Morning All. Kindly find below a quick update on this case and as I want to paint a full picture on events to provide better clarity, apologies in advance if I repeat anything that's already common knowledge to all and sundry. Following on from our mediation appointment in December and towards the end of last month, DCB Legal sent me a letter on behalf of their client (Spring Parking), agreeing to withdraw their original claim against me, on condition that I also withdrew my SAR claim against them. This letter however arrived too late, as the court had by then awarded judgement and costs in my favour for a total sum of £235. I however responded to DCB Legal's offer letter by accepting their proposal, but with the caveat that they confirm in writing the PCN's that were related to their withdrawal offer. By this stage, I'd chosen not to cash Spring Parking's settlement cheque as I awaited DCB's reply. That response from DCB Legal finally came through on Wednesday 22nd Feb and as a result of that, I went ahead to cash the cheque from Spring, wait for it to clear and then provide MCOL with a settlement update. All of these actions have now been completed. The main body of the DCB Legal email reply (including an attached N279 - Notice of Dicontinuance), was as below: ************************************************************************************************************************************************************ Dear xxxxxxxx, We act for the Claimant. Without Prejudice Save as to Costs We acknowledge your offer to settle the Judgment, however, updating the Court that the matter has been settled will not remove the CCJ from our Client's credit file. We do note, that you have received payment in full from our Client, and therefore request that you do update the Court that our Client has made payment in full within the calendar month of Judgment being entered. Our Client has instructed us to discontinue their Claim against you, and notice of the same is attached by way of service. We confirm the Court has been updated of the discontinuance and we will therefore proceed to close our file. Kind Regards, xxxxx ************************************************************************************************************************************************************ Having probably made a sound assessment of their position, including incorrect claim form details, SAR compliance breaches and subsequent penalties, etc, it appears both DCB and Spring came to the conclusion it would be best to simply cut their losses and bring the entire messy saga to an end. As things therefore stand at this minute, I can report that we have vigorously succeeded in fighting back against this particular court claim and for that, I can only offer my biggest gratitude to everyone here for all your wonderful advice and contribution. There's every chance that this may not be the last we hear from those vampires as they seek to enact 'revenge' at a later date, but that will be another battle for another day...............which we'll be well prepared for and leave no stone unturned in our fight back!!

And that's only because they were first to offer an olive branch and went on to propose dropping their claim entirely, if I did so with mine. Under those circumstances, I just thought it would be completely counter-productive rubbing them the wrong way or even appearing to be contemptuous, hence my suggestion we adopt a slightly more cordial approach. As far as negotiation is concerned, well the ball is currently well and truly in their court. I replied to DCB Legal's offer letter last Friday with some additional conditions, but they're yet to respond.

@Nicky Boythat's absolutely one of the ridiculous things they tend to depict on all of their PCNs. It only ever shows the vehicle on a public road.........not parked in the car park they claim to manage.

Well, below are edited copies of the attachment response to my SAR request received earlier today from Spring Parking. SAR Return.pdf

So what's next? We completely turn our backs on DCB Legal's compromise deal and await a new court date?

Most definitely. Just need to tidy them up a bit after work to remove any personal data and then will upload.

Absolutely!! And as per my previous thoughts on this subject, I think that with them now putting forward that offer of a compromise, we should play our cards carefully by adopting a more accommodating and slightly cordial approach, rather than antagonise them and jeopardise the entire purpose of what we set out to do, i.e. get their claim killed off entirely. And so, how about we include as part of our compromise terms that: 1. Yes, we'll apply for judgement to be set aside (if it's not too late and they agree to pay the required fee).......................and/or refund their cheque. 2. We will withdraw any further pending or proposed SAR claims, as stated in yesterday's letter. 3. They withdraw their claim, but crucially, will initially have to confirm all PCNs the claim relates to. Any thoughts on this?

Well, you'll all be interested to know that within the last couple of minutes, I've just received a letter from Spring Parking responding to my SAR request with some PDFs of multiple PCNs and rendering an apology for the delay. I doubt it's just a coincidence that this email came just shortly after they most likely checked the Royal Mail tracking number to confirm my receipt of their cheque.

