Disputing a Lidl Parking Ticket - SURPRISE OUTCOME

Oopsadaisy

Sirdan wrote: »

... I have saved not only cost of the unlawful penalty but also a great deal of my time by simply ignoring..it is the best option in 99.9999999999999999999999999% of cases.

Spot on.....

LittleTones

Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way.

New member here, wife received a 'charge notice' from these scammers today. My wife was really quite upset about particularly it as she hadn't done anything 'wrong' even by the Car Park's criteria.

It's straightforward enough to deal with the PPCs by ignoring them. I understand that and will ignore them.

...But particularly with the PPCs linked to supermarkets, perhaps we should write to the Supermarket's directors and give them grief about what these people do. So far there appears to be some success with taking this route with Lidl for instance. Enough of these letters might tip the balance. SodG24 and juliebunny have had some success, I've done the same I'll tell you how I get on.

taffy056

LittleTones we always encourage people to complain to the retailers concerned, everytime someone gets these charges I recommend them to contact their head offices and CEO to show them what they have to go through when the scammers contact them - in fact that has given an idea

Kite2010

I always suggest ignoring the tickets and ignoring the retailers whom are foolish enough to allow a protection racket on site.

LittleTones

@Taffy056 - as I've come to this rather late I might be missing some of the back-story. I wanted to put back something I'd gained as this was a site I gained some good advice from.

@Kite2010 - Ignore them but at least tell them .....

My wife was pretty upset about the charge - so don't get mad, get even.

give_them_FA

Only FIVE, SirDan? You are but an amateur in this field, I am heading up close to triple figures between myself and third parties! LOL

The "advice" from Anthorn may be legalistic but it isn't realistic. It seems to assume that PPCs operate on a bona fide basis when all the empirical evidence indicates this isn't the case.

OF COURSE the best policy is to ignore- works every time. Look at it from their point of view- if they get no reply, they don't know you still live at the address, or even if you're still alive. So what are they going to do about it? There simply isn't anything they can do. The very few that took it to Court did so after a PROTRACTED CORRESPONDENCE, not "blind"- and still got a bloody nose.

Incidentally my own experience with Athena- also at Lidls Welling: I got one of their tickets. I did reply, but merely to say that I accepted no liability and that they were not to write to me again.

Why did I do that? Well, I played my favourite trick which I do to debt collectors and PPCs. I sent it addressing it "Freepost" and put no stamp on it. At the top of the envelope I wrote "Open carefully cheque enclosed". So extending the bait to them, they accept the post after paying Royal Mail over £1 for it.

Letter back saying file closed. No follow up at all, they know when someone takes the p*ss out of them they'll get nothing.

Oopsadaisy

taffy056 wrote: »

...we always encourage people to complain to the retailers...

Er, no 'WE' don't. Some of 'we' encourage writing letters to retailers, some of 'we' [myself included] see it as a complete and utter waste of time and effort, most of 'we' don't actually bother expressing an opinion either way.

'We' all agree that 'ignore, ignore, ignore some more' works.

Coupon-mad

Well as I said on another thread just now, I do think that written complaints to the Store Managers of the retailers, or direct to the Landowner if not a retail car park, are the way forward.

LittleTones

Just an update - written complaint to the Lidl MD resulted in a referral to their customer services who offered to deal with the 'case' . They requested details of purchases in the store and permission from my wife for me to deal with the case for her (because of data protection they claimed), basically she needed to contact them. I don't know if I interpreted this correctly, but it was almost as if they were fishing for details. I may be an un-trusting fellow, but I declined their kind offer and asked them not to contact me again, stating that the whole business was a bit of a game. Right - bring on the threatening letters......

esmerobbo

LittleTones wrote: »

Just an update - written complaint to the Lidl MD resulted in a referral to their customer services who offered to deal with the 'case' . .

What case would that be?? They really do get sucked in by these PPC's.

However saying that if they were going to get the invoice cancelled then they would need the details. If you cant simply ignore them just give them the VRM and "TELL" them to have it cancelled as Aldi is just up the road!