How to respond to phone calls

jennyjelly

Last week I received a £50 now or £70 later 'parking ticket' in a Euro Car Parks car park at a Sainsburys. I had never been there before and genuinely didn't notice that it was a pay & display, thought it was a shop car park. That's beside the point, except to say I don't make a habit of it.

Anyway, having carefully read up on the (non)legality of it on this site and others I will not be paying it.

My question is though - if it gets as far as their 'debt collection department' ringing me, what should I say? Should I deny all knowledge? Or square up to them and refuse to pay? or just say I've never heard of me? It's much easier to ignore a letter than a live call.

Unfortunately I don't have caller id on my phone at the moment so I can't just not answer numbers I don't know.

How have other people dealt with calls?

peter_the_piper

let them say who they are, I'll just go and get him/her. Put phone down and get on with papering the wall, having a bath or whatever.

bromsgrovebarry

If you can be bothered, tell the caller that the alleged debt is disputed. This means that further calls become an act of harassment as defined by the Protection From Harassment Act and therefore a criminal offence. Say that calls will be recorded and could be used to provide evidence of harasssment. Otherwise follow Peter's advice and enjoy winding them up.

Tao81

I agree with peter, except I wouldn't even claim to be going to get the person they ask for. Tell them "wrong number!" and immediately hang up.

I can vouch from experience that, as long as you don't contact them and have any conversation relating to their alleged 'offence' nothing will come of it. Ignore any written correspondence, use it as toilet paper, because the fact is, their threats are legally not worth the paper they're written on!

The first offending 'invoice' I received (these 'tickets' are not legal Civil Penalty Notices) was handed out at my workplace which meant that one of their threatening letters even stated my name and work department, but I refused to relent and eventually they crawled back under the rock they came from!!
Sadly, some of my colleagues caved in under their stupid threats and subsequently they were scammed for £100's!! I did try and warn one of them when I found out they were trying to scam her too! but fear made her pay up after she had an angry exchange over the telephone with them where naturally they held their ground!!.......Makes me angry these 'companies' are able to get away with this kind of behaviour!

Best of it is..........I've received another of these so called parking tickets since and guess what?!........Although again it has remained unpaid, months later they haven't even bothered writing to me with their pathetic scamming threats!!

Believe what you read on the internet about these bogus tickets being a scam, the only legally binding parking ticket is a civil penalty notice given out by a council parking officer and police officers anything else is classified under law as an 'invoice' NOT a Parking enforcement notice.
Watchdog did an article on it a while ago, expressing quite rightly, that these scammers need to be regulated so that it is an offence to immitate a Civil Penalty Notice in the first place!

My workplace even states (possibly illegally) on some of its signs that there are Civil Penalty Notices in operation?!!!! It was right in front of one of these where I received my first ticket..........:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

anewman

Get a phone that can block calls from specific numbers if the calls do not say withheld etc, or get a truecall.

Also see http://www.cexx.org/telejunk.htm particularly the "having fun" section at the end.

I like the pretend terrorist pretending the person on the other end of the phone is your partner in crime idea.

backfoot

peter_the_piper wrote: »

let them say who they are, I'll just go and get him/her. Put phone down and get on with papering the wall, having a bath or whatever.

I love your advice Peter but I don't often paper the wall,so its very unlikely that my expected call will coincide with it.;)

I do a lot of whatever, however.

anewman

backfoot wrote: »

I do a lot of whatever, however.

Great, just answer and say be with you in a second just got something to do, then put the phone to one side and play a porno movie or make lots of moaning sounds and comments such as "oh yes" and "harder" ad infinitum or other similar such comments as appropriate. Put them on speaker phone so you know when they've hung up.

backfoot

anewman wrote: »

Great, just answer and say be with you in a second just got something to do, then put the phone to one side and play a porno movie or make lots of moaning sounds and comments such as "oh yes" and "harder" ad infinitum. Put them on speaker phone so you know when they've hung up.

You are very shrewd Anewman. :rotfl:

spike7451

I had a call the other day from one of those loan companies so I spoke to them in German!!!

backfoot

Und nachste, was machen dieser arschlocken?

dacouch

Get a whistle, when they ring blow it down the phone, they won't ring again