Toll cheat has car seized and sold to pay debt for unpaid trips

GBX

Sure ya can't be doing that ..


22 trips in 48 hours and remained unpaid

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/woman-who-owed-3k-in-unpaid-tolls-has-car-seized-887898.html

lawred2

hahaha

Skylinehead

Ms Moore, Counsel said, was notified in September 2017 of the granting of the judgment in a letter sent to her but the letter was returned with a sticker attached to the envelope which stated 'Return to Sender' and also stated among other things 'I do not recognise you.'

Yeah that's a proven technique to ignore court judgements :pac:

Odelay

Nixonbot wrote: »

Yeah that's a proven technique to ignore court judgements :pac:

The ****in frightening thing is it seems to have worked, read the end of the article.

ohnonotgmail

ELM327

In fairness, if you read to the end it looks like the eflow company are in the wrong

The District Court granted the application to Ms Moore setting aside the default judgment for the alleged unpaid tolls.

Counsel said Ms Moore also issued court proceedings claiming damages arising out of the alleged wrongful seizure and sale of her car.

Mr Justice Seamus Noonan granted leave to bring a legal challenge seeking to quash the order of the District Court setting aside the judgement granted against Ms Moore in relation to the alleged toll debt.

I know of a fellow who ignored the letters for months in a €500 car, they wanted many thousands after. He sold the car and that was 3 years ago, nothing further said.

coylemj

ELM327 wrote: »

In fairness, if you read to the end it looks like the eflow company are in the wrong

I don't how you reached that conclusion. The eFlow crowd are challenging the decision by the District Court to set aside the original judgement they got against the woman and they got leave to proceed with their case. They are in effect seeking to have the original judgement reinstated.

Beats me how the District Court could overturn the original decision after the debtor side got a judgement and had the sherrif execute it.

colm_mcm

I wonder how many trips it was, I’d say it wasn’t that many as the cost ramps up pretty quickly.

TheAnalyst_

Must have been a decent enough car to go for 9K at auction.

Wishbone Ash

GBX wrote: »

.. 22 trips in 48 hours..

According to the link, 22 trips between Jan and Sept.

she went through the tolled section of the M50 motorway on 22 occasions between January 15 and September 16, 2016.

LawlessBoy

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

Must have been a decent enough car to go for 9K at auction.

Cars dont usually go from much cheaper then market value from what ive witnessed at auction

Ginger83

Haha i fought the law and the law won.

Eric Cartman

"I do not recognise you" - this freeman of the land craic.

I love nothing more than when they get shafted twice as hard as if they had have complied. Judges really have it out for that lot and I'm so pleased about it.

1874

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

According to the link, 22 trips between Jan and Sept.

22 trips, whats that about in cost? about 100 euro?
Wheres the 9000 coming from?
Id prefer it was a state infrastructure I was paying into rather than a private company but I pay automatically from my account and while I found them reasonable to deal with when I forgot to add new card details when the card was replaced, I thought the penalties related to a fine could not be punitive and had to be in proportion to the cost of the charge?

colm_mcm

1874 wrote: »

22 trips, whats that about in cost? about 100 euro?
Wheres the 9000 coming from?
Id prefer it was a state infrastructure I was paying into rather than a private company but I pay automatically from my account and while I found them reasonable to deal with when I forgot to add new card details when the card was replaced, I thought the penalties related to a fine could not be punitive and had to be in proportion to the cost of the charge?

The standard M50 toll for an unregistered private car is €3.10 and must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a €3 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty, otherwise a further penalty of €41 is applied.
After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of €103 and, if it remains unpaid, legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to €5,000, as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence

bucketybuck

Please somebody explain why the district court ruled to set aside the original judgement?

Woman doesn't pay the tolls, ignores the requests for payments, ignores the legal documents sent to her and doesn't bother turning up to court.

Then months later after everything is done she makes an application to have the judgement set aside and the district court says "Sure, no bother".

What gives?

bucketybuck

bucketybuck wrote: »

Please somebody explain why the district court ruled to set aside the original judgement?

Woman doesn't pay the tolls, ignores the requests for payments, ignores the legal documents sent to her and doesn't bother turning up to court.

Then months later after everything is done she makes an application to have the judgement set aside and the district court says "Sure, no bother".

What gives?

'Counsel said Ms Moore on July 31 this year applied to the District Court to have the default judgment given to the NRA set aside. Counsel said this application was made without notice to the NRA and on grounds which Ms Moore claimed included that she had never been served with the proceedings in relation to the toll debt and was not aware the proceedings existed.'
It looks like only one side was represented and maybe certain assertions went unchallenged. A judge can only go with what is in front of them.

ELM327

coylemj wrote: »

I don't how you reached that conclusion. The eFlow crowd are challenging the decision by the District Court to set aside the original judgement they got against the woman and they got leave to proceed with their case. They are in effect seeking to have the original judgement reinstated.

