Letter before claim From RLP

[Joe 23]

Rob *♂️
just to clarify I responded to RLP over 28 days ago and they are stating in every letter they send me that I need to reply within 28 days. But they who make these rules are responding after the 28 days deadline they are setting. Is this legal that we must do as we are told whilst they do as they say

[Joe 23]

Thank you Rob I would appreciate your offer up of words as my grammar is poor to say the least.
I also fully agree with you seeing what I am seeing which is each letter they send they are hoping my response will give them that little bit more in terms of letting the cat out of the bag (I don’t own a cat). They have not responded in full with everything I’ve asked for (I supplied the correct information regarding the police report) their client has this but they state they are waiting for the police to respond.
I really don’t want to respond to them again and a final letter to them worded correctly will enable me to file any further scaremongering letters unless it’s a CC questionaire to respond. Am I right in saying it will cost them 3k to open a CC questionaire against myself for the sum of around 40k? Also what right do they have in asking for my bank details regarding any transactions. Surely they have this on record and should be checking their records not fishing for mine.
I hope your are enjoying the good weather & thank you for your support. I will fully update this post on anymore replies from RLP.

regards
Joe

[DE DOGS]

Agree DONT DISCLOSE BANK DETAILS.

[Joe 23]

Thanks DE DOGS I definitely won’t be supplying my bank details to them.

[Joe 23]

Hi Rob
is it possible you can help with letter reply to RLP in regards to words. I have taken down a lot of the response in last post and would appreciate if you can add to this

[R0b]

Here you go. Please note, it is relatively long response and is merely just an example response to give you an idea of how you may wish to reply to RLP. Have a read and feel free to select some or all of the letter and tweak it to suit your current situation.

If you want further feedback on any of your drafts, post it up for review.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

[insert date]

Dear Sir or Madam,

John Lewis v [Your name]

I am in receipt of your letter dated [insert date] 2023 and, having had time to consider the contents, I would like to respond to the matters raised in the same order they are listed.

1. You acknowledge that this matter is now at the pre-action stages of proceedings and as your client is seeking to recover sums for the difference of purchases versus refunds, the dispute is a debt matter and your client is required to comply with the Pre-Action Protocols for Debt Claims (the "Debt Protocols"). None of the letters that have been issued to date complies with the Debt Protocols and I would ask that you explain why you and/or your client feels that it is not necessary to follow the Debt Protocols format despite the rules being made clear that the relevant protocols must be complied with.
Regardless of your client's non-compliance, I am entitled to respond to any such pre-action letter in the manner set out in the Reply Form on page 10 of the Debt Protocols. For the avoidance of doubt, I dispute the debt and require further information from your client (in accordance with Box D and Box H of the Reply Form).

This leads me on to my next point concerning the evidence in your or your client's possession. In your initial letter dated [insert date] 2023, you mentioned that your client had collected information and evidence of my alleged wrongdoing over a period of 18 months. I responded to that letter denying liability and in further correspondence requested that you provide me with all evidence your client intends to rely in the event of legal proceedings starting. Please can you therefore explain why you and/or your client are only willing to provide some of that evidence at the disclosure stage of proceedings?

It is rather ironic that you seem to lecture me in previous corresponding about complying with the pre-action protocols (see your letter dated XXXXX 2023) and yet here you are, refusing to supply all evidence pertaining to the dispute, which runs contrary to the purpose of the protocols. No doubt you are aware that the pre-action protocols are intended to enable each party to understand the case against them and the courts expect a cards on the table approach. In light of you or your client deliberately refusing to provide me with all evidence relied upon in this matter, how can you or your client expect me to properly respond to the allegations or attempt to resolve the dispute if I don't have all of the evidence in my possession?

I can only conclude that (i) either you and/or your client have no further evidence as suggested, in which case I would say that you (being RLP) are acting in a fraudulent manner by claiming to have evidence which you do not have in order to deceive me and obtain a sum of money that your client is not entitled to or (ii) you are withholding evidence without good reason other than to incur unnecessary costs to both sides and intentionally frustrating the purposes of the protocols, which is to avoid litigation other than as a last resort. Whatever the case, please take this letter as notice to you and your client that I reserve the right to present this letter to the court on the question of costs and/or in consideration of any application I may make to strike out or otherwise stay proceedings pending your client's full compliance of the pre-action protocols.

