Our home was visited by Marstons very early in the morning with a small white van, as my son had not paid a speed camera fine in time. He hadn't paid £60. They charged us £381. The Bailliff continually referred to himself as 'an officer of Her Majesty's Court'. I asked him if he worked directly for the court and he replied he was an officer of the court. When he gave us the slip to make the payment it was from Marstons. I feel he was deliberately concealing his identity in order to pressurise me to make payment on behalf of my son. I made the payment online as I did not feel comfortable giving him my card details. It took almost 9 weeks for the receipt to come through the post - and the online payment clearly stated that until we were in possession of the receipt the debt could not be classed as 'Paid'. Dodgy dealings from start to finish topped off by £320 charge because they drove to my home. And the court licences these people to come and fleece money off ordinary people. We are not 'criminals' but they made us feel as though we were.

There are so many of us who have been helped directly or indirectly by Martin - just reading threads that he has helped on have been enough to give me the power to go it alone and to stop being scared - so grateful for that, and so grateful for the commitment, compassion and sheer common sense that Martin was able to bring to the most hopeless situation. You will always be missed, God Bless you and your family Xx

I am also very grateful to the posters who gave additional avice as I have a lot of his stuff to get through and hopefully son is not liable for the stuff he is now being plagued with! He recently suffered an accident in which he sustained a fracutred skull - I had no idea was going through all thisstuf. He is also in dispute with minicredit who keep accessing his bank account and so far have taken 580 for a 100 loan! they advise he owes 714!

The letter is in the envelope awaiting the opening of he Post Office on Monday so I can request a 'signed for' delivery!

Thank you for your responses, they are all helpful. I will send the letter that you have inserted above and hope that that is an end to it! As I said in the post the SAR request was first returned by Robinson Way with a hand written notefor us to request this information direct from 02. Then they sent a letter requesting £10 for an SAR and without us doing anything they sent the details through! This looks like an excel worksheet as I detailed - but the last entry which is readable says 'Write off manual" and the balance left on the account was £0.00. I don't see how Robinson way can pursue this further as the 'covered up' entry shows £0.00 The Statute barred letter will be going off first class and to be signed for! Many thanks for all your help.

My son has been receiving letters from Robinson Way regarding an 02 account. He says he didn't remember an 02 Account, however I wrote to them with an SAR (learnt from your forums) and they responded that I should write to 02 direct. 02 responded that we needed to provide address details as current address does not match records. Robinson Way then forwarded a letter details of the relevant address, over 8 years ago when my son was up in Leeds. They next requested £10 for an SAR request early last week. Today the information was sent even though we have not sent the £10 and the account is in the form of an excel worksheet. They were paid the regular monthly bills on this account of around £30+ up until August 2004 when a bill was added for £99.05. I am guessing my son disputed that he had used 3 months worth of calls in 1 month. The next bill showed as 79.03 and then a bill of 36.24. On 20/11/2004 a Termination fee of £134.87 was added with a final total of £349.19. This is the amount Robinson Way are claiming. Is this a statute barred debt? The very last entry on the worksheet is shaded over but legible it states: 08/08/2006 Write off manual Credit £349.19 Balance £0.00 Can they seriously take this any further? I want to write to them politely but I just need assurance that they are not entitled to pursue this debt before I do? Thanks for reading all of this!

Hi everyone - thanks for all your help on this, we received notification from the court and my son had admitted part of the debt - Shoosmiths were claiming £6834.78 he looked at the statements that he had received and admitted to £4008. the court has ruled he must pay £4008 plus 120 court costs at £100 per month. I thought all our efforts had been in vain, this was not greatest result, but showed them that they can't just keep pressing the + key on the calculator and charge the defendant that!

Hi again - got a letter today from CCCS advising that Shoosmiths are 'unable to accept the reduced payment proposal we have recently offered because a larger offer is required'. Shoosmith have written nothing other than an email just before close of business for Christmas - where are the court proceedings - we don't know what to expect - the longer it goes on the worse it feels. Should we write to them or let it take it's course through CCCS now??? Thanks for your kind message gillytilly..

Hi everyone, been away from my son's problems for a while, the reason is that there is absolutely no news whatsoever! Following my last post above we sent everything off to both the courts and Shoosmiths and up to today we have had absolutely nothing from anybody??? My son has gone through CCCS and has commenced a debt management programme, and they are making payments on his behalf - they have made one to Shoosmiths as the advisor has told my son that he doubts if there will be any reduction on the total amount even after court. I can't believe that it has all gone quiet but this is exactly how they conduct their business - they wrote one year saying they were taking back car and it took almost a full year to come after him for this money! I did contact the Information commissioner re the SAR and they sent a letter to us a month later saying it was now allocated to a manager - that was 18th January. Seems its only the baillifs that move fast in their 'industry'!

thanks sherlock - we are looking at that aspect too

Hi again - son here now, we have printed of all the emails from shoosmiths and we ae going to send an email to shoosmiths and a letter to the court with all of the disagreements to the calculations that they have listed - (like interest on the insurance for whole cover and gap insurance that should have been cancelled upon termination of the agreement, surely?) I will cover all of this and will report back - we will also ensure that Northampton court are updated and ask that further proceedings be moved to the local court. thanks - Libby

Ok - that's a big help, I shall scan in in the morning, ready for son's arrival and he can do the reading through of the agreement's t&c's. thanks again will be back to update! Merry Christmas to you - all!

Well now that the request for information has been replied to, there is a bit of work to be done, but the main thing is the charges etc so at least there is a definite amount to contest. The T&C's need a thorough read through to - but I have just had to go and get the Christmas Dinner! Thanks so much for all the advice, I really do need and appreciate it!:o

Does that mean he will be home for Christmas then, Joncris?

Thanks lookinforinfo - the only thing from the court was the Court Claim Form issued on the 16th which my son acknowledged. I didn't think this was set as a heaing date - but it did advise that there was 28 days in which to submit a defence - of course all the information was witheld for 28 days and we wrote to the court to keep them informed of the situation. A very poor copy of the Agreement was submitted, obviously v.small print but will pore over that and extract any of the T&C's that are relevant - i.e. letter charges or late payment penalties. Had to go off to get some sleep but woke up with all this in my head! Thanks for reading through all this and taking time to advise!:o