Our home was visited by Marstons very early in the morning with a small white van, as my son had not paid a speed camera fine in time. He hadn't paid £60. They charged us £381. The Bailliff continually referred to himself as 'an officer of Her Majesty's Court'. I asked him if he worked directly for the court and he replied he was an officer of the court. When he gave us the slip to make the payment it was from Marstons. I feel he was deliberately concealing his identity in order to pressurise me to make payment on behalf of my son. I made the payment online as I did not feel comfortable giving him my card details. It took almost 9 weeks for the receipt to come through the post - and the online payment clearly stated that until we were in possession of the receipt the debt could not be classed as 'Paid'. Dodgy dealings from start to finish topped off by £320 charge because they drove to my home. And the court licences these people to come and fleece money off ordinary people. We are not 'criminals' but they made us feel as though we were.

There are so many of us who have been helped directly or indirectly by Martin - just reading threads that he has helped on have been enough to give me the power to go it alone and to stop being scared - so grateful for that, and so grateful for the commitment, compassion and sheer common sense that Martin was able to bring to the most hopeless situation. You will always be missed, God Bless you and your family Xx

I am also very grateful to the posters who gave additional avice as I have a lot of his stuff to get through and hopefully son is not liable for the stuff he is now being plagued with! He recently suffered an accident in which he sustained a fracutred skull - I had no idea was going through all thisstuf. He is also in dispute with minicredit who keep accessing his bank account and so far have taken 580 for a 100 loan! they advise he owes 714!

The letter is in the envelope awaiting the opening of he Post Office on Monday so I can request a 'signed for' delivery!

Thank you for your responses, they are all helpful. I will send the letter that you have inserted above and hope that that is an end to it! As I said in the post the SAR request was first returned by Robinson Way with a hand written notefor us to request this information direct from 02. Then they sent a letter requesting £10 for an SAR and without us doing anything they sent the details through! This looks like an excel worksheet as I detailed - but the last entry which is readable says 'Write off manual" and the balance left on the account was £0.00. I don't see how Robinson way can pursue this further as the 'covered up' entry shows £0.00 The Statute barred letter will be going off first class and to be signed for! Many thanks for all your help.

My son has been receiving letters from Robinson Way regarding an 02 account. He says he didn't remember an 02 Account, however I wrote to them with an SAR (learnt from your forums) and they responded that I should write to 02 direct. 02 responded that we needed to provide address details as current address does not match records. Robinson Way then forwarded a letter details of the relevant address, over 8 years ago when my son was up in Leeds. They next requested £10 for an SAR request early last week. Today the information was sent even though we have not sent the £10 and the account is in the form of an excel worksheet. They were paid the regular monthly bills on this account of around £30+ up until August 2004 when a bill was added for £99.05. I am guessing my son disputed that he had used 3 months worth of calls in 1 month. The next bill showed as 79.03 and then a bill of 36.24. On 20/11/2004 a Termination fee of £134.87 was added with a final total of £349.19. This is the amount Robinson Way are claiming. Is this a statute barred debt? The very last entry on the worksheet is shaded over but legible it states: 08/08/2006 Write off manual Credit £349.19 Balance £0.00 Can they seriously take this any further? I want to write to them politely but I just need assurance that they are not entitled to pursue this debt before I do? Thanks for reading all of this!

Hi everyone - thanks for all your help on this, we received notification from the court and my son had admitted part of the debt - Shoosmiths were claiming £6834.78 he looked at the statements that he had received and admitted to £4008. the court has ruled he must pay £4008 plus 120 court costs at £100 per month. I thought all our efforts had been in vain, this was not greatest result, but showed them that they can't just keep pressing the + key on the calculator and charge the defendant that!

Hi again - got a letter today from CCCS advising that Shoosmiths are 'unable to accept the reduced payment proposal we have recently offered because a larger offer is required'. Shoosmith have written nothing other than an email just before close of business for Christmas - where are the court proceedings - we don't know what to expect - the longer it goes on the worse it feels. Should we write to them or let it take it's course through CCCS now??? Thanks for your kind message gillytilly..

