Hi guys. I've recently returned home after a couple of weeks away and upon visiting my father I've read another letter from the RLP. Just like you said, they have been on this thread and quoted it heavily. They must watch this site closely to have seen it before you edited out the tell-tale information. Well thanks for trying to protect me from this all the same. The letter is quite old now so I assume I will be receiving a follow up shortly. I was just hoping you could tell me if their knowledge of this thread affects my position at all? I presume not. Also you had suggested that I could send a denial of liability letter. I had opted not to because I had feared that it might lead them to this site, amongst other reasons. I see that in a later post you said you hoped I had and so now I regret not doing so. Is there a value in doing this now? I will write one ready to send on your recommendation. Let me know if you would like to know any more specifics of the letter for any reason. Thank you for your kind help.

First of all - thank you, you guys are fantastically knowledgeable and helpful and have certainly saved me a lot of stress. I'd just like to ask a couple of last questions please. In a house I previously lived in we used to get a lot of letters with big red writing all over them saying 'URGENT' and 'FINAL NOTICE'. Clearly the previous occupants had left with a lot of debt unpaid. So just to confirm, the RLP & debt collectors aren't known to send letters with this kind of thing printed all over them? Presumably it's just blank envelopes like the first one I got. I was wondering if you might have any idea how long this process is likely to take. Have you noted any typical time frame in previous cases from the first letter to the last? Thanks for the heads up. I did wonder if they would ever browse this forum, but never expected that they'd actually link specific cases and include information gathered here in their letters to individuals. That's quite shocking! I now feel like maybe I should delete this post soon so they don't take threatening writing on the outside of letters as a good idea to encourage payment. I PMed you by the way ScarletPimpernel

Hi everyone. I've recently received a letter from the RLP, claiming £87.50 for a [edit: a very low value product]. It seems so stupid now - I had lost my wallet and [edit] so out of frustration I just took them. Looking back on it there were probably more sensible ways to obtain a [product], but what's done is done. Anyway, the security man grabbed my arm as I walked out of the shop and took me into the back of the store asking to check my bag. He promised that if I behaved myself he wouldn't involve the police so I made no objection. I will point out now that he was true to his word and involve the police at any stage. Then he started saying that he needed to check the value of the item and something like "you might be lucky". It came out as [a small amount] or there abouts, the result - unlucky. He said that it meant he would be filing for Civil Recovery. Presumably he was implying that they had some kind of threshold for the value of goods stolen to which they pursue civil recovery. Apparently quite a low threshold. I asked him several times how much the civil recovery would cost me or if he could roughly estimate it but he just kept saying that he doesn't know but 'it won't be much' because the value of stolen items was small. I was somewhat reassured by this and thought, 'oh well - this could have worked out a lot worse'. I certainly did not expect to be receiving a bill for almost 90 quid! When he was taking down my address I worried that I might receive a letter through the post with CIVIL RECOVERY written all over it, or else unsavoury looking in some other way. So in a panic that my mum (who I currently live with) would see it, I opted to provide my father's address (who I have lived with previously). He's much more lenient and understanding than my mum about this kind of thing. I now see this as a bit of a mistake because I don't have access to any letters they send me, and he's going to start wondering what's up. It'd be very preferable that neither of my parents knew. So anyway, I've read a few similar cases on this forum and I think I've answered my own questions to be honest, but I thought I'd share my story and see if anyone had anything to add. This is what I've concluded: The RLP have no legal entitlement to claim money from me. If I ignore the letter I will just keep receiving more letters. Since the Police were not involved at the time, I don't have to worry about that side of things. The RLP & Superdrug will not contact the police from now on. It seems that the RLP have no known history of actually taking people to court. Is this correct? There is no way I can get the letters rerouted to here or another address where I could just ignore them. Now they have my father's address they won't drop it. I will begin to receive many angry looking letters from the RLP/debt collectors which will **** my dad off and look very bad for me. Ultimately the choice I have now is to ignore the letters and risk my the likely outcome of my dad finding out or pay the £87.50 and wash my hands of the situation. There is also an option to negotiate the settlement, so I could try that. Ultimately I guess I have to decide what's more valuable to me: 90 quid (/whatever I may be able to negotiate) or my dad not knowing. Thanks for reading. Does anyone have anything to say that they feel is relevant? Do you think my conclusions look accurate?