If a search reveals no CCJs, does that indicate an unblemished history?
Trust is a big problem. Without it, people hunker down and go into defensive mode. A lack of trust inhibits investment, spending, deal-making and so-on, at every level, from the playground, through households and businesses to the pacts of nations. Trust is the lifeblood of society.
Naively, probably like many others, I felt a key enabler at a national level, was the mechanism whereby those who abused the trust of others could ultimately have a County Court Judgement (CCJ) made against them. The party that felt offended would first try and resolve a dispute at several lower levels, but there had always seemed this option, by which to hold a perceived offender to account. My feeling has mistakenly been that if someone was clearly in the right, they could be comforted that justice would ultimately prevail, because no offender would want a CCJ dmaging their standing.
Today however, I have learned how broken the system is. According to advice here, if offenders pay off the judgements against them within a month from the day they are made, their CCJs NEVER make it onto the 'Register of Judgements'. Thereafter, such CCJs, if not 'set aside', stay on the books for six years. The process of 'setting aside' a judgement involves convincing the court there was a genuine mistake with the earlier case and taking it back to the beginning. Whilst it is noted that anyone caught deceiving a court to frivolously set aside a CCJ is liable to severe punishment, possibly even prison, one can imagine serious fraudsters happily using this route regularly.
The whole CCJ system seems to be a gift to seasoned rogues and fraudsters, who are likely to regularly abuse business dealings with others, obfuscating at every step, until complainants either give up, or progress to county court. On those occasions where the other side has the time and energy to take it to court, these offenders can then either deploy a 'set-aside' play, or simply cop a CCJ and pay up within a month, so that nobody else ever get wise to their nastiness.
Further, it would seem the system only really punishes the inept, broke or unfortunate, where the process either defaults against them, due to lack of knowledge on their part, or because, in addition to rogue behavior they lack the means to beat the 1 month settlement deadline to stay off the register. In essence, the CCJ system, not only fails as a deterrent, it is a false deterrent.
The absurdity of the system comes to light further when noting that the key web sites selling information on CCJs invite visitors to check to see if there are any against THEM. In this, in my view, they are tacitly acknowledging that a significant number of CCJs unfairly blemish the wrong people. Far more serious however is the false sense of confidence the system offers everyone, when it allows serious serial-offenders to get off scot-free, providing they settle what they owed anyway, within a month of judgement. Couple this ploy to the dozens of others, including hiding assets and driving businesses into liquidation prior to settling debts, and our legal system is an expensive, frightening labyrinth to most 'innocents' and a glorious, enriching playground to professional rogues.
All of the above troubling issues are then compounded by the fact that it is not possible to examine the Register of Judgements, a key element of UK civil law, without a fee to a so-called 'non profit company', Registry Trust Limited, which has been granted a monopoly to sell on this data, as detailed on its web page here.
So where does this leave me and you, where you may be another person, business or organization, wanting to do diligence on another UK person or business?
If the small investment is justifiable, it will still be useful to buy a detailed company or person check from a 'reputable' supplier, just one of which is Companycheck.co.uk. However, given that such data is populated with numerous 'false positive' AND 'false negative' pieces of information, it may also be worth reviewing a number of other sources, to get an 'in the round' view. The problem here is that, all information sources, from review sites to prospective third party references, can be 'gamed' by professional rogues to present a very misleading picture, plus this takes time.
Furthermore, upstanding businesses and individuals may, through being focused elsewhere, not have bothered to check reputation sites, other internet sites such as LinkedIn or even credit scores, and through either error or malicious others, these may present a falsely negative impression.
Ultimately, a balanced judgement has to be formed and, given inherent system failings, it will not always be right. Contrary to their claims, new and nearly new internet players, including Airbnb, Uber, Amazon, Ebay, Trustpilot, LinkedIn, Etsy, TripAdvisor, Ratedpeople, Trustatrader & Opentable, are also open to gaming.
Ultimately we all have to call on 'gut feel' and trusting people we can trust, in the light of what we can economically glean from elsewhere. Moving forward however, do so knowing that the UK's CCJ system fails to highlight many worst offenders and is virtually no deterrent to them at all.
End.
Notes
Trust Online, is the service run directly by Registry Trust Limited, the company granted a monopoly on key CCJ information. It is one of several online services selling to individuals and businesses the opportunity to check for CCJs on themselves and others. Note that other providers may bundle such services with additional information and are worth researching.
Future posts will look at alternative people and business diligence methods services and links will be placed here in due course.
Future posts will look more closer at online reputation systems and links will be placed here in due course
In the course of researching this post the free and charity funded services of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute came to light. Although not relevant to CCJs, people wanting to find out more about UK and Irish law will likely find this a useful resource. Its home page is at www.bailii.org.
