"Parking Fine" from Civil Enforcement Ltd?

marshy99

I'll tell you about my experience:
Got "caught" in a supermarket carpark in Feb.
Car isnt registered in my name, so all letters go to them.
First 5 letters were the usual scaremail, with the figures continuously rising. £45 - £90 - £180
Then of course it goes to Newlynn. From day one we've ignored as per this site (thanks all )
The letters of course get slightly worse, we all know the script...we may take you to court, we may remove items, etc etc.
However the most recent letter was the most interesting. Addressed to "the occupier", with the title "we are trying to trace xxx xxxx"
Fine, I can understand this question as they may fear they have sent all these horrid letters and missed their intended target!
Now here is the interesting bit:
Questions on the letter
When did you buy the house?
Which solicitor did you use?
What is your national insurance number?
Council tax number?
Date of purchase?
Now, as I said, we know they can send some pretty horrid letters, however should this one fall onto your doorstep, we have a different issue.
Should this fall upon someones doorstep and they indeed had no knowledge of this, how many would give such sensitive info out??
Rules as far as I understand them
1. The DRIVER is responsible for any fine...they have to prove beyond reasonable doubt who was in charge of the vehicle, as it was February I havent a clue
2. This falls under contract law that they are entitled to "loss of earnings" - as they don't own the land, nor the supermarket they havent lost anything.
3. Under data protection act, any information about you should be available, they were asking for £10 for a photo, which is unreasonable.
4. I would like to see how secure their computer systems are, as again, data should be kept secure.
5. How long do they keep data? They havent any accreditation that all financial institutes need.
6. Threatening letters are harassment.
7. Baliffs need to be assigned by a court, I dream of the day that one turns up. They wont be official, they will be trespassing, and I shall release the hounds

Finally, I will just say this, continue to ignore them, let them make the first move, and should they take you to court, let me come along and watch them get laughed out of the door!!

kPATm

I actually forgot all about this. I have only had one follow up letter up until now:) and that was a few months ago. I never even bothered reading it, I just looked at the senders address and promtly filed it in the bin

give_them_FA

Thank you for coming back to confirm they went away. This is very helpful to newbies.

REAGANM

I've just received a "Parking Enforcement Notice" from a company called Civil Enforcement Ltd for apparently overstaying in a supermarket car park in Whitby by twenty minutes. Now the thing is this happened three weeks ago so I have no memory of whether this is correct or not (they say they have photographic evidence but I'd have to pay £10 to see it) - I don't remember being late back to the car but it's possible I was. All the previous times I'd parked here you bought a ticket and made a purchase in the shop - it's obviously been changed fairly recently and as the barriers were up when I drove in I didn't pay much attention to any signs there might have been. Anyway the "fine" is for £90, or £45 if I pay within 14 days. Where do I stand with this? I've seen other posts saying just ignore them but it's easier said than done, especially if the amount is going to double with every letter they send. Any advice on dealing with this company or from someone who's been in a similar situation would be appreciated!


Thanks

Coupon-mad

Old thread - OLD ADVICE


DO NOT READ OLD THREADS!!!

REAGANM

Thanks very much for your help - have started to go through the documents and postings on the other thread and I'm feeling much better about the whole thing - thanks again.

Zenitram

Read all the blogs - my sleepless night was wasted (3rd letter from Roxburghe with fee of £177) arrived yesterday. Interesting bit is reference in their letter to justice.gov web-site, specifically the section on documentation and their references to these blogs too. It's another scare tactic which scares me - I'm going to be brave and hold firm as I can't find anyone who's actually been taken to court.

taffy056

You won't find anyone taken to court by them, or their graham white alias that will write to you next, same company different headed paper. Just ignore them and their legal claptrap.

Stephen_Leak

Roxburghe are debt collectors. This means that they have the same legal powers to collect debts ... as you or I do.

Not that this is actually a debt. Did you take out a loan and enter into a credit agreement with the car park owner or private ticketing company involved?

Roxburghe are under investigation by the Office of Fair Trading, who are "minded to revoke their licence".

The next and final stage will be a couple more letters from a solicitor, Graham White.

Graham White are the same people as Roxburghe. Compare the signatures on their letters. They are solicitors, but only because they pay a retired solicitor, Michael Sobell, to use his name.

Graham White are under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for threatening people with legal action that they can't actually take.

Continue to ignore everything you get from them. Eventually, they’ll run out of empty threats and stop throwing good money after bad.

AltheHibby

Zenitram,

You need to think like a C ockney:

Graham White, load of ...