TK Maxx and RLP

[donna1981xx]

A week ago my 16 year old son and 17 year old nephew made a very silly mistake, egging each other on they went into TK Maxx and tried to steal a £26 watch, they were caught and police were called. As my son had the item on him when he tried to leave the shop got an £80 police fine and obviously the shop had the watch back. We thought that was the end.

 

Then this morning they each received a letter from RLP asking for £188.75. It says they don't care which one of them pays the fine but it must be paid within 21 day. I tried to call but they would only speak with my son so we did not call back.

 

Both my son and nephew attend college and have no income.

 

I have read a few other items on the net about this. Am I right in thinking we should just ignore the letters?

[ScarletPimpernel]

Don't speak to RLP on the phone; it will serve no purpose.

 

Your son could send the one line denial letter, but in the circumstances I'd be inclined to ignore them. Have a read around some threads here, and you will get an idea of RLP's begging letters, and how, despite their bullying, they are impotent.

[Sidewinder]

Absolutely. RLP will keep making ever more ridiculous demands, however you should either ignore them, or write a single line response stating that there is no liability to either RLP or their client.

 

Considering the ages of your son and nephew, there is little that RLP can do. Police were called and justice has served it's course. The goods were recovered in a saleable condition and security were doing precisely the job that they are paid to do. TK Maxx have not incurred any additional expense as a result of this, and since the basis of their argument is 'recovery of costs incurred as a result of wrongdoing', they are on a hiding to nothing. The Oxford case proved precisely how dubious their claims are - even more so since any money 'reclaimed' from you would mainly go into their business rather than back to the retailer!

 

They will quote entirely misleading and hugely inaccurate pre-action protocols and civil procedure rules. They will get a scary debt collector to write to you in the hope that shame of debt collection works better than threats of court action. They will tell you, (after you telling the debt collector that no debt exists to collect so they are in danger of losing their licence for misleading practices) that they will be recommending that their client issues proceedings, as RLP cannot themselves take you to court, only the retailer can do that - and they won't. They will then almost certainly stop writing as they realise that you won't be intimidated by their spurious claims and misleading pseudo-legal jargon.

 

They will tell you that they have read your post here and that CAG is conducting a malicious campaign of inaccurate information and that we are under criminal investigation for harassing RLP (interesting that we have not actually heard anything more about that even several months after they spouted that guff), or that we condone shoplifting. We don't believe in harassing RLP or their staff, just that we believe that the proper course of action is through the criminal justice system rather than trying to bully people - especially minors and vulnerable people - into paying extortionate amounts on extremely dubious grounds and which for the most part serve to generate a profit for themselves.

 

Come back at any time but DO NOT PAY THEM. Your son and nephew did wrong, were caught, and have been dealt with as the police saw fit. I doubt very much whether he will do it again.