Hi everyone, been away from my son's problems for a while, the reason is that there is absolutely no news whatsoever! Following my last post above we sent everything off to both the courts and Shoosmiths and up to today we have had absolutely nothing from anybody??? My son has gone through CCCS and has commenced a debt management programme, and they are making payments on his behalf - they have made one to Shoosmiths as the advisor has told my son that he doubts if there will be any reduction on the total amount even after court. I can't believe that it has all gone quiet but this is exactly how they conduct their business - they wrote one year saying they were taking back car and it took almost a full year to come after him for this money! I did contact the Information commissioner re the SAR and they sent a letter to us a month later saying it was now allocated to a manager - that was 18th January. Seems its only the baillifs that move fast in their 'industry'!

thanks sherlock - we are looking at that aspect too

Hi again - son here now, we have printed of all the emails from shoosmiths and we ae going to send an email to shoosmiths and a letter to the court with all of the disagreements to the calculations that they have listed - (like interest on the insurance for whole cover and gap insurance that should have been cancelled upon termination of the agreement, surely?) I will cover all of this and will report back - we will also ensure that Northampton court are updated and ask that further proceedings be moved to the local court. thanks - Libby

Ok - that's a big help, I shall scan in in the morning, ready for son's arrival and he can do the reading through of the agreement's t&c's. thanks again will be back to update! Merry Christmas to you - all!

Well now that the request for information has been replied to, there is a bit of work to be done, but the main thing is the charges etc so at least there is a definite amount to contest. The T&C's need a thorough read through to - but I have just had to go and get the Christmas Dinner! Thanks so much for all the advice, I really do need and appreciate it!:o

Does that mean he will be home for Christmas then, Joncris?

Thanks lookinforinfo - the only thing from the court was the Court Claim Form issued on the 16th which my son acknowledged. I didn't think this was set as a heaing date - but it did advise that there was 28 days in which to submit a defence - of course all the information was witheld for 28 days and we wrote to the court to keep them informed of the situation. A very poor copy of the Agreement was submitted, obviously v.small print but will pore over that and extract any of the T&C's that are relevant - i.e. letter charges or late payment penalties. Had to go off to get some sleep but woke up with all this in my head! Thanks for reading through all this and taking time to advise!:o

Is there anyway I can look up this case number on the MCOL website to see if there are notes etc? I have read in other threads that the Northampton court is just where the dc's dump cases for quick clearance but that if it results in a hearing then it will be transferred to a court local to the defendant? am I mixing various bits of information up now?

Hi lookinforinfo! I wrote a list earlier of what to do next. What to do: 1 Add up charges from the On Line Statements – and include the balance of the 60 months insurance, gap and cover-all, and deduct from the total balance. The balance is the admitted amount. 2. Copy this to the courts and include the filled out statement of means and post with a covering letter. I believe that the pdf file attached to the email from shoosmith today was actually sent to them directly from On Line, as this is the first showing of the sale of the car plus agents fees etc. I will print the files off an attach them to a letter to the court asking for more time in view of the documented delay by Shoosmith in supplying the information requested. Will the case then be held locally to us? The problem is my son needs to fill out the income and expenditure forms etc and he is working til late right upto Christmas Eve (every little helps!) and he is not living at home - it will be difficult to sit him down tomorrow to fill out this stuff, with his xmas targets buzzing - but i will text him and pin him down to a time allowing me to post everything off to the court tomorrow.

Hi, Lookinforinfo - I know I am getting disjointed with all of this. Shoosmith's are solicitors, one of their services is debt collection (I went on their website when my son received their letter). In all correspondence they refer to On Line Finance as 'their client'. The problem with delivering papers by hand is that the claim has been filed with MCOL Northampton. We are located in Surrey! I have written to the court recording the delay in Shoosmith conforming with the SAR and Request for Further information, plus a copy of the letter faxed/posted to the Information Commissioner. I appreciate your list of questions - I would like to pose them or rather my son would, but if Shoosmith say that quote "that if they "do not receive the sum of £6.908.67 by 4pm on the 28th December 2006 we will proceed to enter Judgement against you without further notice." what chance of asking questions or listing them in a defence? They write as though this case is alread closed and won - by them.

Dweeble, they have in an email today said that the car was sold for £1900. They say this was deducted from the balance, but from the date they last wrote (04/05/05) til 01/11/06, there was no further correspondence, and their calculation of the debt shows that £1380 in interest has accrued since that date. so not much to show for the car sale now then.

Sherlock - how do I propose a stay of their actions? I mean within these time constraints?

