ccj threat

[jogra4]

hiya this is a rather complicated thread but i will try to make it sound comprehensible we as a company had insurance last year for our taxis had a lot of agro actually getting paperwork for insurance and numerous other problems involving changing amounts and we then noticed they had illegally signed a dd mandate in my sig but in my bus partners name so we cancelled the insurance due to lack of service and the fact that they are willing to forge a sig we had a lot of toing and froing with letters then they stopped mid last year when my partners bank refunded the dd payments due to false sig today we have rec,d a cc from northampton county court in my partners name but they are hinging there case on a cca and dd form with my sigs on them which incidentely are totally different from his can any one help with this regards jogra4

[riverstyx]

Hi Jogra,

 

I'm sure others will be able to advise you better than I can on your best course of defence, but it may help if you can post details of how they have worded their claim (obvioulsy removing any personal details).

 

Also, you mentioned you'd had a lot of writted comminication with the company concerned, do you still have copies of all the letters both sent and received, and do you have proof of posting, or proof of delivery, or correspondance from the company acknowledging receipt of any of the letters which you think might be important as part of your defence?

 

As I said before, I'm sure others will be able to provide better advise than me (and I'm sure you'll have some more replies pretty soon), but it will definately be easier to advise with a little more info.

 

Good Luck

Martin

[jogra4]

yeah we kept a comprehensive file of all letters sent and recieved and all proofs of posting they are trying to claim the whole years premuim nearly 3 grand for 3 months worth of cover which incidentaly we believe we wernt actually covered apart from a couple of cover notes

[babybear39]

Was anything done about the forged signatures?

[jogra4]

firstly my partners bank did an immediate snatch back of the funds dd'd to this company then when they were furnished with this they went very very quiet until today i believe they are hoping that we have thrown away the paperwork and also they are only pursuing my partner and not me so i think when and if it comes to court they are going to look extremely stupid

[babybear39]

Your bank should have persued this as fraud and should have records. You should contact them on Tuesday morning with regard to this issue.

[jogra4]

apart from contacting the bank do you think we should deny the claim on court papers and use the evidence or let them take it all the way and then hit em with the evidence making them look like the incompitents that they are

[babybear39]

If you're confident that all is in order and that fraud was committed, yes let them 'hang themselves' in court.

 

Get a legal opinion on this though

[riverstyx]

As babybear said, I would definately contact the bank to find out what action they have taken if any other than the clawing back of the dd payments.

 

With regard to the court claim, I would say you should provide a detailed defence to the court at this stage, as this gives the insurance company the option of backing off now and avoiding the court case, it is also likely to be looked upon much more favourably by the judge if you have submitted a proper defence at this stage, rather than just introducing everything when you get to court.

 

You may also wish to request that proceedings be moved to your local county court in order to avoid having to travel too far.

 

I assume you did not need to make any claims on this insurance during the period where they may 'allegedly' have actually been providing cover?

 

Also, if you were forced to arrange alternative cover and/or did not actually rely on the cover this company provided given that they had not supplied you with any certificate of insurance, it would probably be worth including evedence of this in you defence too.

 

Again, I'm no lawyer, and I'm sure others here will either back me up or point out if I'm wrong, but this would seem the best common sense approach to me at this stage.

 

Hope this helps...

[jogra4]

no there were no claims against this alleged policy we were just getting really skittish over the brokers refusal to issue us our policy in our business we need to be 100% legal what with carrying fare paying passengers so we told em to put up or shut up they didnt so we cancelled our insurance and went with another co thank god we did becuase the week after one of our drivers had a serious accident causing thousands in damage not his fault and no one hurt but if i wasnt insured i could have been looking at prison if i wernt insured

[babybear39]

Glad to hear no-one was hurt and fully sympathise with your integrity towards your customers and drivers. IMO this should be a complete embarassment for the company trying to bring, again IMO, a frivilous and vexacious claim in light of serious fraud committed by said company. However, you need your bank's help to prove this was fraud.

 

In addition, as riverstyx says, you have to defend the claim in order to avoid a judgement in default.

[jogra4]

oh yeah we are gonna defend against it anyway but i been chatting to my partner and he said we should just get a brief on the firm and sue em seriously between the broker and the finance co they have cocked up on so many issues we was gonna let it go cos we would rather develop our business than play tit for tat with these people but now we are gonna go for the jugular with a vengeance

[babybear39]

Good for you and good luck