Scary letter from Parking Eye

mickmcg68

I parked in a car park in Scarborough for about 10 mins while I went to get some money out of the cash machine. A week later I get a letter from Parking Eye telling me that they have photos to prove that I was there and didn't pay and so am being issued with a penalty of £80, and of course the usual discount if I pay within 14 days etc.

I have no intention of paying this and after reading these forums it seems the best advice is to ignore them completely and don't respond at all.

BUT.... I have an overwhelming urge to send them some abuse and get in to some sort of tit-for-tat argument with them just for the sheer fun of it?

Does this pose any risk to my financial well-being? :mad:

Quentin

You say you have read the "best" advice here, so why do you want to go against it?

INT1

Why send them abuse and stoop to their levels, just ignore it.

mickmcg68

Quentin wrote: »

You say you have read the "best" advice here, so why do you want to go against it?

Because I am fed up with scumbags like this thinking they can bully people into handing over their hard earned cash with letters designed to scare people into submission.

My wifes first reaction was total panic and she wanted to phone them and get it paid straight away to save the £30 for early payment. This I expect will be how the majority of people would react and I just thought it would be satisfying to tell them to f**k off basically. So the best advice was just a little bit boring to be honest.

Just how I happen to be feeling today!!

Quentin

Make sure she knows what to expect - their letters increase in their scare tactic level as the matter escalates.

mickmcg68

Quentin wrote: »

Make sure she knows what to expect - their letters increase in their scare tactic level as the matter escalates.

So do mine!

cactusdust

Can you scan in the letter? This sounds quite entertaining!

Coupon-mad

cactusdust wrote: »

Can you scan in the letter? This sounds quite entertaining!

No need, if it's the Parking Eye letter you mean, we already have the whole letter-chain here, plus other pretty examples of extortion attempts from other private parking co.s (PPCs) as well:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2214803

mickmcg68 can you show your wife the pictures of the Parking Eye letters which are on that link, so she can see which one will arrive next and that NOTHING happens in the end? The last thing you want is to find she's secretly paid the scam fine when she opens a debt collector letter when you're out! I would have screamed if my OH had done that; I spent hours convincing him that PPC fake PCNs are safe to ignore (like your wife, he thought if it looks like a PCN then pay it...).

In my handbag I carry the scary letters I got last year from another PPC, especially to show friends about this scam. At the time I laughed when I saw that pathetic ticket on my car because I already knew it was a con, and found it funny to match each predictable letter to our examples.

Please tell your wife she can be the same as me now she knows it's a scam, honestly NOTHING happens. It's like deleting a series of phishing emails - would she pay one of those, or worry about ignoring them? No.

This is the same sort of con, only they use letters and make them look pretty official, with scary words like Court and CCJs. So what, it doesn't actually happen, you will not get your day in Court so reassure her there's no need to buy a new hat!

I know just how you feel about wanting to abuse them, but why not report them instead? Pepipoo.com forums are very good at suggesting various avenues of reporting PPCs for various breaches on their letters. You could post a new thread there but make it clear you know to ignore, you don't need reassurance about that - you just want to know how to report them and where:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

BTW, on pepipoo read the FAQs carefully first - on there you are not allowed to call it a scam or use words like scammer, blackmail etc. On MSE we call it what it is though!

HTH

anewman

mickmcg68 wrote: »

Because I am fed up with scumbags like this thinking they can bully people into handing over their hard earned cash with letters designed to scare people into submission.

Would be great if those PPC scamsters could be scam baited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam_baiting

Kite2010

Send them back a letter containing a made-up cheque with no personal details on, write on the address "invoice receivables" then the address of the scammers, but forget to put a stamp on it.

So they have to pay to collect it from the post-office as they think they have got lucky with a cheque only to be caught out!

Taiko

Got a different Parking Eye one to the usual, so going to add it to the thread when I can scan it in tomorrow.