Parking Fines LTD/ PCN. Help Please

helper84

Hope someone can help me out here, my car was used on a routine trip to the local docters and was stupidly parked in a disabled bay due there being no other spaces (poor excuse i know). a Parking charge notice was apllied to the vehicle stating the fine was £70.00 but can be paid a discounted rate of £40.00 if paid within 14days. due to it being so close to christmas it was forgotten about and we therefore lost the right to pay the discounted amount.

At the begging of January it was decided to pay the £70.00 fine but they give you no option of paying over the phone, instead there is attactched slip you fill in stating please debit this card/account by £70.00, this was sent off and all seemed fine. On the 27.01.2009 i received a notice that as the no payments have been received the fine is now £100.00, iv looked through all the forums and now realise that they do seem to be a bit of a scam and appears that most peoples advice is just to ignore the letters.

dont know where the payment slip has gone to but no one has pulled the money. so not really sure what to do.

any advice would be great.

sarahg1969

You are right. It is a scam. Ignore it.

And remember it is NOT a fine.

And finally, tell all your friends.

helper84

thanks for that.

received another letter today saying that the origianl £70.00 fine paid was not authorised by the bank, obviously that payment was sent before looking on here and realising it was a scam.

theres still no way i will pay it, but do you think that because they have had contact from us that now they will hound us even more. not that they will get a penny

Meepster

helper84 wrote: »

but do you think that because they have had contact from us that now they will hound us even more.

Yes they probably will hound you some more, but just be strong and ignore them...

helper84

thanks, will do, just have to wait and see what letter comes next.

helper84

Quick update, received my next letter last week from Moorcroft debt recovery ltd in stockport telling me my "fine" is now £140 and if i have not settled the "debt" by a certain date then my case will be put forward for legal proceediings etc etc, what a load of !!!!!!!!

i still plan as before to ignore the letter but any other advice would be apreciated

sparkey1

First of all you admit you were in the wrong. So how does that make it a scam? I think you have been badly advised to ignore the letters. This could have been sorted out months ago. By ignoring the letters, the debt has been passed from the parking company to Moorcroft the Debt Collection Agency. I suspect it will now also show on your credit file that Moorcroft are trying to recover a debt from you.

You probably have three options now. Either pay the debt to Moorcroft. Go to court, or go back to the parking company and ask for evidence of the illegal parking or for the debt to be removed.

When you appeal, start from the beginning. Were there signs warning you of the parking conditions? Do the parking company have any photographic evidence? Remind them that you sent payment details, but made an error and ask them to reduce the fine to the level it was originally.

Please whatever you do, do not avoid letters or avoid a settlement. It wont just go away. You will just end up with a bad credit record and will probably still have to pay.

In the current economic climate, companies are tightening up the criteria for credit so if you ignore the letters, dont be surprised if you cant get a mortgage, rent a property, buy a car or even get a contract mobile phone or even just a bank account for the next six years. Do not ignore letters unless you can prove they are scams!

Jez_Wolf

Ignore the last poster - I spy a PPC troll.

Who issued the original Parking Charge Notice?

oldone_2

sparkey1 wrote: »

Please whatever you do, do not avoid letters or avoid a settlement. It wont just go away. You will just end up with a bad credit record and will probably still have to pay.

In the current economic climate, companies are tightening up the criteria for credit so if you ignore the letters, dont be surprised if you cant get a mortgage, rent a property, buy a car or even get a contract mobile phone or even just a bank account for the next six years. Do not ignore letters unless you can prove they are scams!

Funnily enough, this is almost exactly what Private Parking Companies say when you don't respond and they want to frighten you into paying.

What they will not tell you is that your credit rating will only be affected IF they take you to court and,IF they win, and IF you then fail to pay up.

There is a wealth of information on the internet showing that ignoring them unless they take the very rare step of issuing court papers (as opposed to just threatening to do so) is the correct -Money Saving - way to go.

bargepole

sparkey1 wrote: »

By ignoring the letters, the debt has been passed from the parking company to Moorcroft the Debt Collection Agency. I suspect it will now also show on your credit file that Moorcroft are trying to recover a debt from you.

What a bunch of complete hogwash!

Nothing will show on your credit file until and unless the PPC win a claim against you in court, and you don't pay the judgement - and they haven't got a hope in hell of doing so, otherwise they wouldn't employ some powerless bunch of losers to collect a non-existent "debt".

Continue to ignore until they give up and move on to some other mug who believes these "fines" are real.

sparkey1

You shouldn't ignore letters. What sort of advice is that. As I said start at the begining. Was it a valid ticket, if not challenge it. Ask for evidence. Were there any signs etc.

Oh and read the post properly and you will see that I was advising that he do something. Now why would I do that? I'll tell you why, because if he just ignores the letters and doesn't challenge the validity, they may well take him to court.

Better to do something now to challenge the validity of any ticket, then to find out in six months time that they did take him to court, but he didn't do anything to stop it because he ignored the letters.