UKPC - Balliffs?

plrd321

hi all,

I recently received a parking ticket from a horrible little man who could barely communicate properly with me, who was working for the UKPC. The ticket stated ‘Owner left site’ so I challenged it with UKPC by email.

They said that I left the site and they had ‘no record’ of me using the facilities, but I did. Four shops in fact. I explained this in my response but received an email back (which was clearly a standard email) saying they were proceeding with a ‘fine’ anyway. The problem is I cannot produce a receipt as we didn’t buy anything.

I have now received a letter with all the usual rubbish enclosed and I am inclined to follow guidance and ignore it. However, my wife is a little concerned that a bailiff will call which would concern me if I was out.

My question is, is this possible without it going to court? Obviously if I have a court telling me to pay I will. My understanding is the Balliffs only come after court and not before?

Many Thanks for ay advice,

Paul.

steve1500

Balliffs work for the courts. They only come if you have ignored the courts order to pay up & since you haven't been aanywhere near a court = no balliffs

trisontana

Please don't confuse real bailiffs (see above) with debt collectors. The latter are just private citizens with no special powers. They cannot enter your property, they cannot seize goods and they cannot blacken your credit record over a private parking ticket. I don't think anyone on here or on similar forums has ever reported a debt-collector turning up at someone's house.

If that ticket actually says "owner left site", how on earth could they have known if it was the owner of the car who was driving? This just shows how stupid these PPCs are.

peter_the_piper

Also how on earth would they have a record of you going or not going into the shops? Usual load of PPC bullshine.

plrd321

I took the initiative of writing to each of the shops I went to (furniture shops) to ask if they had CCTV, if they had, they would see me. One of them (Harvey's) were really helpful and told me that the only CCTV that covers the front of thier shop belongs to UKPC. So I would be shown entering one of the shops on UKPC's own camera!

UKPC's email reply to me was clearly a pre prepared standard one, as upon close inspection that hadn’t noted or responded to anything specific that I had said.

This isn’t the forum for furniture shop complaints I know but the answer from SCS was possibly one of the most badly written and rudest responses I have ever had. I certainly wouldn’t ever go there again.

Quote –

“Response
You didnt buy anything from anywhere so you cannot produce a receipt.
no real way of knowing if you did leave the park on that day staff were all in the shop not watching people outside.
you dont even say what you were looking at in scs.
Manager not prepared to say you came into our store he does not recollect the customer.
and we dont have tv cameras in the branch that i can look for certain customers.
Unfortunately you will have to deal direct with the parking people.”


BTW – thanks so much for taking the time to respond

Paul.

peter_the_piper

Well, you now know what the shops think of you and can act accordingly.

angel_islington

Paul,

You really don't need to waste your time interacting with these jokers. I would suggest that you simply file the letters away as potential evidence and have a conversation with your wife about not letting any (incredibly unlikely) debt collectors into your house. Then let them waste their time by sending you more letters that you won't respond to until they crawl back under their rock.

trisontana

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Well, you now know what the shops think of you and can act accordingly.

This is the way to deal with shops (and landlords) that employ PPCs. (from PepiPoo) :-

I parked on a car park for United Carpets earlier on, becuase I wanted to buy some flooring off them.
I ran out the to fella issuing me the ticket, and I asked why, and he replied "becuase I was longer than 5 minutes".
Now, I can understand if I got a ticket if I went somehwere else, BUT I WAS SHOPPING IN THE PLACE WHO'S CAR PARK I WAS USING!
I asked United Carpets what the hell was going on, and they just replied "it's at the landlords request. There's nothing we can do".
I told them that it wasn't very good for business, and now that I've got a ticket for using their store, I'll be taking my custom somewhere else.
Horrified at the aspect of losing a £500 sale, they tried their best to drag me back in, and I politely told them where to go.

The PPC in question was CPS(Midlands).

esmerobbo

I have heard of fast food, but fast flooring? a invoice after 5 mins what's that about?

bromsgrovebarry

A nice little earner for somebody getting kickbacks from PPCs.

Coupon-mad

angel_islington wrote: »

Paul,

You really don't need to waste your time interacting with these jokers. I would suggest that you simply file the letters away as potential evidence and have a conversation with your wife about not letting any (incredibly unlikely) debt collectors into your house. Then let them waste their time by sending you more letters that you won't respond to until they crawl back under their rock.

You are right in saying that he shouldn't waste his time with these jokers, and to let them waste their time sending letters till they crawl back under their rock.

But he doesn't need to have any conversation with his wife about debt collectors because debt collectors DO NOT come to houses over PPC fake parking tickets! I know you say it's unlikely but it's actually unheard of (except when a scam PPC pretended they were bailiffs once and put an illiterate note through someone's door which was linked on here for everyone to laugh at. It was also reported to the Police).

Debt collectors can't do anything, there is no credit agreement so there's no default, no debt, no fine - because it's not a fine. Debt collectors acting for PPCs just send the usual threatograms shown in the top sticky thread 'PPC letter chains' at the top of this sub-forum:

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

And occasionally they make phone calls as well but it's all covered in the sticky info threads and/or search the forum for 'Roxburghe phone calls'. Anyone phoned about a fake PCN just has to tell the debt collector to do one, as the debt is denied and their contact with the registered keeper of the car is harassment (a criminal offence).

Newbies should also watch the Watchdog link in 'WELCOME, please read before posting' as that explains what a respected solicitor would do with any bogus PCN. It's another permanent sticky thread near the top on the forum view link I have given.

plrd321, you have nothing to worry about. It wasn't even a 'parking ticket'.