[glow=red,2,300]YOU MUST READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES IN THE DAILY MAIL [/glow]
Blowing the whistle on the violent and corrupt world of bailiffs www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=406678&in_page_id=1770 Exposed: violent and corrupt world of bailiffs www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=406669&in_page_id=1770 Quote:
In a nine month long investigation, BBC reporter Jim Wheble worked undercover for two of Britain's largest bailiff companies. Here, in a shocking report written exclusively for The Mail on Sunday, he describes how he saw first hand how the public are lied to, cheated and threatened by people who are supposed to be official court representatives....
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Court bailiffs routinely con debtors and illegally break into homes to claim money, according to evidence uncovered by a startling new TV investigation
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Wheble said: "I saw their employees cheat, lie, intimidate and dissemble. I saw them breaking and entering. I saw them fraudulently conning members of the public - often guilty of no more than failing to pay a parking fine - out of hundreds of pounds."
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In one case a bailiff threatened to confiscate all the possessions of a disabled man stricken with cancer - who owed debts because his carer had been using his disable-badged car.
The Courts and Local Authorities Condone this sort of behaviour !! They receive complaints regarding this all the time and just IGNOORE it !!
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With astonishing nonchalance, the former policeman takes out what looks like a credit card from his wallet and uses it to break into the house. I stand by in amazement as he saunters inside and begins to inspect what of value we can take.
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For the last nine months I've been working undercover as a bailiff as part of a BBC investigation. What I discovered during this time about the methods bailiffs employ to extort money from debtors shocked me to the core.
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Bailiffs collect unpaid fines which are issued by Magistrates Courts, local authorities, landlords and companies for failure to pay everything from council tax, to parking fines to unpaid bills. As Officers of the Court, a bailiff's role is to enforce the law on behalf of society.
TO ENFORCE THE LAW !! WHAT A JOKE !! Quote:
I also discovered corruption on a massive scale with government bodies awarding bailiff companies contracts with little or no regulation as to who they employ or the methods they use.
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I presented both companies with a fake CV which included bogus former jobs as a double glazing and car salesman. Both companies asked me for a reciept from my local police station stating that I had requested a criminal check, but, crucially, neither asked for the check itself.
They also neglected to make checks on the false references I provided. When you consider the role of a bailiff and the civic responsibility with which they are entrusted, this was negligence on a grostesque scale. Quote:
All the bailiffs I met were very friendly to me and, as the 'new kid on the block,' were more than helpful in teaching me their nefarious ways. One of the mementos I've kept from my time as a bailiff is a gift one of my bailiff 'friends' gave me. Its a funny looking piece of plastic called a 'slim Jim'. It looks like a very long credit card and can be used to break into locked front doors in under fifteen seconds.
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Once, we were pursuing a fine that had been issued by the Courts for an unpaid TV Licence. We went to property, a flat above a shop in Greenford, North London, owned by a Somalian family. The debtor wasn't in and nobody else at the house spoke English apart from the debtor's kids.
The intimidatingly large bodybuilder then did something that still disturbs me deeply. He bent down to speak to the little girls and told them that when people don't pay fines, they can go to prison, and that was what would happen to their mother if he wasn't paid.
The crying girls got the message: "If she doesn't have the money on this, does she go to prison?" asked the older one.
As is the process, we recommended that the children ask any available friends and family to see if they can help with the fine to stop it being taken any further.
The tearful girls translated what was going on for ther aunt and then told us: "My auntie said we will pay the money."
As usual, this bailiff got what he wanted. But how he slept at night I'll never know.
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Because they are immobile, disabled people often bear the brunt of bailiffs' wrath. When I first worked at CCS I was partnered with one of the managers, a man renowned for his unforgiving and mercenery nature. We visited a disabled man who had just been treated with a course of chaemotherapy. His carer had been using his motorbility car and had run up hundreds of pounds worth of fines.
The disabled man was extremely weak and tearful and told us he had no method of payment. By the time my partner had repeatedly and aggressively threatened to confiscate everything in his house he was in a pitifully distressed state.