All, well things have now taken a rather surprising turn and perhaps it's just as well that email/letter to DCB Legal hasn't yet gone out. This is because, in the last few minutes, a recorded letter from Spring Parking was delivered to me at home. Enclosed was a cheque for the sum of £235 which was the judgement sum for the SAR distress claim. Now then, any suggestions how we firstly proceed with this pending DCB Letter and secondly, this cheque settlement? Is this some sort of trap by Spring Parking/DCB Legal?

Morning All. Quick update before the pressures of work take center stage once again. Unfortunately, due to work commitments which led to me traveling out of town to the midlands all day Tuesday, I was unable to send out the SAR letters to Spring Parking until yesterday. All letters though were sent as first class mail and I'm hoping that this week's ongoing strikes won't cause any major delay to their delivery. Later this afternoon, I intend to follow that up by sending out the response letter to DCB Legal.

@FTMDavethanks for the feedback. Will apply the necessary changes to the SAR letter and also yes, the draft letter to DCB looks perfect. I’ll adapt it.

No worries. Will hold fire on those letters and email till we reconvene tonight. Will be out of town all day tomorrow, so if we're able to finalise everything this evening, I'm sure I can get the letter printed and sent out in the post tomorrow. On the back of that, the email to DCB can also be drafted tonight and then sent out later in the day tomorrow.

*********** BELOW, SOME MINOR UPDATES MADE TO THE EARLIER DRAFT FOR REVIEW AND FEEDBACK PLEASE ************ Letter Before Claim To Whom It May Concern Re: VRN XXXXX, Claim No. XXXXX On 26th September 2022, I sent you a Subject Access Request (letter dated 25th September 2022) for a statutory disclosure of my personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018. You have failed to comply and are therefore in breach of your statutory duty and obligations under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This dereliction of duty has caused me a great deal of distress, exacerbated by your failure to provide me with the requested information to enable me understand the issues at hand and further compounded by the necessity for me to pursue you to obtain this disclosure. I already hold a County Court Judgement against you for distress caused until 15th November 2022 for £200. You now have 14 days to pay me the sum of £200 for distress caused for the period from 16th November 2022 until 30th January 2023. In case of no payment I shall begin a County Court claim against you. These court claims will go on and on until you satisfy my Subject Access Request. Although you have no defence to the distress caused by your failure from 16th November 2022 until 30th January 2023, I undertake to not proceed with the claim if you satisfy my Subject Access Request by 13th February 2023 - i.e. that is the date by which I expect your letter to be delivered through my letter box. You have already had umpteen chances. Yours sincerely,

So below is the second SAR letter I plan sending out this morning. Would greatly appreciate some feedback, especially as the original draft stated a response deadline of 30th January which also happens to be today and requires a new date stated. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Letter Before Claim To Whom It May Concern Re: VRN XXXXX, Claim No. XXXXX On 26th September 2022, I sent you a Subject Access Request for a statutory disclosure of my personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018. You have failed to comply and are therefore in breach of your statutory duty and obligation under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This dereliction of duty has caused me a great deal of distress, exacerbated by your failure to provide me with the requested information to enable me to understand the issue at hand and further compounded by the necessity for me to pursue you to obtain this disclosure. I already hold a County Court Judgement against you for distress caused until 15th November 2022 for £200. You now have 14 days to pay the me the sum of £200 for distress caused for the period from 16th November 2022 until 23rd January 2023. In case of no payment I shall begin a County Court claim against you. These court claims will go on and on until you satisfy my Subject Access Request. Although you have no defence to the distress caused by your failure from 16th November 2022 until 23rd January 2023, I undertake to not proceed with the claim if you satisfy my Subject Access Request by dd-mmm-2023 - i.e. that is the date by which I expect your letter to be delivered through my letter box. You have already had umpteen chances. Yours,

@FTMDave, yes I agree entirely with that view. Let's not antagonise and torment the cornered cat any further or who knows, it could fight back. Let's build on what we've achieved here so far and save the rest of our ammo for another battle on another day, which is sure to come round in future in another PCN fightback case. And on that note, demanding SARs from parking companies (and pursuing them vigorously to the bitter end) should most definitely become one such ammunition in future.

