NCP say wrong ticket bought at Milton Keynes

petal1

@ The Slithy Toad.

Thanks for your comments which I mostly agree with. I appreciate your comment regarding your current time frames, that is indeed helpful.

Having occasionally posted on this and other forums, I do feel that if you have asked for help and/or advice, then it is good that you should contribute something back as well if you can, and not just disappear once your problem is over.

It is not impossible to post about nothing as others have suggested, after all many of us are familiar with the expression "all quiet on the western front". Also as been rightly said it is difficult if not impossible to determine an exact point you can say "well that is the end of that", but the more information that is available, the more chance an educated guess can be made.

If people were kind enough to post updates after periods of time, even if nothing has happened, then at least a picture could be built up as what point it seems likely that the clowns have given up.

I take your point about my comment of wanting to hurt them, which was only an expression of my feelings not an expression of intent, partly brought about by people (wrongly) accusing me of not taking their advice. As you rightly say they have no feelings, so it is unlikely you can hurt them, except possibly by publicity.

I will endeavour to be true to my word, and report back at the intervals I posted previously, or sooner if there any interesting/unexpected developments.

Hadeon

OP - the statutory time limit to bring a civil action for an alleged civil debt is 6 years, so I take it you'll be around for quite a while.
Been ignoring my own threats received from a certain PPC for over 4 years now - nothing's happened.
Two more to go then I can truly relax.

Take & trust the advice already given from people who 'know'.
Also don't take matters so seriously or personally - it's purely business; you're just another punter & potential mug in a numbers game.

Coupon-mad

petal1 wrote: »

One thing I notice from all the people on this thread who have advised ignoring, and on many others, no one has said "it is now X months/years since I ignored mine, and I have heard nothing yet"

That's wrong in fact - that gets said A LOT. There are hundreds of threads where that has been said but I am guessing you've - understandably - only looked at the first page of the forum (from today and yesterday).

petal1 wrote: »

So it is not possible for people who say after two years to come back and post somethin like "It is now to years since I ignored my ticket, and I have heard nothing"

Yes, it does happen but more often people do not continue to use MSE regularly, having got the info they want they never come back. But I found this recent example on pepipoo confirming the ignore strategy works. A poster just came back after a year to confirm he had heard nothing more:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=55391

On here we also get people coming back occasionally - but we cannot find those threads for you because we get 20-30 new ones every single day. Among the thousands on the forum, yes, there will be some where people have come back like the pepipoo poster just did, but their threads are pages and pages back now!

Sorry I got bored last night, it's just that you don't really need specific links when the info is here on the forum on pretty much every thread, that ignoring works:

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

Try clicking on a very old page of the forum (bottom right, using that link). I just clicked on the last page and found the same advice being given in 2008. Any thread would be worth a look but it's only once in a blue moon that someone comes back and says 'oh yeah you were right, nothing happened except the letters'. Seeing as some regulars including me have been giving this free advice for literally years and years every day, please excuse us when we have a light-hearted thread about peeps who think their case is somehow different and keep asking the same questions (that thread was borne out of frustration and was not aimed at any posters in particular!).

Also I can personally vouch for ignoring PPC fake PCNs myself, as I had a PPC ticket 3 years ago and laughed at it. I still carry the threatogram letters in my handbag to show friends & colleagues if the subject of 'parking tickets' (fake or real) comes up. Oh yes, and nothing happened of course!

I am just an ordinary law-abiding wife and Mum with a busy job in a school but I still come here every day to help advise peeps like you who are new to the scam. Glad to see that you do get that's it's all a con and that you feel angry with NCP and other such companies. So do we.

And most other regulars on here have had a fake PCN or ten as well. We DO know what it's like and we do know the advice works. Please worry ye not!




P.S. Oooooh, edited to say that I just did a Google search of the keywords 'PPC ticket, nothing happened' and look what the top result was:

http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=39084520

It's a poll from a year ago giving exactly the info you wanted! There are lots of threads like that but we've long forgotten about them over the years.

HTH

Trebor16

My wife received a couple of tickets when she parked in the car park at the hospital where she works in December 2009. Eventually she received a couple of letters from Trethowans and we wrote back and told them she had authority to park there from her boss.

They wrote back and insisted on being given proof of the authority and also stated that the car park was properly sign posted.

We responded and told them the car park was not correctly sign posted, that we had authority and invited them to take us to court.

That was in June 2010 and we have not heard a peep from them since.:D

PS To those who may "tut tut" that we responded, we only did so because my wife holds a senior position within the hospital and it was felt the best thing to do in the circumstances.

petal1

When I put my post on here two weeks had passed since we had received the PCCN, and having appealed, and predictably lost, I was now clear as to exactly why we had received the PCCN.

During that time, I had read several forums including this one, and it’s stickys at the beginning, and was very aware of the general consensus to ignore.

I was also aware of the comment that “everybody thinks their case is different”. Well, I did think mine was a little different, and also, I had other objectives in mind.

The three objectives I had in mind, and I did re-iterate this point in a subsequent post, were.

