PCN Charge

Tim_Corry

I have just received a letter from an organisation calling itself the PCN Debt Recovery and Prosecution Service informing me that I owe them a £90 parking charge and that should I fail to make this payment within 14 days the charge will be increased to £165.

The amount relates to a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) allegedly issued on 22 Dec 09 at Tonbridge Railway Station Car Park. This is the first I have heard of this PCN. The letter I have received states that 'it is now too late to pay %05 discounted rate or appeal'. Seeing that I never received the original PCN, do I have any right of appeal and if so to whom should I appeal? In the meantime do I have to pay the charge requested?

Taiko

Does it mention magistates or civil court if you don't pay?

king100

Tim_Corry wrote: »

I have just received a letter from an organisation calling itself the PCN Debt Recovery and Prosecution Service informing me that I owe them a £90 parking charge and that should I fail to make this payment within 14 days the charge will be increased to £165.

The amount relates to a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) allegedly issued on 22 Dec 09 at Tonbridge Railway Station Car Park. This is the first I have heard of this PCN. The letter I have received states that 'it is now too late to pay %05 discounted rate or appeal'. Seeing that I never received the original PCN, do I have any right of appeal and if so to whom should I appeal? In the meantime do I have to pay the charge requested?

ok this is an invoice

Its a parking charge notice, not a penalty charge notice.

Parking charge notice = file away and forget it

Penatly charge notice issued from council and police.

IGNORE and do not appeal.

I will tell you your outcome. Denied. There is no appeal process.

king100

Taiko wrote: »

Does it mention magistates or civil court if you don't pay?

Doesnt really matter.

Same crap. Failure to pay this invoice might reflect bad on your credit file. We might take legal proceedings and take you to court.
You will incur further costs. We might do alot of things but these are just threats but maybe you might pay us.

Coupon-mad

If it says Magistrates Court then it does matter, tickets mentioning Railway regs need just a little bit of checking before deciding they are just PPC trash. There are a few rare genuine Railway Regs PCNs out there which are enforceable and the 'Magistrates Court' appeal wording is the way to tell.

But I very much doubt if the 'ticket' in this case is genuine, I doubt if it mentions Maggies Court.

I just Googled 'PCN Debt Recovery and Prosecution Service' and found almost nothing. I also tried to find them on various free business data online tools and found nothing. I have never heard of them before and I am on here and pepipoo every day.

I suspect this is a new company jumping on the fake debt collector/PCN bandwagon.

They have obviously convinced the DVLA that they had a valid reason to get the OP's data - but it's very strange that the only other case I found on Google of someone getting this letter was also from someone about a ticket they NEVER got, at a station:

http://www.budd.uk.com/blog/category/data-protection/

I think this company might need watching, do the DVLA even know if a ticket was issued? Probably not, I suspect they give the data to anyone who says they're a parking company and claims to have reasonable cause for the info.

Presumably - if there were such a dodgy company in operation - they could just record any vehicle registrations seen parked in a station car park and then use that list to get data from the DVLA? Some drivers would pay up because they do use that station and assume they must have got a PCN.

An extension on the usual scam perhaps?

Coblcris

The ramped charges indicate a high probability that this is not being pursued under the byelaws.

We need to see it to be sure.

blackadder01_2

Similar topic on pepidoo

h**p://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=48735&st=0

doglover1

Right. im scouting this site like a madwoman or comfort and reassurance as im now ignoring my second unfair and illegal completely evil excel parking pcn.

my question is this.

how come martin lewis says when you get the second notice you should write and tell them youre not paying because of A B or C, yet everyone on here says to ignore the blasted thing until the cows come home?

i have my 'im not paying' letter ready and dont know whether to send it or not.
im at the £100 stage.. 'do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars notice of intent to issue court proceedings etc etc'.


arghghhghghg

steamwin

Doglover i am on my Final Final with graham white not heard anything for a month or so,don't read the letters just file away,i know decent people worry about these things but just remember this,your dealing with low life scammster's who want to swindle you,just ignore completely,no contact at all.
keep smiling and don't worry about it.:)

peter_the_piper

doglover1 wrote: »

I have my 'im not paying' letter ready and dont know whether to send it or not.
I'm at the £100 stage.. 'do not pass go do not collect £200 notice of intent to issue court proceedings etc etc'.
arghghhghghg

Frustrating, I know, but resist the temptation to write. Experience has shown that if you ignore them completely then you get up to 3 less letters so its all over quicker.

Coupon-mad

doglover1 wrote: »

my question is this.

how come martin lewis says when you get the second notice you should write and tell them youre not paying because of A B or C, yet everyone on here says to ignore the blasted thing until the cows come home?

arghghhghghg

To answer your question, it's partly because Martin wrote his article a couple of years ago (the PPCs have stepped up their dirty work since then), and partly because Martin had to hedge his bets a little.

He gave similar advice in 2009 on TV and in the News of the World and other papers, and I guess he had to be a little more careful than we do now. As a journalist, he said 'do not pay if a PPC charge is unfair' and mentioned writing to deflect the possibility of a PPC claiming any contract with the driver.

But on the forums there have been soooooo many new cases and new victims since then, and in practice the regulars on here know that most PPCs don't do Court (and if they did then a robust defence is available, so why try to present one now?). We KNOW ignoring their spurious letters works.

Martin is right in that contract law is the only way a PPC could take such a case to Court - but equally, we are right in saying that PPCs don't generally do Court.

Having said that, I should add that Excel have tried Court on a handful of occasions - I believe they lost them all except for the Stephen Thomas case which appears to have been a set-up from start to finish, with the defendant lying to say he wasn't the driver and offering no other defence at all (smell a rat? regular posters on here, CAG and pepipoo did!).

More representative of the true position is the Hetherington-Jakeman case:

http://www.tpuc.org/node/231

But please don't worry about it, Excel have also lost in Court since then and have had their fingers burnt. 99.9% of Excel cases go absolutely nowhere near a Court, so ignore anything in the absence of genuine, sealed Court papers.

HTH