The most imortant thing for me is to try and get some sort of refund so we can use the money and try and get the website fixed. I'm thinking of writing them an email and putting it to them, but I'm not sure what to say and whether I should list every thing that has ever been done wrongly and what still isn't working or whether the initial email should be shorter. Anyone know any templates or laws I should mention?

No. What type of criminal offences?

I wasn't sure if I could name here. Their name is webcreationuk. I'm more than happy to provide any more details. I have also kept 99% of the emails which were sent and received in case I need them.

Hi guys, I'm hoping somoene can give me some advice. I'll start from the beginning. Back in January 2010 my best friend and I decided to set up a website. The website was going to be a 'dating' type website. We did some research and found a company we thought appeared reasonable and who didn't charge too much. They told us that the website would take approximately 3 months to code/design which we were happy with. We decided to go with them and paid a 25% deposit. That's when the trouble started. It turned out that the company outsourced all their work to India and all communication was via email ONLY. This was a shock but we went ahead as we had no choice. The company turned out to be rubbish. My friend and I did all the work and made all the suggestions and they took weeks to come back for each thing we needed. We were both doing this while working full time. When they did eventually get back the work was usually poorly coded or incorrectly done and always had bad spelling and grammer. We then decided that we would also write everything ourselves and email that too. Even then it took several attempts to get right. This kept on going for 17 months. That's right 17 months! Then in May 2011 it was ready to go live. The company said they'd give us free hosting for one year and so we decided to go with them. We've been live for 4 months now and it turned out that we've had bugs and other issues ever since. Half the time the website doesn't even work! We've tried to go back and get things resolved but we can't keep doing this. The biggest issue is the fact that most of the time the website is VERY slow. The designer/coder made lots of excuses about the reasons why this was the case, they even thought we were making it up. Then finally I recorded myself logging into the site and playing around with it and then emailed that to them and they finally believed us. The designed/coder has now come back and said that it is due to one of the functions not working properly and that the only way to fix it would be to code the function so that it only updates on the website twice a day instead of instantly as it currently does! We've now had enough. Personally I suspect it's a combination of poor servers and a badly coded website. There are other websites we know who have a similar set up and the same functions and they work perfectly. We thought about moving to a different host but in the T&Cs they have added that we have to pay a £50 fee for leaving which is a rip-off. I thought it was free for a year!? We've got to the point where we want to take legal action as we feel we have been patient enough and the website just isn't working as it should. However, we've never done this and don't know what to do / whether it will be worth the trouble. We spent over £7,500 on the website so it's a lot of money. Recently, after doing further reasearch, we found that there are thousands of people who have complained about them and some have even taken legal action against them! They have no complaints department either and when you ring their head office in the UK half the time they refuse to take the call. They are on the first page of google search so they are not a small company. Can anyone offer some advice as to what we should do? :x:x:x:x:x

An update: They don't give up!! My dad got a letter today from 'Home Collection Services Limited'. Basically they say that they are part of the Moorcroft Group and since my dad has not reached an agreement with Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited they are writing to chase this up. Same old crap of he should contact them and pay the £80 penalty charge or face court which could result in a £1,000 fine etc etc Do I bother writing to the DVLA again?!!

My dad got a long letter today. I've uploaded it. Any thoughts?

An update: This is what I wrote to them: (It's an amalgamation of some stuff from other people. Thanks guys!) Dear Mr Archbold, I acknowledge receipt of your automatically generated letter dated 29th January 2009 (copy attached) in respect of the alleged penalty charge outstanding on the above vehicle and refer you to my letter dated 13th December 2008 (copy attached). As I stated in that letter, the vehicle was transferred to a new owner in September of 2005 and I duly notified DVLA by returning the V5 document. At that point, my duty under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994 to notify a change of keeper was discharged and so the provisions of Regulation 22 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations, under which the disputed Penalty Charge arise, cannot apply. I am neither responsible, nor liable, for any failure by the DVLA to update their records in accordance with the information I supplied to them when disposing of the vehicle. I fully understand that the DVLA have a responsibility to maintain the Continuous Registration records for millions of vehicles and appreciate that these penalty charges are a valuable tool to that end. However, unless they can clearly demonstrate that I failed to submit the change of keeper details - which is impossible because I did submit them - the charge is not enforceable. Since I also believe you are misrepresenting a point of law, by requiring me to provide an acknowledgement letter from you when no such Statutory requirement exists, I will report any further attempt to collect before proving the alleged debt by either DVLA or their agents, as fraud by false representation, as defined in the Fraud Act 2006 S.2 and harassment as defined in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and will reserve my right to make complaint under the Acts. I also reserve my right to pursue damages as a civil remedy under S3 of the same Act. I therefore require you to immediately recall the alleged debt from Moorgate Debt Recovery and to refrain from any further attempt at collection until and unless you have proved liability in the County Court. I also urge you to cancel the charge forthwith and look forward to your confirmation of this. Yours Sincerely,

Well I've written another letter telling them my dad is not going to pay unless they could prove liability in the court and to recall the alleged debt from Moorgate. See what they say.

