The trouble is tickets ARE issued and appeals to the council almost always rejected, thus most people are conned into paying up because they don't to risk paying double or the hassle of an appeal via NPAS or whatever. It's a disgrace, the authorities regularly flaunt their own laws and as a result they are gaining tens - or probably hundreds - of millions of pounds they are not legally entitled to because their lines (or even their tickets) don't comply. The only thing I can see this cash cow ending is for councils to be made to pay compensation for illegally issued ticketsd automatically but that's never going to happen.

Thanks, i'm sure it will.

Yes, it looks like i'll be using that "will accept as part settlement" letter and filing for the full amount. I'll have to get the paperwork out and work out the correct figure and interest. I was just wary of shooting myself in the foot and getting nothing, but having read a few other threads since I posted earlier it seems that people are getting an eleventh hour out-of-court settlement, which is only right. Looks like I might have a bit of a wait though, our mortgage company have just filed a repossession claim (arrears now paid in full anyway) but that case doesn't come up until 20th December so I'll be waiting until 2007 by the look of things, but will have to wait a couple of weeks in any case until I can afford the court fees.

Hi, I've just been reading through the "Dean v RBS" thread, and the letter I got back was very similar the one that zeus got: "Thanks you for your letter of 8th Aug. I am sorry to learn (hear) you remain disatisfied. There is nothing i can add constructively to past correspondence but i would like to resolve matters with you. Against that background and as a gesture of goodwill without admission oe error or liabilty, I am offering the sum of £400 in full and final settlement of your complaint. However our terms and conditions will continue to apply and any charges that accrue in the fuure must stand. I hope you will consider this to be a fair and reasonable settlement and on receipt of your signed acceptence, I will make (immediate) arrangements for payment within 5 working days. " The slight differences on my letter, from Tommy McClean, are in bold. there is themn a section at the bottom which asks me to sign as follows: "I accept the sum of £400 in full and final settlement of my complaint. Please credit this to account number xxxxxxxx." So as I said they're effectively just cancelling out the overdraft that THEY have racked up - I get very little back in cold hard cash - assuming no more charges have been added to that account I would get back just over £100 of the £300+ they have already had from me. This was in a reply to a letter I sent to them which said: "With regard to your letter (reference xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) of 29 september 2006, please note that a letter before action was sent to you on 9 May 2006 to: RBOS Senior Customer Relations Manager Freepost PO box 1727 Edinburgh As your claim*** is totally made up of penalty charges, which of course are illegal under the terms of the Consumer Credit Act, a formal claim will be made through the small claims courts for the total of approximately £650 which I incurred in charges on all my RBS accounts if the money is not refunded to me in full within the next seven days." *** Just to clarify, I originally claimed back in May but never pursued it. I only went on the offensive again when they sent me a letter telling me they were going to pursue a claim from me of £285 (the overdraft) on 29 September.

Well after a false start I have now received an offer of £400 "in full and final settlement". At first I thought this was not unreasonable, but as the credit will be applied to the account which still has (last time I got a statement and assuming no further interest has been added) a negative balance of £285+. So if I accept they will effectively be cancelling out the £285 overdraft - which is made up ENTIRELY of bank charges - and I will be left with around £105, which means I will still be over £200 out of pocket. Am I correct in thinking that I should tell them to shove their offer or am I shooting myslef in the foot by not accepting? What's the next step? (will have a read up of the stickies too).

good luck Ted, similar-ish situ here, self-employed and unable to work properly due to long term back problems. At least you're in the right frame of mind to deal with it.

Dunno about falcon but my APR is quoted on the agreement as 35.8% I knew it was high at the time but the plan was to remortgage about 3 months after I got the car and pay them back in full, but for other rather complicated reasons that all went t*ts up and I was unable to do it. I'm now halfway through a four year deal. I could terminate the agreement and send the car back but it's a good car and i would still have to then look for another one and try to find another deal. I'm sure the APR is a lot more than I was originally quoted (yes, I should have checked I know) but there's not a lot I can do about that now.