1. To alert people to recent changes in the parking at Milton Keynes shopping, in the hopes of helping to prevent them unwittingly falling into the same trap we did.
2. I was looking for comments and opinions about the situation regarding the having unwittingly purchased a ticket from the incorrect machine etc.
3. To seek any further advice that might be available.

Whether I achieved the first objective, it is impossible to tell, but we can only hope.

As to objective two, nothing.

Objective three was certainly well contributed to, although this was all of a very singular nature. Some were kind and reassuring, some left me feeling a little bullied, and I felt, despite my twice stated objectives above of seeking opinion/comment/advice, a little chastised if only for seeking supporting information.

I did say, in an effort not to be a hypocrite, I would keep the forum updated with progress, even if that was none, and this is that update, but as will be seen, it will be the only one.

I would like to mention at this stage, that it might be a good idea if the link to the poll that was eventually given could perhaps be made into a sticky, this way, a very valuable piece of supportive information would be readily available, and perhaps also attract more voters. Although there seems to be a trend developing on it, 86 votes are not very representative.

There has now been a further development which has changed my situation. I did not post any details of this action earlier, as I did not want to put it in the public domain, and potentially jeopardise the outcome, if there were “Trolls” reading.

After I received the predictable rejection of the appeal, and it was now clear as to exactly what the alleged offence was (buying a ticket from the wrong machine), I approached the owners of this parking in Milton Keynes, and explained the situation to them. I had been kindly given the contact details by Milton Keynes Council who I initially, but mistakenly, thought were the owners.

The actual owners could not have been more courteous and professional with me, and after taking all my details, said they would get back to me.

True to their word, after three days they came back to me and advised me that they have contacted NCP Ltd, and had the PCCN declared void.

To me, the advantage of this is that I now know for certain that I will not be getting any more letters on the subject from anyone, and even if I were to, I have an official letter telling me to ignore them. The peace of mind that brings is comforting. That said I don’t doubt that the advice given on here and other locations to ignore the letters is correct in many circumstances, and had the owners of the parking not been so co-operative, that is what I would have done.

So to conclude, I don’t think every case is the same, and there can be some circumstances when it is worth making a little effort, as I have mentioned, I know for certain now the matter is closed, and next time, we will be very careful where we buy our ticket. Had we not appealed, we would not have known what the true nature of the offence was.

One final thing, it does give me a small warm glow inside, having had NCP Ltd over-ruled after they had turned down my appeal.

Inflatable_Armadillo

petal1 - I am not sure how much of a helpful post this, because we know that on very, very, very rare occasions, private parking invoices get 'cancelled'. We had a poster on here who got one cancelled (supposedly... he might be a PPC troll) directly by Parking Spy last week. The machine was (according to him) not recording the departure time correctly and the thing is, Parking Eye may have know that the machine was faulty and rather than dealing with a genuine issue that Trading Standards might have to act on, they cancelled his ticket.

Great, we were pleased for him and we are pleased for you, but I would argue that your case is not different at all... it still is exactly the same as all PPC's cases... in that had you followed our advice, you will still have come up with the result that 99.99% of people that follow that advice also do, keeping their money in their pocket.

Equally, had you asked us the question about the possibility of contacting the actual land-owner then we would have told you that it sometimes works and that maybe you had a chance, but a low chance at that.

So, you are actually one of less than 1% (and that is being generous), whom have been lucky (and I use that word deliberately) to get a PPC ticket cancelled (although... lets see?).

However, in 99.99% of cases our advice to ignore gets to the same point.

So, our success ratio is greater and in that case, I would argue that although very laudable, your post might give people who are inclined to pay the scammers yet another reason to doubt the advice and in reality, make this a mores stressful experience in the longer term!

trisontana

And don't forget that the so-called "appeals" process is just a way for the PPC to establish a line of communication and to ascertain the identity of the driver. No contact with a PPC is always the best plan.

Coupon-mad

petal1 wrote: »

I would like to mention at this stage, that it might be a good idea if the link to the poll that was eventually given...

I expect you didn't mean it that way, but that sounds almost grudging, as if we were withholding information.

The truth was we could not remember it because the thread was a year old and out of date, and not particularly useful for very long because PPCs could just troll the forum and alter the result. In fact it was just a bit of fun at the time because we know nothing happens in 99.99% of cases - it was not an important poll that said anything groundbreaking. Genuinely sorry that we could not 'just find' for you all the threads where people said 'nothing happened' - not without extensive searching of the forum as it stretches back to 2008!

But the poll was easily found with a quick Google - which TBH you or any other newbie could have found as well; it did not need any knowledge of the forum at all. That's why I did get a little fed up because the info you were after is already online and can be found either on the forum by going back a few months/years or by a simple Google of certain keywords.

Thanks anyway and glad you 'got off' the fake ticket.

Fergie76

I have been ignoring my invoice since April, but instead of asking people how long they have been ignoring, why not do your own homework and go and look at all the PPC websites with the cases that the have successfully took court?

If their case is so strong, each PPC company must have hundreds of successfully cases on their websites from down the years, to show people like you just how enforcable their invoices are.

Oh, thats right, you will be lucky if you have to take off your socks and shoes to help you count them and thats between all the scamming sites.

TrickyWicky

Ignore the sharks, it won't go anywhere I can promise you that.