Morning All, Apologies, went MIA yesterday due to work commitments, etc. Been up bright and early though to get some work done and also pick up from where we left off. @FTMDavethanks for your feedback on those proposed changes to the draft letter. I'll most definitely get that letter all finalised and share on here this weekend, with a view to sending it out in the mail on Monday. By the way, the judgement 'Set-Aside' application fee is £275 and my successful claim was for the sum total of £235 (£200 for compo, £35 for the application costs). One of the suggestions here was to demand that Spring Parking pick up that £275 tab, as part of my demands to agree for all claims to be dropped. Question is, considering it will cost them more, will they bite the bait and pay the higher amount for the case to be 'set aside', or will they simply pay the judgement fee which in any case will see the judgment record removed off their record?

On the back of my last post, I think I very much like the look of this wording. ".......all PCN's to date and I demand this to be confirmed in writing."

@FTMDave, perhaps the only slight issue of concern for me regarding your draft letter is on the insertion of the above dates. On their original PoC, they stated that the 6 PCNs were issue on 02/02/2019 and 16/02/2019 (5x). They then deceitfully sent me some lousy revised PoC, this time with hand-written date amendments to four of the five 16/02/2019 date entries. Mind you, this revised PoC was never officially submitted to the court...........and if you ask my opinion on that, I reckon that was probably because they couldn't afford or wanted to avoid the additional court cost that change would entail. As far as the court and myself are therefore concerned, we only have official knowledge and/or visibility of two PCN dates only - 02/02/2019 and 16/02/2019. My slight concern therefore is that by stating those 6 dates, as per your draft letter, are we then not perhaps acknowledging the legitimacy or validity of those PCNs? Would it therefore be best letting them confirm firstly in writing, the full list of PCNs relating to the claim they're offering to to withdraw? If it is then consistent with the dates in your draft letter, great!! If it isn't, then we query the discrepancies and demand that any date from their handwritten list that is missing, gets included. Your thoughts?

Morning All, Thanks for all your kind and wonderful contributions in the last few hours which has really thrilled me and for which I'm most grateful. @FTMDavethat draft letter looks awesome!! I'll probably propose some slight change or two on the odd paragraph, but other than that I think it looks simply superb!! Thank you and more on this later. As far as Spring Parking are concerned and the events of the last 24 hours, i.e. the ICO email and letter from DCB Legal, my personal opinion is that they have been unable to fulfil the SAR request..........simply because they probably DO NOT have the requested data (PCN's) available. I'd like to be proved wrong on this, but I strongly believe this is definitely the case. I'm inclined to be really mean and submit claim after claim for their non-compliance of my Subject Access Request and I'll bet my life the court would award me judgement each time, simply because Spring Parking are in no position to fulfil the request. I might just choose to let them off the hook because I simply don't have the appetite to waste too much precious time on them, but happy to oblige if there's a unanimous view that I turn the screw on them. In my opinion, we probably sometimes are guilty of holding these private parking companies in too high an esteem and our expectation on their competence and capability to adhere to certain legislation could be a bit misguided. Anyone that is familiar with the subject matter will tell you electronic data storage can be very expensive, especially when in this instance we're talking about data stored for alleged PCN's dating back to 2019, in other words nearly 4 years ago. I don't know to hand the specific regulations on private parking companies, but as this (data storage) is something that is very relevant to my line of work, I do know there are regulations around the duration over which certain industries or organisations are even allowed to retain some personal data. In many cases, 2 or 3 years is the maximum duration. The big question therefore is, with these above factors in mind, i.e. data storage costs and data retention compliance to adhere to, etc, are our good friends Spring Parking the sort of organisation that is equipped with the required resources, e.g. finance and manpower, to fulfil all of these aforementioned demands? If they're not, is that then any surprise they're unable to fulfil my SAR request? Those parking company leeches cling onto the hope that they'll scare us into submission and without any fight back, but then when you face up to them, they're found wanting....................as in this particular case. I can't recall the exact date, but there was an expert on this subject matter who appeared on BBC Breakfast recently (within the last couple of weeks) and he reiterated this precise point - we should always take on the parking companies because they simply prey on and take advantage of our ignorance and fear.

