Intrepid

Thank you for the reply. After I wrote to DPD's CEO a second time I finally received a response regarding the missing parcel. It turns out that when returning the parcel to the seller, DPD used a separate tracking number. This is the reason why the tracking I could view provided no further information than the parcel returning to the depot. DPD's tracking system showed the parcel as in the depot when in reality it had already been returned to the Seller. Ultimately following DPD's investigation I was able to resolve the issue with the Seller who dispatched the item again.

I wrote to the Insurer explaining that they may incur a liability if the Vehicle is not inspected promptly for underling damage. This triggered things into motion and a repair team got in touch to arrange for the vehicle to be repaired. I received the following reply: I am considering the following response

On 26 February 2025 I paid for goods on ebay with a value of £52.72. On 26 February 2025 the Seller placed the goods in the care of DPD to be delivered to me. On 27 February 2025 the tracking history indicates the goods were to be returned to the Seller. On 8 March 2025 I wrote to the CEO of DPD Ms Elaine Kerr requesting an explanation as to why my goods had not been delivered. No meaningful response was received. On 13 March 2025 I contacted the Seller who confirmed they did not request the goods to be returned. On 15 March 2025 I again wrote to the CEO of DPD Ms Elaine Kerr requesting a response. The tracking history indicates the goods were incorrectly delivered to a DPD pickup shop and then returned to a depot where they have remained. I realise I would be entitled to a refund from the Seller, however given how rubbish DPD have been in responding to the issue I am minded to raise a court claim. Is it correct that I have a right of action against DPD under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 for a claim totaling £52.72? Thank you for any replies.

The full amount of the claim was £575.15. I'm confident the site team is aware that Shell Energy were an awful company who fortunately no longer operate in the consumer space and only appear to continue providing business energy solutions. Shell Energy's origin was a rebrand of First Utility, a company that was reprimanded by Ofgem for breaking into vulnerable peoples homes and shutting off their gas supply in Winter. Its fairly obvious despite the rebrand the company was stocked full of all the same people who chose to operate the business in complete contempt of the consumers that paid their salary. It's not a surprise that a company that treated customers so poorly eventually failed to continue to successfully run consumer operations. Former CEO Colin Crooks and head of disputes Richard Shotton-Oza deserve a special mention for wasting thousands of pounds with little care or thought as to how they were treating people. Good riddance.

Shell Energy was taken over by Octopus around December 2023. Octopus therefore took ownership of the claim. 2 weeks before payment of the trial fee was due, Octopus settled the claim in full. I estimate that over the course of our dealings Shell Energy or their affiliates paid out over £2300 in claimed damages and spent almost 10 times that in costs.

Thank you for the replies. It appears a sensible course of action is to allow the insurer to continue to handle the claim with a bit of nudging. In the event the ambulance authority's insurer does not accept liability I would certainly consider a claim. Is it necessary to notify the authority reserving our rights now at an early stage? Would this impact our insurer handling the claim? I have not yet read through the Pre-action Protocols for Road Traffic Accident claims, so am unsure if the statue of limitations is any different from the normally prescribed 6 years.

Lease hold car was hit by an ambulance (not in response operations) in mid December while partner was driving (both covered on policy). Minor damage to rear of our lease hold vehicle but still driveable. Insurer offered two options, either pay for repair and claim or await for it to be arranged by them. In order not to be immediately out of pocket without knowing the outcome of the claim it was elected that the repairs be arranged by the insurer. It has been made clear we expect a no fault claim awarded in my partners favour. Everything has gone very quiet, not even a response to a request for an authorised repair dealership and the car ought to have been inspected by now to ensure no serious underlying issues. It's time to get things moving and it probably involves a LOC or something pre-emptive. If possible I want to avoid having to pay for the repairs upfront and having to claim. I would prefer our insurance company just got moving with sorting things out after three months of silence. What is the best way to approach this? Is it a claim against the individual driving the ambulance, a claim against their employer, a claim against our own insurer? Thank you for any assistance.

Litigation between myself and Monzo is not over. Attached below is their latest offer concerning my claim for inaccurate data processing. Is there anything more that could be said in my response drafted below? Monzo - Defendant - Letter 17.09.2024 - Redacted.pdf

I have decided not to pursue a claim for a breach of the data protection act. I accept that I fired my arrow and missed. The point is not lost though that had the counterclaim not forced UKPC to court they would have likely discontinued without submitting a witness statement. It follows that beyond their act of discontinuance, it would be difficult to then gather evidence in support of a claim for their unlawful processing of my personal data.