I was referring to DCA's rather than bailiffs to be honest, but duly noted!

How debtors can be expected to stick to the rules when councils, companies, banks, bailiffs etc. regularly flaunt the without a care in the world is beyond me. And as I said, you're not going to beat a cheat by playing to the rules!

I understand what you are saying and I don't want to mislead anyone. This has gone far deeper than was ever intended, but I'm not making this up off the top of my head. Other than that it is now pointless to add anything to that which I have already said, other than to state that I am not in any way asking anybody to "pretend" they are self-employed, just to become self-employed as described in which case you are not deciving anybody.

Your last sentence says it all. "They have to take affordable payments". But they don't - they try to take anything and everything they can. blfuk1 says: "However, if the debtor has insufficient goods - or seizing goods would cause unreasonable hardship, then the bailiff should walk away and permit the creditor to use an alternative option." They SHOULD walk away, yes, but they don't. As I have said i have had many years of experience with many bailiffs "chasing" both myself and other people I know, ON NO OCCASION EVER have they made any sort of indication of this, apart from the other stuff I have mentioned such as no attempt to show a warrant or state where it can be viewed. Here are a few examples of recent tactics by Phoenix Commercial Collections (and I don't give a toss if they're reading this or not): 1. A letter stating that as I have failed to pay the amount due IN FULL they will be round to remove my goods unless the FULL balance is avaialbe for collection - in fact I have NEVER had a letter implying that anything except the FULL payment is due. 2. A letter stating, and I quote, that they will be round on a certain date "with a locksmith and the police" basically telling me that they will be round to legally break into the premises DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE NEVER SET FOOT INSIDE THE DOOR AND I HAVE NEVER SIGNED A WALKING POSSESSION AGREEMENT. This implies that they can legally break down my door - they can't - and that the police will attend "to help them" - they won't. 3. A recent visit had the bailiff claiming that he would take my car there and then if I did not pay. I informed him that (a) it was not my car but subject to a HP Agreement and (b) it was required for my job as I was self employed. The bailiff's exact words were, "That doesn't change anything, I want the money or your keys." 4. Bailiffs fees and charges are supposed to be itemised on all demands for payment. I have not got ONE SINGLE LETTER (from over 100) that itemises the fees and charges from Phoenix. 5. Letters are supposed to be in a sealed envelope, yet many I have had pushed through the door - shared letterbox - haven't even been in an envelope! 6. Bailiffs have called and spoke to, on seperate occasions, a neighbour (he asked if she knew where I worked and told her that he was a bailiff and I was to ring him urgently), and to a 13-year old child - not a member of my family - and said to her "tell your dad the bailiff is here and I need to speak to him now". 7. The same company have called at a neighbours acroos the road, got no answer, and then shouted through the letterbox in a very loud voice so everybody could hear "HERE'S YOUR BANKRUPCY PAPERS". I could go on. The point is this is what we are up against, and the fact this that just by reading most of the threads on this board it's plain to see that loan companies, banks, DCA's, bailiffs and so on are flouting the law on a regular basis. I don't really want to take it deeper than this but what annoys me the most is that in my case Blackpool Council arew blatently ignoring the fact that their parking tickets are illegally worded and thus invalid, rejecting every single appeal that lands on their desk, pushing the matter on then pushing their bailiffs on to people to collect money that they are not owed in the first place. As I said, this is what we are up against, try to play fair against a much bigger cheat and you will lose unless you have massive resources behind you to fight these b****rds. And of course, we don't have those resources. There are probably thousands of us that would like to take them on in court but it's impossible, so most of us pay up because there's too much to lose but that does NOT make it right.

Hmm, I'm not sure if it was the OFT that gave me the inkling that they are not supposed to cxall on Sundays but I have definately read it somewhere in the past.

