not involved with this thread (thankfully) I knew there were some sharp b#####s out there, but!
different topic, but similar, we met a couple, who had had a village shop and p/o. they were sacked from p/o, and had to pay £32,000 back to the p/o for 'fraud', as were 100's of others, turns out it was a glitch in a new computer system, this has been proved, but p/o are fighting this, basically they are trying to stop legal action continueing by spending more and more money, currently £14 million, in the hope that the poor beggars that lost jobs, businesses, and good names, by using there p/o computer system run out of money to carry on, I can see this happening in your cases, it's no longer a case of right or wrong, it's who has the deepest pocket.