Claim dismissed, no order as to costs. The decision came down to whether the escalation of a chargeback claim to pre-arbritration per the chargeback guidelines is covered by the FCA's definition of providing a retail banking service and therefore a right of action under BCOBS and the FSMA 2000. The FCA defines a retail banking service as: "an arrangement with a banking customer, under which a firm agrees to accept a deposit from a banking customer on terms to be held in an account for that customer, and to provide services in relation to that deposit including but not limited to repayment to the customer." Monzo's counsel pressed hard the fact the chargeback scheme is a voluntary and I forgot to make the case that the whole issue was about a depsoit. i.e. the money held on the account for the purposes of transactions. I would have argued that providing transactions and handling disputes is part of that service. It may have held no weight, the evidence is probably out there. Very impressed with the judge, stoic, patient and fair.

We we're about to cross post. I have taken the time to re-read the thread from the beginning and I have to say a lot of @lookinforinfo earlier posts, in particular #25 were right on the money. In addition thank you @FTMDave for sticking with the thread. It has been quite useful to re-read the comments after hearing and with a full appreciation of how they were applied by the judge. A lot of the information provided between you was so on point you may as well have been deciding the claim. Having had some time to process the judge's approach to the counterclaim I accept my mistake was to focus on UKPC's application for data and not for the subsequent processing which took place, a point @lookinforinfo made very early on. I was concerned if the claim wasn't heard that UKPC would withdraw prior to the hearing and any opportunity to gather important evidence would be lost. I do understand the logic of a separate claim giving the opportunity to settle but I am also mindful that if no settlement is reached something credible has to be on offer to decide the claim. The safest approach would be a complaint to the ICO seeking their view. If it is returned in favour then the a claim becomes almost a slam dunk save perhaps for quantum. I will give some thought as to a further claim in the next few days but I want to make sure I get it right. I agree it was fortunate to have a prepared judge, it would have been very distasteful to have had to fight the judge as well as the claimant but it couldn't have been further from having to do that. That's a good summary of Duff v Secretary of State and in the full context of the claim I see now that without reasonable cause is in reference to the lack of Duff's membership to an accredited association. I believed it could be applied in other similar contexts, and it probably still can. I think the point was mainly that it was only particularised that the breach had occurred but not when. How was I to know at the time the application for my data was made it was allegedly unlawful, I couldn't, even though I argued that it was even if outside of my knowledge for a period of time. So I moved on to it being within my knowledge from the date the PCN was received. I recall you suggested informing UKPC that I was neither the driver and the PCN wasn't compliant and that a breach would occur if further processing occurred. I did not inform UKPC I was not the driver, although I think the judge made clear that once you are pursuing the keeper you must give up pursuing the driver as that is the intention of the POFA. I agree that just because they failed to evidence an up to date contract in their claim doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I will give it some thought and come back with any questions/ideas as they come up.

Regarding the disclosure of data, UKPC's counsel did reference a document which I don't recall having read. The document is an opinion published by the ICO on the lawful basis upon which the DVLA processes (discloses) vehicle keeper details. https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/documents/4020676/dvla-opinion-20220613.pdf I haven't fully digested its impact on a claim for a breach of the UK GDPR. The fact UKPC requested vehicle keeper details with an expired contract could mean it failed to show it had reasonable cause but I can also imagine a tenuous argument that even if the contract is expired the data can be requested for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. In this case the DPA 2018 would be at odds with the criteria set out by Transport Secretary to show reasonable cause but I would expect a legislative mechanism to trump governmental policy.