On the agreement its: Welcome Finance, Wilford Business Park Nottingham NG11 7EP but on their letterheads it's as above. The letterheads also contain their company registration number (133540) which is shown just before the address so this would appear to be the favourite. The last letter I wrote to that address though (when I complained about continuous phone calls and messages left by the local branch after a payment was even a couple af days late) was completely ignored and just passed back to the local branch for action - the head office didn't bother to contact me at all.

That's all well and good but it's also idealistic! The point is this: The system fails us and can not be changed by one man or a small group of people alone. Bailiffs, DCA's, even companies (e.g. banks still exploiting customers and taking illegal bank charges DESPITE the fact that it has been proven out of court that they are unlawful and they have repaid millions of pounds to thousands of customers) regularly flaunt the law, and as unpalatable it might be to some people the ONLY way to fight them is to turn it to your advantage. For the purposes of this thread, that means playing the bailiffs at their own game. I have met many bailiffs over the years, like most people in the same situation because I cannot and in some cases will not pay a fee (e.g. parking fine) that is unjust and should never have been issued in the first place. These companies have unlimited (to a point) resources, most of us are in a position where we cannot afford to take legal action so we have to do what we can. For some people that menas paying up money that they are not entitled to. For others like me it means fight them any way you can. Incidentally I have yet to meet a single bailiff or debt collector that hasn't tried to "con" his way in or tried to get me to sign a walking possession agreement without explaining what it is, I have NEVER been shown any kind of warrant nor been advised that I can view such an item at any time, or of my rights. So you (may) have to prove you're self-employed for the purposes of retaining your vehicle. Fine! I don't have a problem with that! That's the whole point of this thread. Open an ebay account (for example) and you have your own business - you are self-employed for the purposes of this article.

So what's the point of them even obtaining a warrant if they don't even have to prove they have one "before the event"? I'm not convinced about that one at all, you have to be advised by law that they have a warrant as far as I understand it even if they haven't got it with them at the time.

When I'm talking about "business use" I'm talking about the individual here, i.e. self-employed business use. It's important not to take the information in this thread out of context here by over-elaborating, and I feel we're going off at a tangent here. The poor sods who the councils and their cronies are trying to rip off due to an unpaid and possibly illegally issued parking ticket which should not have been issued in the first place and may not be a legal debt anyway need to know what they can and can't do. IF you tell the bailiffs that you are self-employed and that your vehicle is for business use YOU HAVE INTRODUCED REASONABLE DOUBT AND THEY CAN'T (LEGALLY) TAKE IT!

That's a great help, some useful stuff there Sarah. Thanmks for taking the time and trouble. I particularly like this bit: 2.1 It is unfair to communicate, in whatever form, with consumers in an unclear, inaccurate or misleading manner. That covers most of the dealings I've had with any of them I reckon!

I'm not doubting what you say but I would be interested to see some actual law relating to this. When I spoke to Trading Standards the other day they did a little bit of research and came back to say that the bailiffs cannot take anything unless they are sure beyond reasonable doubt that the goods actually belong to the owner. If a bailiff walks into your house and takes your TV I would say he is reasonably safe in assuming that the TV is yours, but given that a lot of vehicles are subject to H.P. or lease agreements I find it difficult to accept that a bailiff would just take any vehicle and ask questions later IF - and this is the important bit - you have previously told them that it is subject to a H.P. agreement. Of course, going back to where I started with this thread, the ultimate get-out clause is to tell them it's for business use!

Isn't there some sort of law forbidding DCA's pusuing you on a Sunday? Apparently nobody told First Credit (08701 642 049) who used the old trick of phoning up, asking for me by name, then hanging up (to see if I am actually available on the number they got from the creditor they are acting for given that I have never contacted them before) I seem to remember reading somewhere that they cannot pursue you after 9pm at night or at anytime on Sundays or Bank Holidays (not sure about Saturdays), I would be grateful if anybody can enlighten me further.