2. In so far as the CCTV still images you have provided (of which there are a total of 4), I am struggling to comprehend how this proves that I am committing fraud against your client. The images are grainy to say the least, shows an image of what appears to be a male individual that could be of any member of the public and it appears that the male is carrying an item of some kind. None of this proves or otherwise implies that I have committed fraud.

3. Regarding the historical transactional data, I do not understand the relevance of it other than to show that items have been purchased and refunded by your client. None of these transactions indicate conduct of fraud as alleged.
To be clear, I have purchased a number of items from your client from time to time and on some of those occasions, I have returned items as I had changed my mind or the items were faulty. I would point out that your client has a returns policy both on its receipts and also online. When I returned these items, your client accepted my returns and refunded me accordingly. Your client had absolute discretion to refuse a refund and explain its reasons for doing so but it did not. As such, your client cannot cry foul and now suddenly claim that I have defrauded them.

4. See my response to point 2 above.

5. As I am sure you will be aware in light of the judgment in A Retailer and Ms. B and Ms. K (Case No. 1 UC 71244, Oxford County Court) 9 May 2012 - a case that a clientof yours claimed similar damages to what is being claim but eventually lost - in order for your client to recovered wasted management costs, the costs must (i) have caused a significant disruption to your client’s business (ii) that the significant disruption meant that your client’s staff were diverted from their usual business activities and (iii) those costs must be accurately quantified and substantiated by evidence.

The data analyst, loss recovery time, store management time. These costs you have listed are all in my view costs incurred in the usual business activities and are not something that caused a significant disruption to your client's business. As such, they are irrecoverable.

Administration costs. Again, these appear to be costs that were incurred in the usual business activities of your client's staff and so they are also irrecoverable. In any event, I do not accept that these costs are recoverable given that you have not explained why it was a necessity for your client to travel to stores to review CCTV and speak to personnel and to collect receipts. Given today’s technology I see no reason why these costs could have been mitigated and/or avoided altogether by providing access to the relevant CCTV through email, an internal communication platform such as Microsoft Teams, a secure file server or by post, speaking to personnel over the telephone and any receipts could have been forwarded by email, fax or other similar means.

Security contribution. Your client implementing and maintaining security equipment is entirely at your client’s choice and discretion which is no doubt part of its overheads generally that were already in place before these allegations came about. I do not accept that any of these costs were attributed to my activities and I would refer you back to the Oxford case whereby the judge also confirmed that such costs could not be recovered because "the amounts spent by the claimant would have been identical had the defendants stayed at home or limited their shoplifting to other establishments." Of course, if you do not agree, please supply evidence that shows these costs were directly attributable to my alleged activities.

For the reasons described above, liability as regards your client's allegations are denied in their entirety. As far as I'm concerned, your client's claim (and evidence) is substantially weak and I consider the demands to be nothing more than a fishing expedition, intimidation and harassment. Now that you know my position, I have no intention of communicating further with you unless you provide all evidence your client intends to rely on as stated in your previous correspondence. I will then consider the additional evidence and provide a response. Of course, should your client instead wish to initiate legal proceedings, I will respond and defend any and all allegations.

Otherwise, I do not expect to hear from you unless what I have said above applies. If I continue to receive from yourself future communications demanding any sums of money in connection with this dispute, I will consider such repeated demands as harassment since this letter already explains that I have no intention of paying your client based on these allegations. I reserve the right to commence legal proceedings against you and/or your client for harassment in accordance with the relevant pre-action protocols together with any associated costs.

[Joe 23]

Thank you soo much Rob. Everything you have mentioned in the above post is true & I will draught up my letter to RLP to defend myself (your a gent).
I will keep updating this post with any further responses and if I don’t receive a response from them I will update this also. I hope they see sense and leave me alone after this letter.