Claim dismissed, counterclaim dismissed, no order as to costs. Certainly one of the better experiences in front of the bench. I wasn't wrong that of course the Court had a proper copy of UKPC's witness statement. As I did too there was no test to what would have happened if I did not, probably a quick hand over and 5 minutes of reading to save an adjournment. The Judge did almost all of the heavy lifting based upon the evidence without removing the opportunity for either party to speak, they saved a lot of argument and put aside any assumptions that could be borne out of any of the stated facts making quite clear that the Court wouldn't deal with assumptions. It's clear that parking claims are bread and butter to most judges but in this case no expense was spared. The Judge immediately addressed the evidential hurdles UKPC had to overcome, the fact Mr Little wasn't available to give evidence and that it could plead its case against the driver or the keeper but not both (Counsel pleaded the keeper). UKPC's counsel were clearly aware of the deficiencies of UKPCs WS and wasn't going to waste the courts time (I'm not saying they didn't adequately represent them, just that it was clear they knew they'd been given almost nothing legitimate to work with and were unable to give evidence). From this point I got the impression the judge was simply working off their experience rather than what was within the skeleton which covered almost everything the Judge did and a little more. Having only been to one parking claim (this one) I have no idea whether judges ever sit back and let the parties have their go and depending on their sensibilities leave the unprepared flaying in the wind. In any case because the Skeleton was so full there can be no question that the Defence was advanced by the judge. Only a regular returning barrister would know if the submissions made any difference or whether this was just the judge's style (probably the latter). The points honed in on were: the contract expiry date and lack of evidence to support the assertion the contract had been renewed; the contract did not clearly evidence who was the landowner; the photos were not clear evidence of the vehicle's location in reference to signage or land; the description of the address on the expired contract is not determinative; the photos showed no time allowed for a driver to read the terms (BPA 13.1, the Judge directly referenced Beavis on the applicability of the code, and the code itself); the PCN was issued first and then the photos were taken (a point I had missed); the terms didn't form a contract as no license was on offer, you either have it or don't (and I was asked if I did); the NTK was defective for not specifying a period of time; and the so called "land plan" held no weight because it didn't show the location of the signs (I wasn't expecting this but as pointed out the "land plan" wasn't keyed) and didn't properly identify any boundaries. I added, and it was accepted that the additional £60 was unenforceable and that the notice didn't comply with the wording of the legislation (credit to @LookingForInfo ). As to the counterclaim the judge dropped an early hint that one issue to overcome was when it was determined UKPC had breached the act as it was pleaded that the breach had already occurred but no judgment had been given. They also said they had received no medical evidence in support of the claim and that quantum was at the Court's discretion so why £1000. I had for some reason (incorrectly) the idea in my head that the claim would be heard and decided and then the counterclaim heard and decided, albeit that the judge knew which way they were going on the claim before hearing the counterclaim. Of course the judge provided their judgment on both at the end of the hearing consecutively. The way the argument fell was that I asserted UKPC's application for data was unlawful because there was no reasonable cause. The judge concluded that the power of the legislation within the POFA 2012 was sufficient to allow the PPC to apply for the data. There was a question as to whether one legislation should override the other. I said they were not at odds but that if it is later found that UKPC had no reasonable cause then they can be held liable per the DPA 2018. It was not accepted that if a PPC later impermissibly enforced a liability that this then invalidated the PPC's previous request for data. The question was raised as to why the DVLA shouldn't be held responsible as the controller to which I responded because UKPC processed the data (processors are also liable). I'm not sure if I had successfully pleaded that UKPC continued to unlawfully process my data that would have changed the outcome. UKPC were listed in court 3 times today (one was a judgment set aside) so that certainly puts to bed any impression from other areas of the internet that UKPC give up every claim. However I expect UKPC would have discontinued and I would never have had sight of the contract without the issuing a counterclaim. I accept that waiting for the claim to be over and then making a claim for breach of GDPR would overcome the issue of whether it had been determined the breach has occurred. It is clear now from the evidence that UKPC have applied for my data using an out of date contract but as that was not known to me at the time I did not raise it as an argument (perhaps I should have) but it could not have contributed to any distress. I knew the counterclaim was dead by this point but I still offered submissions on quantum and argued that outside of medical examination, evidence of distress can only come in the form of a witness statement. It was pointed out to me in the WS that I had evidenced how the claimant's conduct could be distressing but did not clearly state that it affected me. However I referred the judge to the particulars which did do that, in any case it was irrelevant. The counterclaim was dismissed because the judge held there was reasonable cause to apply for personal data based on the fact a vehicle was parked on land without a permit. I wasn't sure if the judge was going to inadvertently accept UKPCs claim with the finding but it was worded carefully enough so that it appeared to UKPC to be a breach and therefore that was sufficient. We disagreed on the point that appeared wasn't good enough but obviously I don't get to decide. The judge was mainly persuaded by the mechanism provided for by the legislation in the POFA 2012 to request keeper details. Of course it would take a brave judge to open up the idea as was Counsel's point that every failed PPC claim should become an automatic breach of the UK GDPR. For £70 and a free hearing I'd call that a cheap lesson. I am debating whether to advance another claim, it could be argued a fresh claim is being advanced on the same facts but now there is evidence the contract was out of date this should differentiate it from the counterclaim. As to costs the Judge couldn't be persuaded UKPC's conduct was unreasonable, it was held costs should only be paid as compensation and that dismissing of their claim was the outcome of the deficiencies of its claim. Thank you to everyone that contributed.

