Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

[CleverClogs]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Finally, another recent defamation case where the claimant participated in the discussions which led to the actions. The claimant was an author of a book which was criticised online.

Part of the claim concerned an allegation regarding the authorship of other reviews of the book, which allegation was admitted by the claimant to be true!

This judgement is a bit long winded unlike the more straight forward and confident writing style of EadyJ and Tugendhat.

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup...method=boolean

Otherwise known as the Scrooby case.

I doubt it helped much for Jones to have responded to the LBA by suggesting to the silly claimant that he add to his court papers an email boldly (and baldly) stating "You're a cock."

I have attached a copy of the book which was released by the claimant after he lost. He insisted on a password (Godisreal) so the appallingly bad formatting is exactly as Scrooby published it.

Even free, I believe the author charged too much.

[cards down]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Caption from post #33 is that a new forum i've not come across yet?

Apparently stung by a defeat in the county court (Eye 1314), RLP has instructed Schillings to send threatening letters to the Citizen Advice Bureau, the Consumer Action Group and another consumer forum, Legal seagulls, demanding that “harassing and defamatory” posts on their websites be removed and that they hand over ID details or internet service provider addresses of those posting on the forums – or face legal action.

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Have you read the Wikipedia talk page (link) for Retail loss prevention?

It's hilarious!

If you ask me, CC, CR operators are beginning to realise that forums, like LB, are showing up CR for what it is. I think they know, themselves, their days of operating in the way they have been are numbered.

I see what you mean about the Wikipedia page you linked to. I nearly wet myself laughing.

[Celestine]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Caption from post #33 is that a new forum i've not come across yet?

Apparently stung by a defeat in the county court (Eye 1314), RLP has instructed Schillings to send threatening letters to the Citizen Advice Bureau, the Consumer Action Group and another consumer forum, Legal seagulls, demanding that “harassing and defamatory” posts on their websites be removed and that they hand over ID details or internet service provider addresses of those posting on the forums – or face legal action.

Yes, Legal Seagulls is a totally different website. They deal solely with the legal consequences of ice cream theft from toddlers hands, fish and chips being eaten from pavements, squawking noise nuisance and arial bombardment with guano.
I have no idea why Consumer Action Group erroneously linked the article to them instead of Legal Beagles

[Sapphire]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

msl:

[EXC]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

I am sorry for joining the debate late but the discussion about the meaning of several words mentioned previously including 'extortion' reminded me of a well known internet defamation case..

On the subject of 'extortion', this is what Baroness Hayter had to say about RLP in the Lords during yesterday's 2nd reading of the Defamation Bill (at col 982):

''More recently, I have been involved with Citizens Advice on the issue of civil recovery. That is a rather pernicious little device used by a number of high street retailers, such as Boots, Debenhams and Tesco, to extort money out of those accused-but not necessarily guilty-of shoplifting, via empty threats of civil court action. Citizens Advice has been hampered in exposing this racket by threats of defamation action. The organisation knows that they will never come to anything because it researches what it writes extremely carefully and makes sure that it is true. But even to answer such threats involves expensive legal time.''

[teaboy2]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Yes, Legal Seagulls is a totally different website. They deal solely with the legal consequences of ice cream theft from toddlers hands, fish and chips being eaten from pavements, squawking noise nuisance and arial bombardment with guano.
I have no idea why Consumer Action Group erroneously linked the article to them instead of Legal Beagles

Because they have brains the size of seagulls maybe - Or perhaps there just spiteful little buggers lol

[Guest]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Because they have brains the size of seagulls maybe - Or perhaps there just spiteful little buggers lol

Tell me about it, a friend of mine has just had all his posts for the last six years erased, mind you he did threaten to sue Mr G

D

[EXC]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/al...-are-silencing

I suggest everyone reads this piece in The New Statesman.

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

I suggest everyone reads this piece in The New Statesman.

Hold on, isn't Boris Johnson tied up with The New Statesman in some way?

[MIKE770]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Hold on, isn't Boris Johnson tied up with The New Statesman in some way?

Ought to be tied up!!

[Celestine]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

The £15m scandal our libel laws are silencing

Alan White explains how critics of "retail loss prevention" - suing shoplifters - are being threatened with writs.

BY ALAN WHITEPUBLISHED 03 OCTOBER 2012 17:15

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Are shops over-zealous about thieves? Photo: Getty


