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Blue Badge Fraud Ltd
I was reading an article earlier and well, fancy that, there’s a company solely working on Blue Badge fraud.
I agree with clamping down (sorry, unintended pun) on fraudulent use of badges but surely local authorities have got something better to spend money on!
news release on today’s announcement (via community care updates on rightsnet home page) ...
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=417973&SubjectId=2
‘is there any possibility this is legit??’
They are calling themselves Blue Badge Fraud Investigation Ltd, but their website doesn’t give a company registration number, and they don’t appear on the Companies House register.
I had a look at nominet about this purported company and it is interesting to see that this does not show them as a limited company.
Heres the information:
Domain name:
bbfi.co.uk
Registrant:
alphachange
Registrant type:
UK Sole Trader
Registrant’s address:
Somerset House 79-81
77A Lexham Gardens
London
W8 6JN
United Kingdom
Registrar:
Nathan Barnes t/a WebMania [Tag = WEBMANIA]
URL: http://www.web-mania.com
According to Companies House, BBFI Ltd is indeed a registered company in the security sector; but no accounts have been filed since 2009 and it is described as “dormant”.
Ariadne is abolutely correct. The registered name of the company is BBFI Ltd, and although they are using Blue Badge Fraud Investigation Ltd on their website, no company of that name has been registered.
I think hbinfopb is spot on.
On a practical level we are registered as BBFI Ltd this is an abbreviation for Blue Badge Fraud investigation. The logo on the web site is inaccurate it should not say Ltd after the extended name. This will be changed but on the other literature it’s correct.
We use a PO Box address because the bottom line is the company investigates criminals we might have health and safety issues for our office staff if we use the office address.
We are unaware of a requirement to put the company registration number or the VAT number on the web site but we are taking advice from our web designers.
As far as we are concerned the website is registered to our web designers, Notting Hill internet.
No it’s not legal to use a fake, lost, stolen or someone else’s blue badge, all of these are criminal offences and have been for 20 or 30 years.
The company was formed in 2008 because Local Authorities asked for us to help manage the blue badge scheme. In 2009 we started working for a new Authority every 2 months.
We started in London and now have demand to work across the UK. WE are thanked by disabled people every day for checking badges and supporting the scheme.
We find your feedback really helpful. Thank you.
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We are unaware of a requirement to put the company registration number or the VAT number on the web site but we are taking advice from our web designers.
you should, really, for both….
and put your correct registered name on as well….
AND the registered office address (which, of course, need not be the same as your trading address, many companies have different addresses, often the accountant’s or solicitors address is the registered office)
Unfortunately our web designer says it will take 7 months to change the site so we have instructed a new web company. We have the correct logo for BBFI Ltd (Blue Badge Fraud Investigation) and will add the VAT and company registration number. The company registration address has been changed to the PO Box address. “Toe-rag” should have been removed before it went live and will be removed. As far as we are concerned the web site is hosted and registered to Notting Hill Internet. We have paid no money to Web mania and have no agreement with them. Strange the come up on Nominet??
Legal Authority. We are a criminal investigation and prosecution company. We act on behalf of the instructing Authority, these are criminal not civil prosecutions. The person who has delegated Authority varies and it depends what we’re doing. For example in Borough X the Head of Trading Standards will have authority under the constitution to prosecute Fraud Act offences and the Head of Parking Enforcement RTA offences. In some Authorities it’s the Head of Legal Services who has authority and no one else.
In most cases we pass cases to the in-house legal team (so we only investigate and prepar the case) but in some Authorities we prosecute on behalf of the Authority. The summons is always in the name of the Authority. Because we are only working with blue badge fraud/ misuse cases our investigators and solicitors can work very closely and although the facts of each case differ we can standardise a lot of documents and reduce costs. One of the big benefits in that Authorities can buy a share of the team and don’t need to fund a full team. All cases go through a central quality control and then approval by a manager before going to the Authorising council officer who signs the cases off (or not) it then goes to the in-house legal team or our legal team who will check the case and get the documents served. The authority takes the decision to caution or prosecute. We win 99.6% of cases which compares well to the CPS.
Unfortunately our web designer says it will take 7 months to change the site so we have instructed a new web company. .
i would think so. it should be possible to change a website very very quickly - i can change one i run fairly immediately!
Blue Badge fraud is an abhorrent crime and as far as I can tell, is policed little.
If parking isn’t policed then presumably the local authorities would lose out on parking revenue and have to provide more disabled parking provision.
On private land (supermarkets etc) seeing as the companies wouldn’t want to upset their customers and don’t seem to, perhaps an offence of using a Blue Badge to gain an advantage would be helpful?
On private land (supermarkets etc) seeing as the companies wouldn’t want to upset their customers and don’t seem to, perhaps an offence of using a Blue Badge to gain an advantage would be helpful?
It would probably be possible to prosecute such a person under s2 Fraud Act 2006 (Fraud by false representation) as they have dishonestly made a false statement in order to make a gain for themselves and a loss for others. (The gain in question would be a licence to occupy land, which is intangible property.)