Agreed, just taking something on the assumption it's yours is ridiculous, the bailiffs know this and that's why they try to dupe you into handing over the keys. You would have a stonewall case against the bailiffs, for damages, harrassment, theft (see below), expenses including daily car hire and so on. I would be tempted to phone the police and insist they chage the bailiff with theft if they took my car when they had no legal right to do so, and in fact another angle that covers this is the Human Rights Act, which says something like you are entitled to enjoy your possessions peacefully without threat of removal or something like that, which presumably is designed to prevent bailiffs and DCA's doing this sort of thing.

I'm actually about to fire off a questionnaire to the local council with the following questions; when I get answers I will be sending off another five similar questions: 1. Why is it necessary to put double yellow lines down in a short cul-de-sac that contains no houses, a hotel on one side and a park on the other? 2. Why do traffic wardens regularly patrol resident's parking areas but never patrol other areas where cars are regularly parked partly on footpaths? 3. Why is it deemed necessary to ticket a car "illegally" parked in a resident's parking area at 11 p.m. when there is obviously ample spare parking space that is not going to be taken up by residents overnight? 4. Why, when motorists already pay more money into the road systems in road tax (road fund licence) than is ever spent on the roads, have parking meters been installed on certain roads around the town centre? 5. Why have double yellow lines been painted in an otherwise disused long lay-by, which is not used for any other purpose other than a little used bus stop at the top end? (Locations included)

Absolute disgrace, and proof if ever it was needed that it's just a cash cow. You wouldn't mind if the "victims" were actually doing any harm, i.e. blocking traffic flow or causing a hazard. No need for it at all in most cases EXCEPT to raise money. This money should be given back.

You know, that's the one thing that annoys me the most about these things, they DON'T need the money, they rake in more than they know what to do with then spend it on stuff we don't need, two-tone paintwork and new logos all over their new vans for example, new traffic lights replacing perfectly good old ones, free newsletters distributed to every household teling us how wonderful they are, pointless public information adverts on the radio and so on. It's the principle of the whole thing that really does my head in.

My aim is to go for the jugular with the harrassment angle - the letter, for example, that said they would be coming around in such a date with "a locksmith and the police" two or three years ago, which had me frantically trying to get hold of the always-engaged Citizens Advice line and ended up with me taking the day off work to prevent them breaking my door down. This letter was issued despite the fact that they could do no such thing as I hadn't signed a walking possession agreement and they hadn't previously set foot in the house, but I didn't know that at the time of course! They have since had a bill for my lost earnings for the unneccesary day I had off work (they didn't even turn up) and later a second letter asking them what sort of compensation they might be willing to offer out pending legal action for the harrassment they have put me through, both of which they have completely ignored. This was quite some time ago, we tend not to bother each other any more but no doubt they will be back and when they are I intend to go for it next time.

It's anything but irrelevant! The point is that many people HAVE had their cars taken or handed over the keys because they didn't know any better and believed what the bailiff told them. It actually happened to a friend of mine, also self employed, just a couple of weeks ago who had his car towed off his driveway in his absence by the bailiffs. It cost him over £460 to recover it - all because he didn't advise the bailiffs as I had told him to several times that he was self-employed and needed it for his work. The point of THIS thread is to let people know what they can and cannot do. Take it from me, the chances of the bailiff taking your car if he knows for a fact that it is for business use or on H.P. are very slim indeed because they KNOW that you can then sue them. The important thing is to let them know that YOU know, and if you get that far the chances of them risking it are almost non-existent. If they do, you also now know that you are in a position to sue for expenses, inconvenience caused and so on. This even stretches to hire car charges until you get your car back, or even the cost of replacing your car if they have sold it at auction. If it DOES happen to you, tell them you want the car delivering back to you - don't go and collect it - and you will be charging them £100 a day until you get it.