Argh! Scammered in company vehicle!

[Dougie.]

Just as I was thinking how lucky I am to have a clean licence considering I do 45k per year, a letter from head office was waiting for me last night when I got in:

7th Feb 2005

RE: Motoring/Speeding Offence

Reg no: xxxx xxx

Date of incident: 22nd Jan 2005 at xxxx

Location: A74(m)

Speed: 89mph in a 70mph zone

We have received the above paperwork from the Police, we require by return the full name, home address and date of birth, of the driver at the time of the offence.

A RESPONSE MUST BE MADE WITHIN 48 HOURS!
If no response is forthcoming we have no alternative to pass on your detials to the respective authority for prosecution.

***************

Now seeing as how I've only received the letter on the 10th it would appear my 48 hours granted to me by my work is up. But I don't fancy sending back this letter anyhow. The NIP has been served within 14 days so I take it my employers will have 28 days to tell them who was driving.

I do this drive every second week with a work colleague, who I drop off in this area as he has family in Gretna/Carlisle. As a result we want to see some footage of the car to refresh our memories as to who was driving.

We can't remember seeing a Talivan on the A74 that day. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was an excellent journey. There was one van, over a bridge on the M74 just north of the alleged offence which was slowed for as soon as it came into view as it was hiding on a bridge round a corner.
Judging by the speed on the letter, we'd have been doing an indicated 95mph on the two lane dual carriageway section which I don't think we were as there was quite a bit of traffic there.

Any ideas how to proceed with this? Can my work name me as the driver on the NIP without my consent? I would assume that I would then get a new NIP sent to my home address?

Could really do with seeing the 'evidence' and finding exactly where the van was. According to their timing, it would appear we got from Glasgow to over the border in one hour, which is just over 90 miles including a stop at Gretna village for about ten minutes! If they've got me well and truly stitched up then I guess that's tough luck but I don't fancy giving scammers £60 without making them work for it.

Paying my dues to Pepipoo tonight as well, and the long overdue Safespeed contribution. Infernal scammers.

Thanks for your time!

[NugentS]

I was going to suggest Pepipoo - but you are already going there.

Good luck with making the bastards work for the money. And remember they are acting illegally.

Sean

[bobbins]

Dougie. said:

Any ideas how to proceed with this? Can my work name me as the driver on the NIP without my consent? I would assume that I would then get a new NIP sent to my home address?

I'm surprised they even asked you - in my personal experience (and others I've heard of) they normally just pass on the details of whoever the usual user of the car (which they are required to know by law).
So you ought to get another NIP in your name. If you then dispute who was driving your employer could be in trouble as they should know. People will argue about this, but your employer isn't likely to take kindly to being dragged through court. Bear in mind that there *might* be a picture that identifies you anyway.

[nonegreen]

If you claim to not know which of you was driving they will send a cop round to interview you both. Just keep smiling and say "I dont know" a lot. If you both do that they will go away and pester less able people.

[MR2Mike]

Dougie. said:

The NIP has been served within 14 days so I take it my employers will have 28 days to tell them who was driving.

Do you know this for a fact i.e. have you actually seen the NIP sent to your employers? There was 16 days between the date of offence and the date of the letter that your employers wrote.

[Streetcop]

NugentS said:

I was going to suggest Pepipoo - but you are already going there. Good luck with making the bastards work for the money. And remember they are acting illegally. Sean

Sean...

Please explain the 'acting illegally' for me

Thanks

Gareth

[SotonS2]

MR2Mike said:

Dougie. said: The NIP has been served within 14 days so I take it my employers will have 28 days to tell them who was driving. Do you know this for a fact i.e. have you actually seen the NIP sent to your employers? There was 16 days between the date of offence and the date of the letter that your employers wrote.

AIUI, the scammers have 14 days from the offence date to issue the NIP - not 14 days for it to arrive on your doormat. You then have 28 days from the NIP date to respond.

Your company should just nominate you as the driver on the NIP, return it and a new, personalised NIP will arrive at your home address in due course. Its irrelevant at this time whether you plan the use 'I don't know who was driving defence'. First things first, you need to get the NIP addressed to you and then you can plan your strategy.

Note that once the NIP is addressed to you, there is no reason why your company has to have any further involvement. The matter becomes personal, so to speak.

pepipoo highy recommended

[bobbins]

nonegreen said:

If you claim to not know which of you was driving they will send a cop round to interview you both. Just keep smiling and say "I dont know" a lot. If you both do that they will go away and pester less able people.

You can try this if it's your own car - if it's your company's car then they can prosecute your employer for failing to identify the driver. Your firm will then have to show that they took adequate steps to ensure they knew who was driving.
If my MD got dragged into court over this (especially if he thought I was taking the michael) then I think I'd be out of the employee of the year running for quite some time.

[SotonS2]

bobbins said:

nonegreen said: If you claim to not know which of you was driving they will send a cop round to interview you both. Just keep smiling and say "I dont know" a lot. If you both do that they will go away and pester less able people. You can try this if it's your own car - if it's your company's car then they can prosecute your employer for failing to identify the driver. Your firm will then have to show that they took adequate steps to ensure they knew who was driving. If my MD got dragged into court over this (especially if he thought I was taking the michael) then I think I'd be out of the employee of the year running for quite some time.

Hence the importance of getting the NIP addressed to him personally which pretty much takes the company out of the equation.

[jacko lah]

I've posted a responce on Dougies Favourite Website, but I thought I'd share how bad or good some companies are.


3 blokes travelling to JCB everyday for a month (big qaulity issue) Sharing the pool car, no idea who was driving. NIP comes to Finance Director, he send it back saying he needs picture as he's not sure which of a number of people were driving. This goes on for a few weeks before NIP is eventually dropped. Mind you the procedures are crap, so using a pool car can be done with no official record.

