I don't think it's a good idea to give them two addresses. It's confusing. The fleecers could use this as an excuse to keep writing to the UK and it wouldn't look good to a judge either. He should just tell both the solicitors and the fleecers where he is living now.

You can do if you wish, I don't think it really makes much difference. Either VCS will play ball or they won't. When are you likely to go to Zimbabwe next?

But Zimbird would be sending them from the UK, stating the son lives in Greece. I just thought the letters would look more convincing with Greek stamps on the envelopes. And the fleecers might - emphasis on might - give up on him as he lives abroad. As long as he does it on Monday he should be OK for time.

Damn! I've just checked the Letter of Claim and see it is dated 26 July and gives your son 30 days to reply. They won't issue a county court claim on the 31st day but he needs to get a move on and send the letters tomorrow or on Monday. I live in the EU myself and once you send stuff registered/recorded it takes a fortnight to get there instead of the usual 3-4 days. Speed is of the essence here otherwise it'll be backdoor CCJ time again. In fact I would send three letters from his Greek address - one to the solicitors normal mail to speed things up - a second to the solicitors registered - a third to CP+ registered. I know this is a pain in the backside but worth it to avoid another court claim. I've tweaked the letter below to emphasise the change of address and thus not receiving the solicitors' letter until very late. Well done in sorting out the UK address issue, as I say I'm in the same boat and it's always a welcome safeguard knowing someone you trust will immediately inform you of any mail that arrives that could be problematic. BTW, when are you expecting to be back in Zimbabwe? Just thinking of the timescales necessary to do what you need to do legally while you are in the UK. Anyway - Dear DCB Legal, Re: PCN XXXXX firstly, please note that long ago I moved from XXXXX UK to XXXXX Greece which is why I have just become aware after a month of your Letter of Claim dated 26 July. I am formally informing you and your clients of my new address and I would remind you that judges take an extremely dim view of solicitors deliberately writing to an address where they know full well the other party no longer resides. Right, now onto your Letter of Claim. I had a good laugh at the idea you'd actually expect me to take it seriously and cough up! I am writing to confirm that I have no intention of paying these absurd and false sums of money for allegedly breaking a fictitious contract with your client. This whole claim is a nonsense, and I am sure any judge would agree. Go and look up Nicholas Bowen saddos. Your greedy client couldn't resist inventing £70 Unicorn Food Tax. Nice own goal. Judges don't appreciate claimants showing contempt for the court system. Should your client wish to proceed with this farcical claim, I will be seeking recovery of costs on the basis of unreasonable behaviour, as well as damages for breach of GDPR. I look forward to your deafening silence. Yours, COPIED TO CP PLUS LTD

Remember there are six of you in the forum in the same boat. No-one has been taken to court. Nobody has even received a Letter Before Action. Despite all their bluster, G24 have done nothing of substance and presumably know they are in a very weak position.

dx explains it perfectly. On the face of it, involving debt collectors seems a serious threat, but in reality it's the most laughable. If you & I were in legal dispute, you could sue me and I could sue you. My next-door neighbour couldn't sue you, your best friend couldn't sue me, as the debt would have nothing to do with them. That is the case with debt collectors. They can do nothing - save writing a daft "threatening" letter. Involving debt collectors really means "we'll make you open an envelope". BTW, before I found this site I'd got it wrong for years about debt collectors. If you paid by debit card or credit card, and want to change your mind, you can still fight back and reverse the transaction with your bank or credit card provider. Point taken about the computer. Advice here is free but unfortunately is all Internet based. Thanks for coming back here to tell us about your decision - a lot of people don't.

dx has always emphasised the importance of not playing your cards too early. A year or so ago it finally clicked with me why. We had a Cagger who, on the face of it, had prepared a superb defence, full of correct well-researched legal points ... ... which gave the corrupt solicitors working for the PPC months & months to think up lies to counter the defence. Your defence needs to be as generic and bland as possible. Use the defence in the link dx posted. if Amtrac are stupid enough to go all the way to court you'll have ample opportunity to put all your arguments in a Witness Statement, which will be filed too late for them to make up their usual lies.