This is a story you won’t have read too much about, for reasons which will become clear. It starts at the turn of the century, when British high street stores began to allow a number of firms to make “civil recovery” demands for the administrative costs of processing shoplifting cases.
This practice is known as retail loss prevention, and it involves suing thieves in the civil courts. It seems reasonable enough - why should a shop or supermarket lose out just because they’ve caught someone committing a crime? Over the years, the industry grew. Citizens Advice reports that, since 1998, over 750,000 people have received letters demanding substantial sums as compensation for alleged shoplifting or employee theft. Civil recovery firms started to move into other areas. Hotel chains began to use them to chase customers who’d violated their non-smoking policy. Private parking firms went after people who’d violated their restrictions.
And over the years, a clear problem began to emerge. People were being pressed for costs despite not being found guilty of any crime. In one case, a young mother whose toddler opened a drink without paying received a bill for £87.50 for “staff and management time, administration and apportioned security costs”. A typical case was Sam’s. Aged 19, he was dismissed from his job with Tesco in July 2008, for the alleged theft of £4 cash from a till. He subsequently received a letter demanding £191.50, broken down as: £4.00 for the value of “the goods or cash stolen”, £112.50 for “staff and management time”, £33.75 for “administration costs”, and £41.25 for “security and surveillance costs”. Despite criticism from a QC and the Citizens Advice Bureau, the companies insisted that there were civil courts “precedents” which support such claims.
The complaints began to stack up on consumer forums, and the BBC'sWatchdog ran a short feature. Oddly, whenever consumers stood their ground, the costs claims rarely seemed to be taken any further. According to Citizens Advice, of the more than 600,000 demands seemingly issued since 2000, only four unpaid demands have ever been successfully pursued in the county court by means of a contested trial.
Citizens Advice began to catalogue a steady stream of cases - no coincidence that they coincided with a rise in self-service checkouts. It soon put togetherone report, then another, showing that many of these cases were the result of consumer errors, and that many who were guilty had mental health problems and were caught taking extremely low value goods. As Denis MacShane MP told Parliament this year: “In essence, 90 per cent of all shoplifting in our stores is organised by gangs. About 8 per cent or 9 per cent is done by in-house stealing. The tiny one per cent is done—frankly, for the most part—by rather sad people.”
Now the story goes in a different direction. It’s about one civil recovery case, involving two girls who were caught shoplifting from a high street retailer. What happened next is, for the time being, detailed on their lawyer’s website: the case went to court, and the retailer’s assertion that its total losses were almost £137.50 was chucked out of court. Under cross-examination, a security manager agreed the incident had taken one hour and ten minutes to deal with - at a cost of £17, not £98.55 as claimed. He was carrying out his job, not distracted from a core function of it.
What’s interesting is what happened next. The retailer’s agent, Retail Loss Prevention (the biggest firm in the business), instructed libel lawyers Schillings to demand the law firm remove the above link from its website. And this wasn’t the only threat issued by Schillings, who also accused a national official of the Citizens Advice Bureau, Richard Dunstan, of "orchestrating" a three-year long "sustained campaign of harassment and defamation" against it and its staff, asking it to remove the two reports linked to above, and sent letters on behalf of Retail Loss Prevention to various websites.
One of them was the law site Legal Beagles. Like the other parties, it refused to accede to Schillings’ demands. Instead, it decided to publish the letter on its site. So far, this is where the story begins and ends. As MacShane said: “This is a £15 million racket used by a lot of major companies—corporate groups — such as Boots, TK Maxx, Primark, Debenhams, Superdrug and Tesco. They are all shops that we use.”
That the media has shied away from a detailed investigation of the industry, most likely for fear of vexatious litigation, is one thing. And no doubt the PR men have helped out too - does this Wikipedia entry strike you as entirely objective? But that the Citizens Advice Bureau should face legal threats merely for doing its job should tell you all about this country’s ludicrous libel laws. No doubt the billionaires who've journeyed here to settle writs over the last few years have pumped a little into our economy whenever they’ve popped into Harrods. The question is exactly how much we’re willing to receive for our freedom of speech.

[Loverat]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

On the subject of 'extortion', this is what Baroness Hayter had to say about RLP in the Lords during yesterday's 2nd reading of the Defamation Bill (at col 982):

''More recently, I have been involved with Citizens Advice on the issue of civil recovery. That is a rather pernicious little device used by a number of high street retailers, such as Boots, Debenhams and Tesco, to extort money out of those accused-but not necessarily guilty-of shoplifting, via empty threats of civil court action. Citizens Advice has been hampered in exposing this racket by threats of defamation action. The organisation knows that they will never come to anything because it researches what it writes extremely carefully and makes sure that it is true. But even to answer such threats involves expensive legal time.''

Perhaps Citizen's Advice should threaten to report the solicitors issuing letters demanding money off people or threatening defamation to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The SRA code of practice does provide some guidance on this type of thing and it is a fair bet that law firms engaging in these letter writing campaigns are breaching the rules in one way or another. I have seen some pre action protocol claim letters which are woeful. That was evident in Smith v ADVFN and the file sharing scandal a few years ago when several law firms demanded money in thousands of letters sent to members of the public. If I remember correctly that practice was known as 'speculative invoicing' and some big law firms were disciplined by the regulator.

[EXC]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Perhaps Citizen's Advice should threaten to report the solicitors issuing letters demanding money off people or threatening defamation to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The problem is that the letters written to people that demand money are not issued by solicitors but by Civil Recovery companies i.e. RLP and as such are not subject to the SRA's jurisdiction.

[EXC]

Re: Civil Recovery Firm lashes out at Consumer Forums after Court defeat

Hold on, isn't Boris Johnson tied up with The New Statesman in some way?

I think you mean The Spectator where he was the editor.