Debt agency now threating court and quoting case law – please help!

johidd

A Brief History:-
A car, of which I am the registered keeper, received a parking ticket from APCOA Parking Services (UK) Ltd. I believe this to be a private company. I was not the driver at the time of the incident. As advised on the forum I put the ticket in a drawer.
The first communication that I received was a letter from a debt collecting agency for the ‘Unpaid Civil Penalty Notice’. Although advised to stuff the letter in a drawer, I couldn’t resist to have some fun and give them the standard reply that I am not responsible for the driver’s actions and that I am not liable to inform them of the driver’s name. (I’m afraid I’m unemployed and unfortunately have plenty of time to spend wasting their time!!)
The debt agency have now written back now calling this ‘An Unpaid Parking Contravention Charge Notice’ (any Comments welcome?) and are threatening me with court action quoting law of precedent on two counts.
Quote:-
1. Watteau v Fenwick (1893) This establishes the existence of a principal/agency relationship. Where the Principal (in this case here the registered keeper) is responsible for the actions of its agent (in this case the driver). In the event of non-disclosure the Principal will be liable for the charges.
2. Combined Parking Solutions v S J Thomas (2008) The defendant denied or never accepted he was the driver but the court found that on balance of probabilities he was and found in favour of the plaintiff.
As regards count No.2, I have no problems as I can prove that I was 250 miles away, celebrating the birth of a grand niece.
However they must be pretty desperate to drudge up case law from 109 years ago. (google it and check out how relevant it is!)
What I would like to do is write back to them quoting a legal precedent where the registered keeper has not been found responsible. Any Suggestions?
And many thanks to all the people who have helped me this far.

bargepole

johidd wrote: »

2. Combined Parking Solutions v S J Thomas (2008) The defendant denied or never accepted he was the driver but the court found that on balance of probabilities he was and found in favour of the plaintiff.

This was the well-known "setup" case where the defendant admitted in a forum posting that he was driving. County Court decisions do not set legal precedents anyway.

johidd wrote: »

What I would like to do is write back to them quoting a legal precedent where the registered keeper has not been found responsible. Any Suggestions?

I've posted two examples of this on this forum this week. But I wouldn't bother writing back, it only encourages them to keep chasing you.

downhiller

johidd wrote: »

I couldn’t resist to have some fun and give them the standard reply

That's your first mistake right there. There is absolutely no reasoning with them. They will not accept anything you say.

Any correspondence with them flags you as a potential sucker and they'll hound you even more.

Ignore it completely and they'll give up after 5 letters.

naijapower

Ignore them completely. Thats my advise as well

johidd

Thanks Mr Bargepole and Downhiller.

As regards writing back to them, my intention was to write one more letter ending with the harassment paragraph. But it is tempting to waste these people's time when I've unfortunately have the time.
I guess it may prevent them from harassing some one else!

Coblcris

Love their references. Am still laughing !

Pop in a question for them as you don't mind writing to them, do they have agency rights from the landowner ? and that without proof of such rights you have no intention to pay.

Annemarie123

In the process of ignoring private parking charge as advised but found this site which is rather worrying.combinedparkingsolutions.com/legal. (I am not allowed to post links). I would appreciate any comments or advice.
Many thanks

peter_the_piper

The only people that the website is aimed at are new customers so its going to be heavily skewed towards saying how good and legal they are, wheras we all know how toothless their threats are. CCTV will only show the car and never show the driver, they are not good enough resolution. Providing you never admit on forum or in correspondence just who was driving and do not respond to their threats then all will be well.

bargepole

Annemarie123 wrote: »

In the process of ignoring private parking charge as advised but found this site which is rather worrying. combinedparkingsolutions.com/legal.

That is the site run by Perky, the well known Wolverhampton pie eater and legal fantasist. Because of his solitary win in an English court, the circumstances of which were very suspicious, he has been touting himself to other PPCs as an expert to help them win cases - in particular Excel, and you can see what happened to them on other threads here.

Perky also spends his time trolling around various consumer sites under different usernames, trying to frighten people into believing that PPC tickets have some sort of validity. Just ignore the clown.

lavandergirl_2

http://www.bankactiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences/176510-update-ppc-notice-hospital.html

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences/201532-civil-enforcement-ltd.html


seems like a standard tactic

Coblcris

Annemarie123 wrote: »

In the process of ignoring private parking charge as advised but found this site which is rather worrying.combinedparkingsolutions.com/legal. (I am not allowed to post links). I would appreciate any comments or advice.
Many thanks

Well that was an 'interesting read'.
Rather than a detailed rebuttal which would take many pages and quite frankly is not worth my time I would counter with but a single legal reference, namely Arkell v Pressdram (1971).

I add that their use of Watteau v Fenwick (1893) is both spurious and wrong - quite an achievement in itself to have both of those attributes but somehow they have managed it, quite astounding !

The second case quoted is a million miles away from case law.

I notice that that web site breaks business regulations by its failure to display real address information. I believe this is reportable.
It would appear to by symptomatic, when taken in association with the contents of that site particularly the 'legal' page of a myriad of issues.

Besides the self proclaimed victories, which one has to suspect were carefully chosen, has this company ever taken on a worthy adversary ? I cannot believe they have as they appear to still be in business.