You need to get out of this mindset that you can do things on behalf of your son. Of course you can help and advise him, but the legal dispute is between him and CP Plus, no-one else. He needs to send off something like - Dear DCB Legal, Re: XXXXX firstly, please note that I no longer live at XXXXX but instead at XXXXX. Note that judges take an extremely dim view of solicitors deliberately writing to an address where they know full well the other party no longer resides. Now, onto your Letter of Claim. I had a good laugh at the idea you'd actually expect me to take it seriously and cough up! I am writing to confirm that I have no intention of paying these absurd and false sums of money for allegedly breaking a fictitious contract with your client. This whole claim is a nonsense, and I am sure any judge would agree. Go and look up Nicholas Bowen saddos. Your greedy client couldn't resist inventing £70 Unicorn Food Tax. Nice own goal. Judges don't appreciate claimants showing contempt for the court system. Should your client wish to proceed with this farcical claim, I will be seeking recovery of costs on the basis of unreasonable behaviour, as well as damages for breach of GDPR. I look forward to your deafening silence. Yours, COPIED TO CP PLUS LTD As always, hang on a little while to see what the other regulars think. I see on the Greek post office site https://www.elta.gr/en-us/calculatepostage.aspx that it would cost him €4.50 to send by priority + registered mail, so €9 in total, which is steep but worth it to avoid another backdoor CCJ. However, in the long term you need to find a solution to legal letters turning up at an unchecked address. In a sense you're "lucky" you've only hand private tickets. There is a £1000 fine for not communicating to the DVLA where you can be easily contacted. Is there not the address of a friend or relative in the UK you could use? I ask having been in the same situation myself for years & years. Now the fleecers "should" accept your son is in Greece and proceed accordingly but respect for the law has never been their strong point and you should prepare for the eventuality that the dishonest con artists will continue to write to the UK address.

You haven't included what you want them to do - agree to a set aside. Their very first letter should have referred to a PCN number, but it doesn't really matter, PCN or CN, it's the same number. The date of the post-dated cheque - if they agree - will depend on what date the court will give you to decide on the set aside, so leave that for the moment. Vehicle Control Services Limited P O Box 4777 Sheffield S9 9DJ 19 August 2021 Dear Sirs Re: PCN no. VCS………., County Court Claim No. H………. as I live abroad, I have only recently picked up all together a number of pieces of correspondence starting with your PCN and ending with a Country Court judgement. I had no opportunity to pay the PCN within the normal time frame or to use the appeals procedure. This letter does not admit liability. However, I would be willing to pay the CCJ amount of £257 were you willing to consent to the judgement being set aside. You would be paid - say by post-dated cheque - and I would be free of damage to my credit file. I look forward to receiving your reply as soon as possible. Yours faithfully J. M……..

BN is right. "On the papers" = no chance to counter their lies. You need to oppose this.

OK, thanks, but we need to know who the fleecers are threatening to take to court. Who was the Letter of Claim sent to?

OK, I've asked Site Team members with much more experience than me to look at the draft of the letter in post 21, who have said it's fine. So go ahead and send it off. Just change the one sentence You would be paid - say by post-dated cheque - and I would be free of damage to my credit file. Normally we say not to use e-mail as e-mail means the fleecers can file court documents at the last second ... but as the court action has already gone against you I don't suppose it makes much odds. On the other hand them having to open an envelope formally might make them take more notice. If you do use snail mail then get a free Certificate of Posting from the post office. There is not guarantee of success here, it depends on VCS, but for the sake of a stamp it's worth a go.

The snotty letter also needs to include a change of address, otherwise in a couple of months a second backdoor CCJ could well be on its way. With different people being involved and three different countries, this is all getting a tad confusing. Who did the fleecers send the Letter Before Claim to? You? Your son? As Bazooka Boo asked, when you appealed in 2017 did you tell the fleecers who was driving the car? This is very important.

I'll answer your questions, but remember in all this that even paying the CCJ won't make it go away, you're stuck with it for six years. 1. No, don't phone VCS. If you do things over the phone you have no proof of what was agreed (unless you record your calls). This is true in any legal situation, but even more so with VCS who as you've seen are a bunch of crooks. Twice this week they have told Caggers that they are going to apply to courts for normal costs plus an extra £220 - this is a complete lie designed to scare people. You need to do everything in writing and be very, very careful. In fact please liaise here over everything you do. Recently we had a case where someone was conned into paying a CCJ - and it was not then removed. 2. The only way to remove the CCJ is to apply to the court for a set aside. This normally costs £225. My fellow Site Team member dx100uk is very pessimistic about the court granting a set aside. However, if VCS consent to a set aside, the fee is reduced to £100. Realistically the only way VCS would consent is if you agree to pay their £257. So you would end up paying £100 + £257. 3. As dx says above, we constantly have people here who have problems with banks because they have a CCJ. So how about sending something like this to VCS - Dear VCS, Re: PCN no. XXXXX, County Court case no. XXXXX as I live abroad I have only recently picked up all together a number of pieces of correspondence starting with your PCN and ending with a county court judgement. I had no opportunity to pay the PCN within the normal time frame or to use the appeals procedure. This letter does not admit liability. However, I would be willing to pay the CCJ amount of £257 were you willing to consent to the judgement being set aside. You would be paid and I would be free of damage to my credit file. I look forward to receiving your reply as soon as possible. Please don't rush out and send my suggested letter off. We are treading on eggshells here with VCS and I would like the other regulars here to have a look first. BTW, do you still have a cheque book? If so we could suggest a post-dated cheque as an extra carrot for VCS.