Sorry I'm confused. The bit I don't understand is that to tax a vehicle you need a registration certificate or the new keeper supplement so how did this person (or persons) manage to tax it for 3 years? If they filled out a V62 form then the DVLA should have changed the details based on that information surely? And if they did get it taxed don't the DVLA have a record of who taxed the vehicle? Also, they've ignored my request to send the original LLP. My dad's really pi**ed off. It's not the £80 but feels he's being unjustly treated after 3 years when he has done nothing wrong.

An update: My dad got a letter which I have uploaded for everyone to see. I'm also including the original letter I sent out. They're so thick, didn't even send me a copy of the original penalty notice or acknowledge the fact that someone has been buying the tax for 3 years! What do I do now? :s Original letter: Dear Sir / Madam I am writing to notify you once again that I sold my car 3 years ago and want my details to be taken off your database as the registered keeper. The details of the car are as follows: xxxxxxx xxxxxxx Sold: September 2005, xxxxxxx I have also received a letter from ‘Moorcroft Debt Recovery Ltd’ informing me that I am liable for an £80 fine for non-declaration of SORN. I am not prepared to pay this and have contacted them who have asked me to contact you directly. I originally sent the V5 documents when I sold the car but it appears these were misplaced by an employee of the DVLA. Can you please waive this penalty as you can see the car was sold 3 years ago and only now have I received a notice. If the penalty is not waived and Moorcroft Debt Recovery Ltd do not stop harassing me I shall have no choice but to write to my local MP Theresa May. Could you please also do the following: (i) Send me a copy of the original penalty notice (ii) Confirm in writing that you did not lose my documents. If I do not receive a letter to the contrary I will assume this matter is now closed. Yours faithfully xxxx Here is the letter they sent.

Flyingdoc I'll wait for the letter and then depending on what they ask for I'm sure my dad would be prepared to do that. I'll keep everyone updated, this may be of use to others.

Thanks Conniff and flyingdoc and sickpup! I agree conniff, someone has been taxing or getting a SORN for the last 3 years and onlt now they write to my dad! I said that to the lady at the DVLA and she just said "Well I don't know how someone's done that, I can't help you an further, please contact Midas" etc etc So silly!!! Sickpup my dad can't remember getting anything, it was a long time ago. That was the reason he thought everything was okay now because surely he would / should have got a letter the very next year asking him to tax or SORN the vehicle. I've sent a letter to the DVLA explaining the situation (how it was sold 3 years ago etc) and saying that he will not pay the penalty and that if they bother him again he will contact his solicitor and MP. Let's wait and see what they say before taking our next step.

Hi everyone! Hope someone can help me out. My dad sold a car 3 years back and filled out the V5 documents and posted them to the DVLA. A few weeks ago(thats right almost 3 years to the day!) he received a letter from Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited asking him to pay a fine of £80. I told him to leave it and that we would contact the DVLA and explain ourselves. I also had a look here to read what experiences people had had and what I could do. Today he received another letter from Midas Legal services notifying him that since he had not paid the fine they may proceed with legal proceedings if he didn't pay them by the 12th of December. I contacted the DVLA on his behalf and the lady I got through to said they had not received any documents and he was still the registered owner and that I could send them a letter now to take his name off. Also she couldn't give me any more details with regards the penalty. I tried to explain to her but she said she couldn't help and that I needed to contact Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited directly. I contacted them and the guy on the other end was being an idiot so I said we were not going to pay and they can do as they wish. Now I am going to write a letter to the DVLA and ask them (again) to take my dad off as the registered keeper. Can anyone help me with regards to the fine? I know it's easier to just pay up and get it over and done with but I'm really angry and would like to contest it. I've read what varias other people have done but not many people come back and write what happened in the end. Any help would be much appreciated. (Even better would be a template of a letter I could send them!)

Shellsbells what happened with this?