Newbie

adrianjacksonv1

Hi there, my wife received a letter from Civil Enforcement Ltd. We followed the advice from forums and websites relating to this topic - declare that you were not the driver, threaten with the Police for harassment, etc. We have now received a letter form them stating that if my wife does not declare who was driving at the time that they will be getting a court order using the Norwich
Pharmacal Order to force her to declare who was driving the car at the time.

Any suggestions, we have seven days to pay the fine or they will start the court order proceedings.
Thanks for your time

Kite2010

1 - The Norwich Pharmacal Order doesn't apply to the county court
2 - NPOs are expensive to get
3 - The PPC is calling your bluff

You were foolish to contact them as they think they might have a payer, but what is done is done. Just say Mr Blobby was driving if they continue to pester you

SodG24

There is no legal requirement for you to disclose who was driving so don't. Even if they knew who was driving they would have to prove that they have lost money by you breaking the contract and that is all they can claim. Ignore, ignore and ignore again. Alternatively read some of the other threads and join in the fun that some of us do which is PPC baiting. Good starting points for reporting them are HMRC, Nominet and Trading Standards. You'll be amazed how much fun it can be

taffy056

Don't take them seriously, it would cost them a fortune to gain such an order, and they won't I believe be able to charge you for it! But this is the reality for you, they won't take it to the small claims, Norwich Pharmacal Order cannot be used in the small claims track, the invoice received is not a fine, the invoice is unenforceable, basically you have received a begging letter to pay.

The advice now is to ignore utterly

McKneff

They have no authority to fine you.
I'll post something in a minute when I find it.

Here, have a read of this.


Cut and pasted from another thread.
PRIVATE PARKING TICKETS - DON'T PAY!
IT IS NOT A FINE! YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING ILLEGAL!

This is an information page for the thousands of people who receive "tickets" from private companies in the UK ever day at supermarkets, retail parks, and in any other privately-owned carpark.

We are NOT encouraging anybody to openly flout parking restrictions on private land, or to refuse to pay reasonable charges for parking. Landowners have a right to make reasonable charges for the use of their land.

For advice specific to your case, you should visit the forums at http://forums.pepipoo.com or http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...affic-offences.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...play.php?f=163

1. What you should know about these companies

It is important to remember that private parking companies (or PPCs as they are often called) have NO OFFICIAL POWERS - that's right, none at all! They give out their "tickets" on the basis that you have seen the signs in their car park and that you have therefore agreed to a contract obliging you to pay a certain sum of money.


2. What happens to people who don't pay?

In 99.9% of cases, absolutely NOTHING! The company pays the DVLA £2.50 to get your address, and then sends lots of threatening letters. In the main, these letters can be safely IGNORED. The only way the company can actually force you to pay is by taking you to the small claims court, which costs them even more money. And they are by no means guaranteed to win! And they practically never do.

The two main reasons for this (among others) are the following:

- Only the person DRIVING the car could ever have agreed to any such parking contract. The company can only get the Registered Keeper's address from the DVLA: you don't have to tell them who was driving.

-Many of these charges are so extortionately high that they constitute a penalty, which is unenforceable in a consumer contract.


3. Can they affect my credit rating?

NO! The only way your credit rating could be affected by ignoring private parking companies is if you were taken to court, lost, and then still refused to pay. But they will not take you to court.


IN SHORT

The vast majority of the time, you can safely IGNORE tickets from private parking companies, they are not official fines.

The vast majority of the time, you can safely IGNORE the threatening letters, including those from debt collection agencies.

You DO NOT have to pay a penny of your hard-earned money to these companies. Remember that the chances of being taken to court are very slim indeed.

DO NOT IGNORE COURT PAPERS!
If you receive real court papers from a private parking company (very rare) then you should go to http://forums.pepipoo.com or http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...affic-offences for help defending the claim. Do not be afraid to sign up and ask questions regarding any paperwork you are not sure about.



Don’t believe the above? Watch a solicitor on Watchdog advising you what to do with the scam invoices.

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

THEY ARE NOT FINES

Only the Police, Courts or Council’s can fine you. NOT a private company, please remember that.

peter_the_piper

Kite2010 wrote: »

1 - The Norwich Pharmacal Order doesn't apply to the county court
2 - NPOs are expensive to get
3 - The PPC is calling your bluff

You were foolish to contact them as they think they might have a payer, but what is done is done. Just say Mr Blobby was driving if they continue to pester you

Add to this one important thing, the ppc would have to stump up something like £250.00 without any guarantee of getting it back without winning, which they are not likely to do anyway.

Coupon-mad

adrianjacksonv1 wrote: »

Hi there, my wife received a letter from Civil Enforcement Ltd. We followed the advice from forums and websites relating to this topic - declare that you were not the driver, threaten with the Police for harassment, etc. We have now received a letter form them stating that if my wife does not declare who was driving at the time that they will be getting a court order using the Norwich Pharmacal Order to force her to declare who was driving the car at the time.

Any suggestions, we have seven days to pay the fine or they will start the court order proceedings.
Thanks for your time
Adrian Jackson

Yep, advice is next time read the forum, the CURRENT forum. Not ancient advice about declaring you were not driving and sending pointless letters to scammers. Such advice does not appear here on the forum (only in an ancient article by Martin Lewis). And no-one ever says complain to the Police...!

You have wasted your time and postage in writing. But no harm done.

MSE Google results Norwich Pharmacal Order parking (please wait for it to load).

Current, up-to-date advice on this parking board:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

Read the stickies 'PPC letters' and 'Welcome, please read this first' (LOL! the irony is if you had done that you would have known ages ago never to contact these scumbags). Make sure you check out the next instalment in your scary Court-threatening letter-chain and tell your family it's nowt to worry about. Show them the Watchdog link on the stickies so they can have a laugh.:D




P.S. It's not a 'fine', you won't be paying it so forget about any deadlines.

P.P.S. and no offence, but a thread heading with just your name on is lucky to have got this many responses - you are lucky this is a very busy forum with regulars on here all the time who have spotted your thread! Thread headings on forums are best with a summary of the issue so posters can see what the question is and click on it if they can help, like most of the threads you will see on that MSE parking board link. IMHO the worst thread title ever is the very common 'Help' or 'Advice please' - wonder how many of these appear and get lost on the whole MSE board every day?!

pogofish

I would also be concerned about putting your name up here - It is not unusual for PPCs to keep an eye on these boards and try to match-up posters with incidents to hassle them further.

So edit and ignore away!

adrianjacksonv1

Thanks to everybody for the fantastic advice, especially pogofish and coupon mad (advice on forum etiquette) I can be a little naive at times!
The advice given will be followed
Thanks everybody for your time once again
Newbie.

Coblcris

A Norwich Pharmacal Order ?

Poppycock !

Trading Standards may well be interested in such misleading text.
See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1277/contents/made

Oopsadaisy

adrianjacksonv1 wrote: »

Any suggestions, we have seven days to pay the fine or they will start the court order proceedings.

Suggestion 1: read any of the other 3500 threads that deal with PPCs.

Suggestion 2: search MSe for Norwich Phamacol.....

Suggestion 3: Google 'Should I pay PPC'

Suggestion 4: Read the stickies at the top of this board

Suggestion 5: having done all of 1-4 if you're still in a quandry, drop a line on here.