No! Wait a minute. I'm writing a post to answer your questions.

It's not a "little positive update", it's great news! Well done! As dx says though, please let us know when the Excel letter arrives, you are dealing with a totally dishonest company who could "forget" to cancel the ticket.

Regarding your son, get him to start a new thread please as the two cases concern different people and tickets issued for very different reasons. As it's a Letter of Claim he needs to reply and show the fleecers he would be big trouble if they did try court. What a disgraceful industry that is quite prepared to put people's lives at risk by denying them a decent rest while driving at night on a motorway.

Hang on a minute! Before you go down this road there are some things to take into consideration. 1. You have definitely got a CCJ. You didn't pay before the deadline set by the court. So - CCJ. 2. Elms Legal are not real solicitors in the traditional sense of someone who represents a client and will correspond and negotiate with you. They make a few quid from VCS for sending threatening letters in cheapy litigation. If you go down this route you need to contact VCS directly. 3. Paying VCS will not remove the CCJ. One avenue you could try - no guarantee of success - is to propose to VCS that they consent to a set aside at your expense, after which you admit the debt and will pay it. If they accept, you get rid of the CCJ for £100 instead of the normal £255 and also pay the fleecers £257. However, take 24 hours to think about it (which give the other regulars a chance to comment). Given we despise VCS here we'd prefer you simply didn't pay anything! But that would lead to the CCJ on your credit file for six years.

You're the second Cagger to get this letter in the last few days. Don't worry about it. Legal costs are capped at £50. They're just trying to scare you. In fact the other Cagger turned the tables on Simon and included the letter in their WS to show the judge that VCS are demanding costs they aren't entitled to. Have a look at the WS in post 110 at https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/topic/421775-vcs-spycar-pcn-paploc-now-claimform-no-stopping-east-midlands-airport/page/5/#comments You can copy verbatim from paras 17 to 26 when you prepare your WS because Simon has done exactly the same thing with you.

That's disgraceful from POPLA, but it's typical that these appeal bodies only consider the made-up rules of the private parking industry and ignore the law in England and Wales. The good side of course is that a proper judge would hammer CEL. If you want a good laugh, see how this case turned out for the PPC https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/topic/419485-excelbwelms-anpr-pcn-paploc-now-claimform-but-i-paid-providince-st-wakefield-wf1-3bg-claim-dismissed/#comments

There's no easy solution to your problem. It's certain you have a CCJ. Regarding bailiffs, we have hundreds of VCS cases here, including some where people have got a backdoor CCJ like you, and I can't remember one case where VCS have involved bailiffs. If they did, they would have to apply to the court first so you'd know (well, you would if your post was checked in the UK, but it seems it isn't). To be absolutely sure, when you move you could tell VCS, although I'd guess they would say they "couldn't" accept a Zimbabwe address. You could sweeten it by saying you've moved and to use e-mail from now on (normally we say don't use e-mail but your case is out of the ordinary). What's the post like from Zimbabwe to the UK? If reliable and reasonably fast, you could send your letter from there which would be more convincing with Zimbabwe stamps on the envelope.

Well, if judgement was 19.05.21 then you're already far too late. You'll have had 30 days from that date to pay. You didn't so you'll already have the CCJ. You have two options, neither very palatable. 1. Apply for a set aside. The judge will want to see (a) an outline of how you intend to defend the case and (b) evidence of why you didn't defend when you had the chance. This should all be quite easy. However, it'll cost you £255. 2. Simply do nothing. It's unlikely VCS will do anything else. But you'll be stuck with the CCJ for six years. It depends on your personal circumstances and how serious the CCJ could damage you. Just to be sure, can you upload a copy of the court judgement?

Apologies. I missed the bit about them sending the first invoice to your husband. CEL are a disgrace, and so are POPLA for not accepting your appeal, but hey, that's the private parking industry for you. I doubt very much CEL would dare take you to court, but if they did they'd get a hammering from the judge. You paid, they suffered no loss. The three-minute delay is "de minimis" - and indeed was caused by CEL. They haven't got a hope. Relax now but come back if they send a Letter Before Claim (as well as relaxing read some CEL threads to familiarise yourself with the daft threats they'll make). The PCN they sent to you would be useful to see if you can upload it. Learn from the experience and don't appeal in future. As you've seen, the appeal procedure is a con and skewed towards finding against the motorist. They also didn't know who was driving originally - but you told them. Not of this is fatal as their claim is total pants but something to learn from.

Superb. CEL don't have a leg to stand on. Exactly. Just to get all your ducks in a row - I'm confused as to why you mention two notifications from CEL. Please redact these and upload them.

Well done the judge here. He or she is obviously aware of Simon's roboclaims. Yes, your deadline must be a typo. You need to write to the court and point this out. Refer to the case number and the judge, if the judge is named.