My next door neighbour contacted me the other day for some advice. For the sake of this story lets call them Mr and Mrs David Smith.
7am Sat morning they were awoken by a knock on the door. By the time they got there the person was gone but on the mat was a letter with a lot of red on it with threats to remove property issued by CDER Group.
It related to £2300 worth outstanding fines in the TFL area. There was a mobile number which belonged to whoever had been knocking on the door which they rang and gained some more information.
They spent most of the day trying to get further information. This involved the Debt Recovery company. CDER Group. The Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) - TFLs registration point for unpaid tickets, DVLA and as inquiries progressed Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police.
In a nutshell two vehicles, a LR Discovery and a Peugeot van registered in Stansted and Milton Keynes respectively had been racking up tickets in and around the London area. They were also given the registration numbers of the vehicles. Some 30 + outstanding fines. By the end of the day this was ramping up to over £5000 worth of fines being processed or coming into the system.
Thing is they have never owned those vehicles or been to London.
Of course they were being sent around in circles with someone at CDER suggesting they pay the debt and then claim it back once they had sorted it out. Bar Stewards.
An early call to the Met suggested that as they lived in the Humberside area it was reported to them. Humberside said they begged to differ but it was a Met job.
It was at this point I became involved and tried to unravel all the information. This wasn't a case of cloned plates. The vehicles, registrations and registered keepers exist.
We contacted Thames Valley and the Met and this time they couldn't have been more helpful and markers were placed on PNC. They confirmed the vehicles were respectively registered to Stanstead and Milton Keynes addresses under the names of Mr David Smith and Mrs David Smith. (The same as my neighbours).
I typed out a letter to CDER outlining the emerging circumstances, corroborating no connection with the vehicles, persons or addresses and suggesting that they were holding incorrect data breaching the Data Protection Act and that this should be rectified and if not the Information Commissioners Office informed.
It was left at that for the day but I had a chat over the hedge the following day. They had gleaned that on the 4th August their address had been attached to the registered keepers name at the TEC/CDER. How that happened wasn't revealed. It was also suggested that they provided details that at no time had the vehicles been in their possession. My response was something along the lines of "How the ****** do you prove you've not owned something?" For a fee DVLA will provide a registered keeper history for the vehicles.
So that where they are at. I really feel for them as they are fighting a wall of bureaucracy and abdication of any responsibility at every turn and shes not particularly well. For them having to prove their innocence stinks. They are naturally concerned that this could lead to credit reference issues etc.
I think the crux of the matter is how their address was attached to the vehicles, when there is seemingly no connection. There would appear to be a connection between the Stansted and MK addresses.There seems to be a lack of due diligence in establishing the authenticity of attaching names to a random address miles away.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Tue 27 Aug 24 at 23:30
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ULEZ - Unpaid fines. new
ULEZ - Unpaid fines. new