Dougie ? Is it a pool car or 'YOUR' car cause you're a store manager ? If it's your car (as in part of salary package) the V5 should have had your name on it IMHO. If it's got someone else's name on V5 just deny that it was you cause it's not your problem.

[baz1985]

Bad luck mate. I use the M6, A74, M74 quite regularly. Only prob is that they use scamera vans anywhere from Carlise until the South Lanarkshire border (near A702 Edinburgh jct 12 or 13 I think) and they don't disclose the locations on the net anyway- so I keep it below 80 in all that stretch. South Lanarkshire, Strathclyde don't use mobile scameras on m'ways, thus I floor it between the junctions at 100+ after the South Lanarkshire sign. Also M6 scamera vans anywhere between jct 36-40.

Baz

>> Edited by baz1985 on Friday 11th February 12:36

[chrisgr31]

SotonS2 said:

AIUI, the scammers have 14 days from the offence date to issue the NIP - not 14 days for it to arrive on your doormat.

No the scameras have 14 days from the date of offence (not including the day of the office) to serve the NIP on you. First class post counts as service, and if it is used it is assummed that the NIP will arrive in the next days postal delivery. Therefore the NIP has to be posted 1st class on day 13 (or exactly 2 weeks after the offence) assuming the offence didn;t occur on a Saturday. If it did then the NIP has to be posted on the Friday at the latest.

[Dougie.]

Thanks for the replies!

The NIP doesn't have to be returned until the 1st of March apparently.

The location was: Whickerthorne Overbridge, Kirkpatrick Fleming A74 southbound.

The timing of the offence and where the van actually was is annoying me. If we'd made it to that point we'd have been going quite a good bit faster than I thought we were. Definately passed a van on the M74 just north of Gretna, not the A74 and if it WAS that van the timing of the alleged offence would make a lot more sense.

Would D&G scammers have two vans sitting only a few miles apart on the same carriageway?
Unless it was on the other side of the road... Can a van pointing northbound catch a car going southbound i.e Other side of the carriageway, moving away?

Haven't found out when they posted it yet but I think they got it in the post last Friday - 13 days. Bu99er.

[SotonS2]

chrisgr31 said:

SotonS2 said: AIUI, the scammers have 14 days from the offence date to issue the NIP - not 14 days for it to arrive on your doormat. No the scameras have 14 days from the date of offence (not including the day of the office) to serve the NIP on you. First class post counts as service, and if it is used it is assummed that the NIP will arrive in the next days postal delivery. Therefore the NIP has to be posted 1st class on day 13 (or exactly 2 weeks after the offence) assuming the offence didn;t occur on a Saturday. If it did then the NIP has to be posted on the Friday at the latest.

That's what I meant, but probably didn't put it so clearly. Should have said 'within 14 days to issue the NIP' for clarity.

The point being that whilst first class post counts as service so a NIP posted 1st class on day 13 is valid, its validity is not compromised just because Joe Postie chooses to drop it through your letterbox on day 15.

[nonegreen]

bobbins said:

nonegreen said: If you claim to not know which of you was driving they will send a cop round to interview you both. Just keep smiling and say "I dont know" a lot. If you both do that they will go away and pester less able people. You can try this if it's your own car - if it's your company's car then they can prosecute your employer for failing to identify the driver. Your firm will then have to show that they took adequate steps to ensure they knew who was driving. If my MD got dragged into court over this (especially if he thought I was taking the michael) then I think I'd be out of the employee of the year running for quite some time.

They are very unlikely to take a very large corporation to task so it really depends on the size of the company. I have some great anecdotes from the fleet manager from a large corporation. They have literally hundreds of these NIPs and they justkeep sending them back round the loop. Lets face it this scamera business is just so damn childish its no more than the government deserve.

[Dougie.]

I think we must have a fleet of about 6000 + vehicles of which maybe 2500 are cars. Fleet Manager must be deluged with NIP's. I think they'll just send the original off naming me anyway.

[bobbins]

nonegreen said:

They are very unlikely to take a very large corporation to task so it really depends on the size of the company. I have some great anecdotes from the fleet manager from a large corporation. They have literally hundreds of these NIPs and they justkeep sending them back round the loop. Lets face it this scamera business is just so damn childish its no more than the government deserve.

Didn't Manchester United (I know they're not 'very large' but they're a PLC) get fined for this when they wouldn't say who was driving one of their cars?
It's worth a try if your company will play ball, but fleet managers are often the MD's secretary or someone else whose had the job palmed off onto them.
There was also a story on here recently about a guy whose company, who, on doing his annual licence check, noticed that he hadn't had points added for a NIP that had come through them. They reported it and turned out the guys wife had accepted the points. He got fired.

>> Edited by bobbins on Friday 11th February 15:36

[nonegreen]

Dougie. said:

I think we must have a fleet of about 6000 + vehicles of which maybe 2500 are cars. Fleet Manager must be deluged with NIP's. I think they'll just send the original off naming me anyway.

At which point the company have narrowed it down to you and your mate so get him on your side and do the dont know defense. They can prosecute your company in thiose circumstances anyway.

[nonegreen]

bobbins said:

There was also a story on here recently about a guy whose company, who, on doing his annual licence check, noticed that he hadn't had points added for a NIP that had come through them. They reported it and turned out the guys wife had accepted the points. He got fired.

Dunno about Man U cos I live there. but any company who values silly speeding tickets above skilled employees is going to lose out big style over the next few years. I bet he sued them and won. Hope they went bust, tossers.