I disagree per Duff v Secretary of State for Transport [38] ii) "In any event, a person who wanted disclosure to enforce a liability by improper means would have a cause for wanting it, but not reasonable cause". If UKPC's claim fails they have attempted to enforce a liability by improper means. Even if the judge only strips them of £60 I can still argue this point. It may be hard to believe, but I will argue it still needs to be evidenced, I know its judge lottery, but the decision should be based on the evidence before the Court, if the Claimant has failed to produce that evidence it should not be for the Court to assist them in their claim by speculating on their behalf. Same as point above. Thanks to your input I wrote to UKPC very early on notifying them it's notice to keeper was non-compliant. By the time UKPC initiated proceedings it was clear they were attempting to enforce a liability using improper means, I counterclaimed on this basis. I disagree insofar as that it was a finding of fact in Parking Eye v Beavis UKSC that sufficient signage was exhibited at the entrance and throughout the car park. In my view the UKSC hasn't overturned anything of significance in the judgment in Beavis EWCA, both courts found that sum was enforceable. However the EWCA considered in more depth the applicability of good faith and the disclosure of terms. The fact the UKSC didn't revisit this topic is either indication that it was satisfied as to the EWCA's assessment or that it wasn't a point upon which the appeal was brought to the UKSC. How this is relevant is that the judgment of Beavis EWCA still re-affirms at common law the good faith practice of disclosing terms which I will argue UKPC failed to do under the circumstances. I agree less is more. I'm aware the Skeleton should be designed to navigate the court succinctly through the issues. The problem I believe defendants face in these circumstances is that the Claimant fails entirely to narrow the issues in what is a poorly particularised claim. This is in part because their main goal is to obtain default judgement and they know the risk of facing an application to strike out is probably in the single digit percentages in part because the cost of application is larger than the value of the claim. So I had a choice file something very succinct, a couple of pages perhaps, or on the other hand the full monty. As you've alluded to yourself why risk leaving anything out the judge can latch on to that may side with you. What I ultimately decided was to do was use a trickle down argument; the car wasn't there, and if it was UKPC aren't entitled to act as a creditor, and if they are they didn't offer proper terms, and if they did they didn't provide notice of them, and if they did they didn't notify the driver, and if they did they didn't transfer liability to the keeper, and if they did they over claimed, and if they didn't they litigated unreasonably. A good summary, I will focus on these points at the hearing. I expect at one point the judge will ask me whether I accept the fact the vehicle was parked at 1-21 the Martletts. It's probably much easier to give judgment and less likely to be appealed if you can get parties to admit facts rather than having to find facts based on probabilities. Given the evidence before me I'm not sure that a red line on a google maps screenshot (which is incorrect as they have included spaces clearly belonging to the car park) is sufficient. No boundary has been provided from the land registry, UKPC's so called "land plan" is as valid as my assertion that the Martletts is on the other side of the premises until proven otherwise. Perhaps I should have made more of the fact they have not provided evidence that these properties are able to share the use of any land.

There is a cost to bringing a counterclaim, it is the cost of the issue fee. The hearing fee is paid by the Claimant. Given the stage of the claim (WSs exchanged) I am not sure what further evidence one could expect there is to be gathered, or how it would affect the counterclaim, alternatively an early withdrawal could result in no evidence being exchanged. I believe I have covered prohibitive signage, would it be unfair to suggest you may not have read or understood the skeleton in defence of the claim? I have read before some judges have been quick to dismiss the argument of prohibitive signage, it may very much depend on the circumstances such as pay and display vs permit. Consideration is old and nuanced and largely fallen out of favour, but even if a judge were wrong no litigant is likely to argue otherwise. Given parking claims are often set for 30 minutes that isn't sufficient time to go back through centuries of contract law when there may be easier points to leverage and decide the case. I don't believe location is the main spar of the argument. There are eight elements to the argument in total, the strongest of which is probably, no locus standi (having confirmed UKPC's contract was expired and in the absence of evidence to the contrary), no clear signage and the inclusion of an unenforceable penalty sum. I'm not sure why you consider the location to be the only point relevant to the counterclaim or why it needed to be included. A failure of their claim, save for perhaps a strike out for abuse of process in my view is a lock in that UKPC had no reasonable cause to request my personal data. You haven't addressed my earlier point that a withdrawal by UKPC of its claim isn't admission of no reasonable cause, in my view only a judgment can show that definitively. As to your last point, if UKPC withdraw, the counterclaim survives so I am in the same position as issuing a separate claim except a separate claim is added costs and riskier in my view. Also if UKPC withdraw with no counterclaim there is no opportunity to bring to the attention of the Court their unreasonable behaviour without making an application. My understanding is an application solely for the assessment of costs on the SCT would not be looked upon favourably and would be an even greater uphill struggle. I am open to a full explanation as to why it would have been better for UKPC to withdraw and how it would strengthen a later claim for a breach of the UK GDPR but right now I just don't see it. UKPC often withdraw before WS exchange so no contract would have been seen, they didn't even serve it on time, it took an SRA complaint to spur them into action. I understand we view some things differently, your extensive knowledge of parking claims has been very helpful and I should have said earlier despite the fact I have done some things differently I have no prior experience of parking claims and all of the contributions have been incredibly helpful (including the counter points). I understand a withdrawal is generally considered a victory for most, this is probably where we fundamentally differ.