Parking charge reassurance required please

slimboyfat72

I received a parking ticket earlier this year (from a private security service) after parking legitimately in my works private car park but permit had slipped out of view on dashboard. I have not paid any monies or made any correspondence other than one of Martin's template letters stating that (as car is registered in the wife's name) that she was not driving at the time.
Problem is now however, after receiving lots of letters from security company and now debt collection agency my wife is getting very jittery about the fact that all this correspondence is in her name. We are currently getting the threatening letters with court action, additional interest costs and obtaining a judgement which will show on any credit reference and last week a "collection letter" stating that their collection officer will be visiting our premises within the next 14 days. My wife wants me to pay up or tell the debt collection company that I was driving in order to clear her name from all of the hassle.
Should I tell them it was me driving, and is there any way that the wife's credit rating or anything else be held against her as a result of all of this? Am quite happy to take the wrap but don't want to give up the fight, but don't want to upset the wife any more than she is already either! Any advice would be gratefully receiced.

McKneff

No, no, no.
just keep on keeping on ignoring them.
They will eventually go away.........................

And dont tell them who was driving.

if it ever got to the court time, they could not issue anythign to anybody if they dont know who was driving.

buy her a bunch of flowers.:D

Annie

muckybutt

Continue to ignore your mrs has jack doo doo to worry about, ppc hardly ever goto court let alone get ccj registered against you ( which they have had to have gone to court to get ), continue to ignore and they'll go away trust us on that one.

taffy056

Don't fall into their trap, these tickets are not enforceable at all, they have no rights to force you to pay, they can be completely ignored as they are just invoices, they will not send debt collectors to you, they are trying to scare you into paying, just ignore !

Coupon-mad

Slimboyfat, you and your wife have nothing to worry about at all, it's a scam.

There's tons on the internet about this issue, Google 'private parking scam' and look for forum posts on here, pepipoo.com, consumer action group, all of which will tell you that such tickets are unenforceable trash, whether or not you've appealed already. And whoever was driving is irrelevant.

Watchdog covered this last month, and their legal bod helpfully confirmed just what we tell everyone to do with fake parking tickets (whether you have 'contravened their pathetic rules' or not). Please show your wife this reply and these links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIcdi9niHA

:T:rotfl:

The registered keeper will receive a few debt collector letters telling her to pay, but so what once you know they are just bog roll! Would your wife panic if she got a series of phishing emails? No, she'd delete them without a second thought. This is the same sort of scam but by letter, then it fizzles out.

Please tell her not to panic, do not believe the lies on the letters about Court/CCJs/dire consequences! They cannot just 'apply for' a CCJ, that's not how things work at all.

See examples here of what letters to ignore and be prepared for next. Don't bother to actually read their threats when you get the matching letters, instead look at them now so you are ready to laugh when you get the whole predicable set:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=2214803

To be proactive, if the scam letters get tiresome you may like to also report the company and their debt collectors for harassment:

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/en...=03_harassment

But don't forget this is NOT a debt, NOT a fine, just a mickey mouse ticket.

Nothing happens, your credit record is NOT affected, so don't fall for this con.

Be angry about their illegal scary letters, tell your wife and your friends never to pay a private parking ticket, even if they have broken the car park's spurious 'rules'. Spread the word.

slimboyfat72

Many thanks Coupon-mad. This has been a great help! Must have missed the watchdog program but all of your comments and links have made us both feel much better about the situation. Cheers!

Oopsadaisy

Don't listen to any of the posters above.

Similarly do not take any comfort from the hundreds of posts identical to yours asking exactly the same question and all being given the same 'ignore, ignore, ignore' answer.

Haven't you done a google and seen the thousands, no make that millions of successful cases where the parking companies have successfully sued the owner and actually got damages of as much as £250 000. Most people who take on these companies lose their homes.

All of the people telling you to ignore actually work for the comopanies and they know that when they get you to court they can get millions from you as you've ignored their letters, and the high court judges don't like that [besides which the judges are actually shareholders in the biggest of these firms].

My advice is to send them a cheque immediately for a minimum of £3000.

peter_the_piper

In case the OP does not realise it already Ooopsadaisy is only joking. We need an "irony" smilie for them.

slimboyfat72

:eek:

Oopsadaisy wrote: »

Don't listen to any of the posters above.

Similarly do not take any comfort from the hundreds of posts identical to yours asking exactly the same question and all being given the same 'ignore, ignore, ignore' answer.

Haven't you done a google and seen the thousands, no make that millions of successful cases where the parking companies have successfully sued the owner and actually got damages of as much as £250 000. Most people who take on these companies lose their homes.

All of the people telling you to ignore actually work for the comopanies and they know that when they get you to court they can get millions from you as you've ignored their letters, and the high court judges don't like that [besides which the judges are actually shareholders in the biggest of these firms].

My advice is to send them a cheque immediately for a minimum of £3000.