Later, in the car, it was explained to me in no uncertain terms that we should do anything we could to make them pay, no matter what.
I later found out that when the case went to court the fines were waived. He was one of the 'lucky' ones.
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Instead of making for her front door, "Mr Ladders' decided on another approach. As I looked on in astonishment, he took a ladder from the back of the van and proceeded to climb into the house via an open window.
The next thing I heard was screaming coming from the house after the tenant had discovered her intruder.
But although there was no conceivable justification for terrifying this entirely innocent woman alone at home with her two small children, my colleague's behaviour, thanks to an old law, was completely legal. Never mind that it achieved nothing apart from causing unnecessary fear and alarm.
He later boasted to me that he'd used this method 'plenty of times,' adding that if he worked alone, he'd help himself to their property as well. He also showed me his briefcase of 'tricks' containing screwdrivers, penknives, plastic cards and other house break-in paraphernalia.
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Even worse, because bailiffs work on commission, the system within which they operate is one that almost encourages them to extract more than they should. The bailiffs get a percentage of every fine they collect and, in turn, the bailiff companies earn more money for each and every debt their bailiffs recover. So the bailiffs I witnessed wanted to get money from people by any means possible, with their middle managershappy to encourage such behaviour because ultimately, everyone in the company profited from it. Quote:
The debts that bailiffs collect are completely legitimate in themselves, but every time they collect a debt they add on their own costs. The amount they can add on depends on what type of work he has done in order to recover the debt. For example: If you were to receive £100 parking fine, by the time a bailiff knocks on your door the fine must have risen due to non-payment to £396 which includes the bailiffs' costs. This might be because you've forgotten or because the notices were going to an old address. It's frighteningly easy for a bailiff to tell you that this is the third time he's visited your property when actually it's the first. Every individual visit has its own costs. A second visit means you're faced with a bill of around £700, nearly double what you originally owed.
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To extract the requisite money it's not unheard of for bailiffs to swear at and physically intimidate members of the public. One bailiff I was working with told a debtor that if he didn't let him in he'd 'slam his f***ing head in the door'. The fact that this kind of behaviour is so often employed by not only a so-called legitimate company, but one that works directly on behalf of the government, beggars belief. Quote:
Once, while working for Drakes, I went to a suburban house on a quiet residential street to collect a fine for a motoring offence off some silly kid with a moped. The guy wasn't home but his mum was. I was about to leave when the bailiff I was with decided he was going to get paid anyway. He was a hard-nosed tough guy with every trick in the book at his fingertips.
He had already told me that the easiest way to make a woman pay a fine is to threaten to repossess their washing machine and, true to form, once inside, he headed straight for the kitchen.
When the woman went to pay, he whispered to me conspiratorially 'you can't take them but I threaten to take them anyway "cos that really p****s them ofF".
Kenny was right: by illegally threatening to confiscate her washing machine the son's fine was paid. A fine which by rights she did not have to pay.
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After months working undercover, one thing was crystal clear: if the bailiffs I worked with were any indication of the industry as a whole, this is a world out of control. The ease with which so-called court officers could illegally add hundreds of pounds to people's bills, barge into people's homes and simply terrify people into paying was staggering. It all comes with the territory, but it shouldn't. One bailiff summed up the situation perfectly to me when he described bailiffs as "legal thieves ripping people off". Quote:
On a personal level, it was hard to betray people I had worked alongside for four or five months at a time. But my conviction that their behaviour was nefarious and needed to be exposed drove me on.
At debt's door - BBC Newsnews.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5377488.stmCREDIT TO YOU JIM WHEBLE - THIS THUGGISH INDUSTRY NEEDS EXPOSING
and they will get worse if nothing is done about it,i would like to see them put a foot in my door,they would get a foot in there face,it is easy money for them,and they know they can get away with it,and they will get greedier and greedier and will do anything to get YOUR money,they need to be stopped now as they will get worse,the dirty rotten murdering low life scum bags,what goes around comes around,and you bailiffs will get whats coming to you,as they say all good things must come to a end,and your day is coming,see you soon Trev,