Beats me how the District Court could overturn the original decision after the debtor side got a judgement and had the sherrif execute it.

Because as I said in the below quote they allowed the judgement to be set aside

ELM327 wrote: »

In fairness, if you read to the end it looks like the eflow company are in the wrong



I know of a fellow who ignored the letters for months in a €500 car, they wanted many thousands after. He sold the car and that was 3 years ago, nothing further said.

1874

colm_mcm wrote: »

The standard M50 toll for an unregistered private car is €3.10 and must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a €3 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty, otherwise a further penalty of €41 is applied.
After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of €103 and, if it remains unpaid, legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to €5,000, as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence

Thats what Im asking though, is that legal, I thought there was some EU law that covered proportionality, and I looked it up and there is, under the heading of human rights, and it seems justified.
Article 49, principle of legality and proportionality of criminal offences and penalties. Not 100% certain thats applicable, but it raised its head in regard to the NPPR charge, where the State has a history of having punitive penalties to put the fear into people to pay the original charge.

Im not saying what this person did was the right thing to do or they werent a bit stupid and pig headed about it, but it seems punitive and out of proportion to the original charge, who is imposing these costs? a private company?

GM228

1874 wrote: »

Thats what Im asking though, is that legal, I thought there was some EU law that covered proportionality, and I looked it up and there is, under the heading of human rights, and it seems justified.
Article 49, principle of legality and proportionality of criminal offences and penalties. Not 100% certain thats applicable, but it raised its head in regard to the NPPR charge, where the State has a history of having punitive penalties to put the fear into people to pay the original charge.

Im not saying what this person did was the right thing to do or they werent a bit stupid and pig headed about it, but it seems punitive and out of proportion to the original charge, who is imposing these costs? a private company?

But failing to pay a toll would fall into the category of crime of "making gain or causing loss by deception", such a crime carries similar penalties falling under the category of theft and related offences. The specific offence for failing to pay a toll is already prescribed, but that is a comparable crime.

Such a penalty is most definitely proportionate to that category of crime, and it's worth noting that the increasing penalties are not in relation to an offence per se, rather the charge only comes when you fail to pay the higher penalties, pay a €103 penalty or potentially upto a €5000 fine seems pretty consistent with the criminal law.

Claw Hammer

GM228 wrote: »

But failing to pay a toll would fall into the category of crime of "making gain or causing loss by deception", such a crime carries similar penalties falling under the category of theft and related offences. The specific offence for failing to pay a toll is already prescribed, but that is a comparable crime.

Such a penalty is most definitely proportionate to that category of crime, and it's worth noting that the increasing penalties are not in relation to an offence per se, rather the charge only comes when you fail to pay the higher penalties, pay a €103 penalty or potentially upto a €5000 fine seems pretty consistent with the criminal law.

The cases taken to recover tolls are all take in the District Court sitting in its civil jurisdiction. There was no fine. There were additional charges loaded on to the tolls plus costs. There is no way there was a prosecution under section 6 of the Theft Act. Judgements are not entered on foot of fines either.

GM228

Claw Hammer wrote: »

The cases taken to recover tolls are all take in the District Court sitting in its civil jurisdiction. There was no fine. There were additional charges loaded on to the tolls plus costs. There is no way there was a prosecution under section 6 of the Theft Act. Judgements are not entered on foot of fines either.

I'm well aware of that CH, indeed the recovery of tolls is as a simple contract debt.

But I was not talking about the recovery of tolls, I was talking about the offence of not paying a toll. I never suggested anybody would or could be charged under S6, I simply said it was a "comparable crime" and that the "offence for failing to pay a toll is already prescribed".

It is an offence to not pay a toll which carries a potential €5000 fine and/or 6 months imprisonment and I mentioned it due to the poster referring to Article 49 of the EUs CFR (below), an article which relates to criminal offences, not civil debts. Yes generally they go for the debt recovery option, but Transport Infrastructure Ireland have also prosecuted people for failing to pay their tolls instead.

1874 wrote: »

colm_mcm wrote: »

The standard M50 toll for an unregistered private car is €3.10 and must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a €3 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty, otherwise a further penalty of €41 is applied.
After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of €103 and, if it remains unpaid, legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to €5,000, as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence

Thats what Im asking though, is that legal, I thought there was some EU law that covered proportionality, and I looked it up and there is, under the heading of human rights, and it seems justified.
Article 49, principle of legality and proportionality of criminal offences and penalties. Not 100% certain thats applicable, but it raised its head in regard to the NPPR charge, where the State has a history of having punitive penalties to put the fear into people to pay the original charge.

Im not saying what this person did was the right thing to do or they werent a bit stupid and pig headed about it, but it seems punitive and out of proportion to the original charge, who is imposing these costs? a private company?