Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

[hotstuff]

the following is my complaint sent to equita directors and the council;


Is the council aware that the bailiffs acting on your behalf, are behaving fraudulently to the point of extracting money with menaces? And now due to it being more than one acting on behalf of the same company (Equita) I believe that it must me endemic throughout this company.

Back at the beginning of december I was visited by a xxx of Equita bailiffs, who on the first visit to me advised me that there was a £700 council tax bill outstanding plus £248.50 bailiffs costs which I queried, said I would check with the council, paid the outstanding council tax, and asked xxx to send me an invoice for the bailiffs costs so that I could query it.

His response was that he needed payment in full or he would come and take my car, so knowing that a bailiff cannot enforce a warrant for their charges only, I said, please do, but make sure that the police are in attendance to arrest you for theft.

Noting that the maximum charge for a first visit is £24.50, and quite happy to pay it, I still continued to receive aggressive calls from xxx threatening to steal my car for an unenforceable debt.

Last week I received a letter from a xxx of the very same Bailiffs company, requesting the full original amount, of course I called him immediately, and advised that the debt had been paid in full to the council. He checked and rang me back and advised the £248.50 in bailiffs fees was still owing, and how was I going to make that payment. I said I wasn't until I received an invoice for it that I could query, so he said "fine, I will come and take your car then".

Given that it is not my vocation, and I am aware that you cannot collect purely bailiffs charges on a warrant for a different bill, is it likely that these bailiffs are acting in ignorance? or rather with a blatant disregard for the law, and using bullying, threatening tactics rather than trying to resolve the query.

On the morning of Saturday 26 Feb, I receive another letter through my door from xxx enclosing a Form 7 with my car listed on it, and thought it was just typical scare tactics, I do not believe that he even knocked at my door because the dog didn't even bark.

On Saturday evening I was due to collect my children from their mother's house, get in my car to drive off and there is a clunk from the frontwheel.... hes only gone and clamped my car!!! with no notice to let me know,
I call xxx to get it released, oh and guess what,, he is on voicemail... all weekend!! Depriving me of the use of my car illegally!

I call a locksmith out because I need my car urgently and spend £175.00 including VAT to have it removed. I still don't know if there has been any permanent damage to the car.

I have copied this to Equita Directors so that they are fully aware of their agent's behaviours. I tried several times to get through to speak to someone there about xxx behaviour when he was harassing me, and all they did was put me through to xxx voicemail repeatedly, not to a manager as I had asked.

So Why does the council employ a debt collection service that;

Is extorting over the top fees from the poorest people? £248.50 is way more then the £24.50 stated on their fees list.

Is trying to extract money with menaces illegally?

Lies and misrepresents what they are actually allowed to do by law?

Illegally deprives people of free usage of their car?

Has no complaints elevation procedure to prevent unscrupulous agents harrassing people?.

I will be sending Equita an invoice for the locksmith and a bill for any necessary repairs for my car, which I very much doubt they will pay.

I hope that by being copied in on this they will send me the correct invoice address so it can be speedily processed.

If I had a copy of xxx and xxx certification, I would notify the issuing authority as to their behaviour, as I do not, I trust that you as the council that employs them will forward this email to the issuing authority.

I hope that you can answer the above questions to my and your satisfaction, and if not advise me what the council is doing to remedy the situation and find more ethical bailiffs. And confirm that I will no longer be harrassed by these persons and actually be sent a relevant invoice for their fees for £24.50 not £248.50, not a typo as I saw him write it and queried why it was so high at the time.

Best regards


will post the results of their "investigation", next, Im am about to pick holes in it, with the help of some of you clever folk hopefully.

Thanks for reading

[Amy]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

This is a pitfall of paying directly to the council.

The council must be corresponded with at all times since, prior to payments being made since it is they who employ the bailiffs. To do otherwise, as you have found out, will mean part of the debt will remain outstanding and the outstanding amount will be bailiff fees.

This is because, if the council is paid direct, the council will pass on part of what you have paid to the bailiffs to cover their fees = liability not fulfilled.

Or, if the money is paid to the bailiff, they pass on the money to the council, less their fees = liability not fulfilled.

The councils are well able to put a stop to these nefarious fees, but they are not mind readers and unless you tell them, how can they know there is a problem?

[hotstuff]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

Th council had confirmed to me on the phone that all money owing to them was paid in full, but there may still be some monies owing to the bailiffs... this should make the warrant unenforceable, and the bailiffs musty then invoice me for their fees.. surely?

[Amy]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

For the reasons I have given above you must be absolutely certain that the whole of the liability to the council is paid and merely being told this over the telephone is not good enough.

Write to your council and get them to put it in writing to you that it is paid in full and then you can insist that they call off the bailiff action.

[hotstuff]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

excerpt from response from head of revenues at Capita;

On the 26 November 2011 you made a Debit Card payment direct to the council for £710.00 and also telephoned the council tax contact centre to discuss this account. I have been able to retrieve a recording of this call and from listening to it I can state that you were informed on more than one occasion that although the £710.00 settled the original outstanding council tax amount you were advised that as the account was in the hands of the bailiffs (Equita) there may also be outstanding charges payable to them.

This is an admission surely that the original debt had been paid- therefore any further sums could not be collected under the warrant. So they should have invoiced me. An admin error on their behalf, but surely one that can be exploited just as they have been exploiting a loophole, paying off equita first.