Hi - Lookinforinfo - the SAR has not been responded to, just the "Request for further information". It looks as though Shoosmith have had the statements sent to them in pdf format, and it shows a refund of credit charges of £700+ on 04/05/05 - this then being the date of the termination of the contract. Will the court accept these breakdowns after my son has gone through them and listed the unlawful charges - i.e. £30 for a returned Direct debit and £15.00 for a letter advising him of this? The insurance he was 'strongly advised' to take out to ensure he got the car? I don't think, but hopefully I am wrong, that the Information Commissioner's Office will respond in time to be of any help - Christmas is not always a blessing - all phones are off and the post is out of sync!

Hello - back here at a late hour again! I started to contact shoosmiths via email, and I have to say that the replies were a lot more immediate! In today's post we received the response to the "Request for futher information" but on line they had responded with pdf files of the statements of account and charges. This confirmed that On-line terminated the contract on 04-05-05 and they have charged interest from then of 14.8% which has amounted to over £1380 to date. The last letter he received from On Line was dated 04/05/05. The next correspondence was 01-11-06 from Shoosmith claiming this £4,400 rapidly followed up by our SAR on 14-11-06 after consulting this site -the rest is documented above. How will we be sure of getting the detail into the court by 28th before the 4pm deadline - they make it sound as though it is already dealt with. quote "that if they "do not receive the sum of £6.908.67 by 4pm on the 28th December 2006 we will proceed to enter Judgement against you without further notice." This sounds as though they have the final say, not the court - is that the case? Not heard from the Information Commissioner's office yet, and although my email advised shoosmith that the IC's Office had been contacted, they did not acknowledge that advice. How do we propose a stay of their actions. I thought we should write to the court - hopefully arriving by 28th, and include the two statements one of account and one of charges they have supplied - including the envelope they arrived in dated 21/12/06 and copy of their letter showing their deadlline. no 'working days' until tuesday 27h December! Also they list the insurance - 60 months of 24.44 - and gap insurance 4.64 per month - following this termination in May 2005 is this 18 months overcharge of that policy - if the contract is terminated can the policy still stand? This is all over the place, sorry, just feel that we are wasting our time now, they seem confident that they just flick a switch and the court will find in their favour.

Received the copy of agreement and the breakdown of charges today from Shoosmiths. They "understand theire has been some delay in getting these documents to you for which we apologise". The request was 17th November and the reply is 21st December! Hover, the upshot is that if they "do not receive the sum of £6.908.67 by 4pm on the 28th December 2006 we will proceed to enter Judgement against you without further notice." Is that all they have to do? Is the claim in the court just to allow them to set judgement or is there a right to reply? He can't pay that money - it is still a lot more than he was asked to pay in the first letter which was £4,400. Does my son now contact the court (but because of Christmas it will be too late now) should he send in his income and outgoings and a letter to the court advising that he disputes the charges (they are listed at £810.83). Is that the next step?

thanks Gruffle Gaw! If we can avoid counter claims it would be better for my son - however if at the end of all this he has to do that to get justice then so be it. Sadly you only learn the hard way about debt, and how come there are so many people involved in the 'industry'. Even more sad it how it affects you mentally - you just feel hunted, and however well you are doing in your work or anything else, it's something you can't shut off from.

I have replied to their email: Thank you for your response - which has taken surprisingly less than the one full month it has taken for your colleagues to reply to my original letters. Quote: "My colleague will be dealing with your Data Protection Subject Access Request seperately from these issues." Your colleague's email advises the request is not being dealt with by Shoosmith at all. With regard to the Subject Access Request, this has a time limit of 40 days from the date of receipt - I was under the impression that this would be adhered to as there was no response from Shoosmiths to the contrary - I was not expecting a letter a month later advising that you were not dealing with the request. I am sure that this could have been turned around in a much shorter period thus enabling me to apply direct to On Line Finance for the full statement of their account of this agreement including the breakdown of their charges. I have written to the Information Commissioner in Wilmslow, Cheshire with the details of this request, together with your Company's response, as I feel this has been extensively delayed in order to affect any defence I am able to submit to the court. I have sent copies of all correspondence to date to the court to show that I am actively trying to resolve this claim and to illustrate that I have, so far, been denied the information that I am entitled to receive both from yourselves and your client. I look forward to recieving the documents that you have confirmed you will be sending to me in your email (below). Have sent off 2nd SAR direct to On Line Finance - that won't get back now for at least 40 days but the letter willhave been copied to the court together with the post office receipt for the registered 'sign for' delivery.