the liability order will remain unactioned. Failure to strictly adher to the arrangement will result in the liability order being passed to a collection agent witout any further warning. This would also incur additional costs. So this brings us up to date. What Im trying to make head or tail of is this. Is this £80 charge legal, can it be recovered by adding it to the council tax bill? Has the summons been withdrawn or is it actually to be executed and a liability order obtained, which will then be held on file as a threat? And is it legal for them to apparantly openly do this? And if all of the above is above board and correct, was the summons illegal in the first place(thereby making the £80 charge also illegal) if the legal doctrine of Estoppel is applied? The way that I understand it, Sally was following what had been agreed over the telephone, so Estoppel would mean that the CT office could not punish her with additional costs provided she was following the agreement? This £80 fee has really annoyed me and if I can sort this out on her behalf I will. I look forward to all your replies, and thank you in advance for all advice and help given. Nick. ps. sorry for how long winded that got and thanks for wading through it all

Thanks for the reply/ I dont give a damn about the £4, as far as I can tell its not even mine anyway. For the life of me I cant work out how I got from a zero balance, to the debit, then getting an apologetic refund that puts me £4 in credit. Theres some skewed maths there somewhere. Ive tried phoning them, but its like hitting your head against a wall unless you are lucky enough to get a/ someone in this country and b/ someone who has the authority to actually do something. Ive had three promised return calls by managers, but not a single call actually returned. I am currently drafting a letter with some help to get this resolved. It would be very very satisfying to resolve it by going to the GE Capital HQ with a large chainsaw and... No, best not go there.

Thanks for the reply Dave. Ive managed to speak to someone on the phone today, who wasnt willing to discuss anything with me at first, but then did concede that they had updated thier records just last week to show they had recieved my letter. She couldnt tell me why it had taken thier system do long to update. She also told me that the fact that I cold prove my car was off the road was not the issue and didnt make any difference as no one was disputing wether the car has been in use or not. If I didnt pay, I was going to be taken to court for failing to register my car either SORN or by taxing it, and it was up to me to ensure that they had updated thier records after I declared it SORN, and as I hadnt done that by chasing them up because I didnt recieve any notification it was therefore me that is at fault, not them. After that she wasnt prepared to talk to me any further other than to tell me that if I wasnt happy with any information that I had, then I should write again and then she cut the line on me. Im really getting very stressed over this now. I havent done anything wrong, yet Im being taken to court and treated like a criminal for something that isnt my fault.

Speaking as someone who works in IT. I can tell you that collecting that information from many computers is so simple a child could do it. People who do this often rely on the ignorance of many computer users and often come up trumps. If you have a computer that is connected to ANY form of 'always on' connection, such as broadband, and you dont have an effective firewall and an effective up to date anti virus program, then you are wide open. The software to do this is freely avialable on the internet for nothing, and a very very little network knowledge is all you need. Applications such as trojan programs that grant a remote user remote admin access to your hard drive and operating system, remote control programs that allow a remote user to see your screen and what you are doing in a window on a remote machine and actually take control of your computer, keyboard and mouse and keyloggers that record all keystrokes and the text boxes the input is entered and then send it off to a remote server that collects all the information are commonplace and more often than not in use by schoolkids who think its funny to do things like this. These programs scan thousands and thousands of computers in one go and the odds are that they find at least one unprotected one pretty much every scan. You wouldnt believe the number of people who I hear say "Whats anti virus and a firewall? Do I need those then?" If the first poster has no firewall or an old out of date version of one, and a non apdated or non functioning anti virus program, then what he describes is entirely possible and extremely simple. And if its kids that have done it that may explain why they simply gambled it rather than transfer it to another account. However proving it may be hard unless you can get a police computer expert to look at the computer and verify that it has a keylogger or trojan running. From a legal point of view, assuming that this is what might have happened, i think you are going to be on a losing battle trying to claim it back, in much the same way that your home insurance wont cover you if you go out and leave all the doors and windows of your house wide open, and come home to find it empty. "I didnt know I should have locked it up" isnt going to cut it as a claim. I could be wrong but Im not aware of a case that sets a precident on this? Maybe someone can find one. That all probably isnt much help, but it might give you something to ask the police to look at. But be aware, if you do have the right protection and uninstall it and delete all traces then try to claim the above, someone who knows what to look at on your PC will find you out very quickly.

Im not sure which forum this should be in so if its in the wrong one please forgive me and feel free to move it. Background. I had a Burtons account card which was my wifes although it was in my name. My wife used to use it but I never did, and after my wife passed away some years ago, it was paid off to a zero balance and disposed of. Despite asking for the account to be closed on numerous occasions I still got monthly statements of a zero balance from GE Capital, so I just binned them over the years. Last year there was a payment of £20 made to a company Id never heard of, and when I rang them to find out what it was, I was simply given the brush off and told to ring the other company and given a number. I did and found out that they were an insurance company and it was a payment for a card and key protection policy. Well id never heard of it, and didnt want it, so I asked for the money to be refunded, but I was told I had to speak to GE Capital. So after letters back and forth, and phone calls back and forth, both companies blamed the other, neither were prepared to refund the money and then GE Capital started to put interest on it. AFter a very frustrating three months of letters, which culminated in them harrassing me by phoning me roughly twice a day asking me for the money, I eventually managed to speak to a senior customer services manager who admitted that it was thier mistake, the account clearly hadnt been used for years and refunded the money into the account, and then closed the account. At last someone with some sense. Or not. The account cant be closed, because with the refund, its now £4 in credit. And They arent prepared to send it to me as a cheque and close the account, so there it sits, although I dont get monthly statements any longer. I had a credit check done on me a week ago and was turned down, so I got a copy of my credit reference on line. And its all good apart from all the non satisfied payments on the GE Capital account. So now its affecting me in an adverse way in that I cant get any credit. Im not really sure what I need to do to sort this out, and Im really cross that its now going to cost me time and money to resolve this issue. Am I even able to get this removed from the credit reference agencies? Or am I entitled to claim back the costs Ive encountered because of it? In my opinion its a [problem] and most people justd pay, because with retrospect, the expense, the stress and the harrasment they have given me, it would have been cheaper to roll over and pay it. Im really very cross about the situation I find myself in and the way Ive been treated.