[WendyB]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

Email Equita direct to their complaints department, I have the email address somewhere, I'm sure the woman is named Karen Fowler. Anyway, Ben13 had the email address because I sent it to him, so he'll probably post it up.

Demand a breakdown.of their fees/charges and tell them that when you have received it you are quite willing to pay the legitimate ones.

When I emailed them on behalf of my friend we got a reply and result within a few days.

[ben13]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

As usual Wendy your right t is Karen Fowler.
The email address is info@equita.co.uk

Make sure the subject is... FAO Karen Fowler, Head of Complaints.

Also cc the email to your councils CEO (their email address will be on the councils website).

Hope this helps.

Follow Wendy's advise regarding breakdown of charges as she is a star and helped me immensely :-)

One more thing, do not be bullied by these lying cheating scum. I had my case taken back by the council because these idiots were trying to hit us with excessive charges. The bailiff was trying to add charges for 4 different visits across 3 accounts when he only made 1 single visit.

The council are pretty clueless (or at least act it) with regard bailiffs and you will have to be strong and stand your ground. Never let them tell you that they are right and you are wrong.

[hotstuff]

Re: Equita, unlawful clamping of car?

Am dealing with Head of revenues at Capita, copying in the council, my initial complaint went to three directors of equita (you can only find their details if you go to the sales side of their website.. funny that).

My previous post was a brief excerpt of the 4 page long letter that I received back, full of legalese bullcrap, they seem to desperately want their ruined clamp back, Im hoping I have a case.. This is my official response sent today:::


Mr Gaffney,

I am saying that neither did I receive a first or second letter, nor did I receive any attempt at contact on 29 October and 8 November. I was in all day apart from a brief trip to drop the kids off at school.

Your attitude and response infers to me that no actual first and second attempts are made at contact until the bailiff could get a suitable bonus. Is this common practice? are the first and second visits actually carried out by bailiffs, or is the modus operandi to pay a paper boy to attempt contact? I would like to know which bailiff says he visited my house on those two dates so I can prove them to be a liar also.

The Facts as you have stated are that xxx was passed my case on Friday 23 November, Monday 25th November I receive a letter from the bailiffs company, followed shortly afterwards by a knock on my door from xxx who advised me of the total owing including alleged levy fees of £958 (which I queried) despite not having attempted to levy on anything nor offering me a fee without levy charges. As this was the first full working day that had on xxx the case, there were no previous visits by him. The following day Tuesday 26 November, I pay the outstanding balance owing to the council, where I had it confirmed both in person and over the phone that I had fulfilled my obligations to the council, although I was advised that I may owe money directly to the bailiffs.

The fact that the outstanding balance should have been conveyed to the bailiffs, does not change the fact that it was not and that my liability to the council had been fully satisfied, and this was fully explained to xxx on several occasions when he rang to say he was coming to take my car.

At this point No legal levy had been placed on my car- please send me a copy of any there are.. It had also been explained to xxx that I am a single father on benefits, and I need usage of the car to get my daughter to her school which is seven miles away and not on a bus route.

The way the council juggles with the way money is paid to the bailiffs, is legal thin ice, that I firmly believe has cracked and in this instance equita has fallen through.

A Bailiff or any other person who dishonestly charges for work that has not been done will be committing an arrestable offence under the Fraud Act 2006 Section 2 of the act specifically describes a person dishonestly making a false representation and intends by making the representation, to make a gain for himself or another, or to cause loss to another, or expose another to a risk of loss.

A bailiff also cannot pursue for bailiffs fees only under an original warrant.

Given that xxx was the only contact that I had for Equita, and I had told him several times that the outstanding to the council had been paid, and he confirmed that he had double checked this with the office and the council, Im not quite sure how I could have made equita more aware of it.

I called xxx the same morning I received my letter in the post from him, and have called equita each time I receive a further letter from them, indeed I paid the council tax the day after my first contact from them, do you see a pattern emerging?

No legal levy on the car made by xxx
Council tax liability paid and accepted in full (as admitted in your letter)
Intimidating phone calls and letters demanding full balance despite not having the legal right to do what they ended up doing.
The fact that SLA s are in place does not mean that they are fulfilled (as noted by your late response to my complaint), were Equita so busy with their current workload that they were unable to fulfil their SLA to you that they must contact within a certain amount of days, and hence pencilled in a couple of dubious entries.

It seems clear to me that Equita and Capita are using intimidation and bending the laws for their own purposes rather than for what is right, as noted by the hinted threats at the end of your letter.

I will keep Equita's clamp in safekeeping until this is fully resolved as I may need it for evidence (though it is undoubtedly of no use to them now, makes me wonder why they/you want it back so much).

Moving forward;
I would like recompense for my worry and stress and removal of the clamp, as well as the waiving of all bailiffs fees in this case.

I would like you to get Equita to confirm that attempts at contact will be made on first and second visits, and that their agents do not have a pay structure that incentivises only attempting real contact on the third and most lucrative visit. It currently makes no sense for them financially to achieve contact on the first or second visit, when the third visit will accrue ten times the amount for them.

Pending the outcome of my complaint I fully intend to Lodge form 4s to the relevant courts for both bailiffs mentioned, and will be actively investigating ways to prosecute Equita more fully.

Best regards