Oh, something else that just dropped in my Inbox not long ago - A reply from the ICO to my complaint on Spring Parking's processing of my personal data. Is it a coincidence that they've decided to propose that plea bargain? Please see the main body of the ICO email below. Summary of your complaint You have written to us because you are concerned with the way your personal data has been handled. Specifically, you made a subject access request to Spring Parking Limited on 25 September 2022 but you believe you have not been provided with all of the information you are entitled to. You have not received a response to your SAR. You have raised a further complaint and have still not received any information. Our view We have considered the information available in relation to this complaint and we are of the view that Spring Parking Limited has not complied with their Data Protection obligations. This is because you did not receive an appropriate response to your subject access request. We consider this to be an infringement of the legislation. Under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), information must be provided without delay and at least within one calendar month (commencing on the day after receipt). This may be extended by a further two calendar months from the day after receipt for complex or numerous requests. Further action required We have written to Spring Parking Limited about their information rights practices. We have told them they should now review your subject access request and ensure that they provide you with the appropriate response as soon as possible or within 14 calendar days. Should Spring Parking Limited not provide you with the personal data to which you are entitled, you have the right to approach the courts for an order for your data to be released. Legal action of this nature is not something that the ICO can assist with and we would recommend that you seek some independent legal advice before taking this step. We will not be taking further action on this case at this time. However please be assured that the concerns raised will remain on file to build up a picture of Spring Parking Limited’s information rights practices. Should we continue to receive complaints about them of a similar nature, your complaint may form part of our wider regulatory activity. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Yours sincerely

23rd Jan 2023.......this Monday. Royal Mail stamp is dated the very next day, 24th Jan.

Thanks for the kind words, @Nicky Boy. I take a more philosophical outlook on events of this nature and won't lose too much sleep over the money I've had to lose through costs. It's just money which can always be earned again. What however irks me to the extreme, is the amount of precious time I've lost in dealing with those scumbags, as unlike money, I can never regain or reclaim it back. For someone with an extremely busy work and family life as myself, words can barely describe my irritation.

Yep, you're absolutely correct. The case doesn't get discontinued. However, and this is again based on personal experience just over 5 years ago, the default Judgement can be Set Aside upon application by the defendant and subject to a successful review and approval by a Judge. I'm not entirely sure though how things transpire following that second review of the case by a Judge, as the personal case in question never progressed that far.

From personal experience a few years ago, I do know that judgement can be reversed. My thoughts exactly.

Breaking News...........!!! Well everyone, we did it again. Unless this is all a big con, looks like we managed to pummel the leeches into eventual submission. What an awesome tag team performance from everyone here !! So, I received today's post within the last few minutes and curiously, one of the letters delivered was from DCB Legal and states inter alia: Dear xxxxxx, Re: Our Client: Spring Parking Ltd Claim Number: xxxxxxxx WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO COSTS We write further to your mediation appointment. DCB Legal acknowledge your statement that you are agreeable to withdrawing your Claim against Spring Parking Ltd on the basis that the above Claim - xxxxxxx - against you is also discontinued. Our Client has confirmed that they are agreeable to withdrawing their Claim on the basis that you also withdraw your Claim against our Client. In order to do this, we require that you email the Court and copy myself into this email and confirm that you are discontinuing your Claim against Spring Parking Ltd. Once this email has been received, we will proceed to file an N279 Notice of Discontinuance confirming that our Client is withdrawing their Claim (xxxxxxx). Once this has been completed, we will proceed to close our file and there will not be any further action from our office in relation to this matter. Yours faithfully DCB Legal Ltd.