Employee loyalty card abuse ***Settled at Mediation***

[FTMDave]

Another clever letter, intended to put the wind up the recipient.

 

But the devil is in the detail - if your son-in-law doesn't cough up, they threaten to ... get a powerless DCA that can nothing as it's not their debt to, er, send him a letter.  But it'll be a big letter.  That will take ages to open.  

 

He should never have replied and should now start ignoring them. 

[FTMDave]

A few initial ideas.

 

You mention a criminal act, but this is a civil action to recover money the pub chain reckon he owes them.  Nothing criminal about it.

 

They state he built up & spent £349.35 he wasn't entitled to.  Well, let's see later if they really can prove this.  Of course he can go for a CPR request.  You say he "had a few free beers and plates of chips" so it would be a good idea for him to start listing, as far as he can, dates, places & amounts he did spend.

 

I wonder how they get this £177.60 cost of the investigation.  Presumably the fraud manager is employed and would have got his salary anyway.  Judges don't like made-up amounts being included in court claims.

 

Did he get a Letter Before Claim?

 

 

[FTMDave]

CPR is merely a request, they don't have to comply.  However, if this gets to Witness Statement stage they will certainly have to show their cards at that point.

 

Yes, please redact & upload the other two letters.  We're particularly interested to see if they sent him a formal Letter Before Action or not.

 

Also please post up what he wrote to them.  In your first post you hint he admitted part of the sum. 

[FTMDave]

dx, does what they sent on 02 October count as a Letter Before Action?

[FTMDave]

On the one hand the case could be difficult, as you heavily hint your SIL isn't blameless and made some partial admission.

 

On the other hand if he gave in now he'd be stung for costs and if he lost the court case he'd be stung for essentially the same costs, so IMO he might as well fight it.  Then we have

   - let's see if they really can justify the £352

   - £200 Unicorn Food Tax as dx says, judges don't like this sort of thing, it's not up to your SIL to pay the fraud manager's salary

   - no Letter Before Action.

 

You still haven't told us what he said to them, or how.

 

In the CPR request make sure you demand copies of the CCTV they go on about and the dates, times & amounts of how they calculated £352, etc.

 

 

[FTMDave]

14 hours ago, dx100uk said:

be very very careful what you ask for as it can result in  admittance you know what hey hell they are going on about to a judge later in the case saying..well you asked for xyz so must know what you did wrong.

 

Thanks dx.

 

While I understand that the CPR request must only refer to the Particulars of Claim, if the OP was challenged in the way you say could he not just whip out the previous letters he received where the accusations against him are very, very specific?

 

Maybe the solution is to make the CPR request mirror the general PoC.  Maybe ask for

   - which goods the claimant is referring to and which balance of the price the defendant retained for himself in PoC 1  Whilst the defendant was employed by the claimant the defendant sold goods belonging to the claimant receiving full price and purporting to account therefor but only accounting for part thereof and retaining the balance for his own benefit

   - a breakdown of how the figure of £526.95 was arrived at including the date, time and amount of each alleged selling of goods

   - copies of, or links to, any evidence in any form they possess of the alleged selling of goods.

 

Apologies if I'm making a pig's ear out of this, I know very little about CPR especially in a  complex case like this, and am thinking out loud.

 

I think it would be a good idea if the OP would post a draft of what he proposes to send and we can then fine tune it.

[FTMDave]

Self-evidently this is bad news.

 

I'd almost posted a few times that the SIL should deal with this himself, with these "on behalf of" threads it's difficult to get the full info. and the person being sued isn't understanding how to defend their own case.

 

It's particularly bad that he offered to repay not only "the few pints and a plate of chips" but the whole £352 and indeed all the Unicorn Food Tax to boot in response to a threat to involve a DCA which has no power whatsoever.

 

However, don't chuck in the towel just yet!  As you can imagine, Site Team members have their own fields and levels of experience, there are people on the site with decades of experience in litigation and there may still be a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

 

 

[FTMDave]

The cavalry are on their way

[FTMDave]

A case this complex is out of my comfort zone, though I can well understand dx's points about only countering what is mentioned in their Particulars of Claim.

 

How about also being more emphatic about them not explaining how much of their claim is for "the cost of investigation" and how they calculated this sum?  After all we know that they are expecting your SIL to pay the Fraud Manager's salary!

 

 

[FTMDave]

What's done is done, and he did get a partial reduction. However, to me there were two main errors. 

 

Firstly, he wouldn't deal with his own case. The work you put in was phonomenal, you'll have learnt a lot, but it wasn't you being sued. So when he was in his own, he didn't know what to do. Being expected to pay the Fraud Manager's salary was an obvious line of attack. 

 

Secondly, why this fear of court? The way small claims works with limited costs nearly always makes it worth your while to go to court. The worst that could have happened is he would have lost and then asked the judge to be able to pay in instalments, with no other consequences. 

[FTMDave]

5 hours ago, ChrisS1968 said:

Hi Dave,

 

To be honest the biggest worry (the worst that could of happened) here was getting a CCJ for the reasons stated above. Even if a judge saw fit to only award Stonegate £100 it would still have been a judgement.

Yes, but for future reference it's important to know that all the dreadful consequences - CCJ, trashed credit file, can't get a mortgage - is if you go to court, lose, and then defy the judge and still refuse to pay. Paying in the time frame set by the judge will lead no none of the above. 

 

Glad you've given him a good talking to re any future dispute! 

 

£500 is better than £735 sure, but you think if he'd fought in court it could have been £0.00. Oh well.