Roxburghe debt collectors A S Security - Parking fine

mattp909

Received a Roxburghe collection letter last week for £144 for an alleged Parking Charge Notice by 'Meteor Parking Limited' for parking in Brighton Station in February. No such notice or letter was ever received from Meteor (and no ticket was on the car at the time either, hence a righteous amount of surprise at this!), and amusingly enough, I actually still have the parking ticket I bought (from the Train Station counter no less) as I don't clean my car out so often :rotfl:

I'm ignoring the Roxburghe letters, but secretly hoping for a fight in court so I can produce my ticket and cost them some money!
:cool:

give_them_FA

You certainly CAN get your fight in court, but it won't be Roxburghe who kick it off. Despite their swaggering threats they never, ever, take anyone to court.

The only way you will see them there is to do the job yourself. Collect their threat-o-grams and sue them for harassment.

ManxRed

If you want to have a go at them (as givethemFA rightly says, they won't chance it in a million years), then write them a stiff letter. Word it carefully so you don't mention who was actually driving (e.g. on XXth of XXX this year, I received a letter as registered keeper of the car, reg XXXX YYY informing me that the car had been parked... and so on. Don't say anything like 'I parked the vehicle...' say 'The vehicle was parked...' etc. You get the idea.

Tell them their claim is futile as a ticket was purchased and a photocopy is enclosed. Tell them you consider that to be the end of the matter. Tell them you do not expect to hear from them again other than to confirm that they have cancelled their ticket. Don't mention the word 'Appeal' ANYWHERE in the letter

Then sit back and see what happens. See if they dare send you Exhibits A, B, C, and so on (letters telling you that your appeal has been unsuccessful and you need to pay up to prevent it going to court, etc) which you can use as part of a claim against them (and the owners of the car park - I know it very well, but not sure who owns it) for harassment. Might be a couple of hundred quid in it!

mattp909

Thanks for the guidance, the car park is labelled 'Southern Brighton Main' on the letter, so I assume it's Southern who own it and is operated by Meteor (not that I believe anything written on Roxburghe headed paper, lol).
I'm resistant to sending anything to Roxburghe as they have provided nothing in evidence including no sign of Meteor's "PCN", so I think I'll leave it at ignoring for now and maybe taking up a harassment case if it persists. Why a debt collection agency would be interested in any kind of appeals process is beyond me anyway, surely the 'debt' has gone past appeals if Meteor has legitimately sold the 'debt'.
If anyone has entered into 'appealing' with Roxburghe and they have corresponded and considered it, its a sure sign they are even less legitimate.

Ellejmorgan

ManxRed wrote: »

If you want to have a go at them (as givethemFA rightly says, they won't chance it in a million years), then write them a stiff letter. Word it carefully so you don't mention who was actually driving (e.g. on XXth of XXX this year, I received a letter as registered keeper of the car, reg XXXX YYY informing me that the car had been parked... and so on. Don't say anything like 'I parked the vehicle...' say 'The vehicle was parked...' etc. You get the idea.

Tell them their claim is futile as a ticket was purchased and a photocopy is enclosed. Tell them you consider that to be the end of the matter. Tell them you do not expect to hear from them again other than to confirm that they have cancelled their ticket. Don't mention the word 'Appeal' ANYWHERE in the letter

Then sit back and see what happens. See if they dare send you Exhibits A, B, C, and so on (letters telling you that your appeal has been unsuccessful and you need to pay up to prevent it going to court, etc) which you can use as part of a claim against them (and the owners of the car park - I know it very well, but not sure who owns it) for harassment. Might be a couple of hundred quid in it!

Or you could save yourself the trouble and ignore everything...
Some fights are worth it and some are not, you would have to prove that a couple of letters in the post are harming you..How would you do this ???
Sit back ignore everything don't write any letters to anyone, appeal nothing, just ignore..

give_them_FA

There is actually good authority for suing for letters in the post. I did it a while back; and more recently, the landmark case of Ferguson v British Gas Trading went to the House of Lords and established the principle. I believe Ms Ferguson won several thousands from British Gas for their campaign of postal harassment against her, which admittedly was rather more sustained than that which Roxburghe generally do.

If Badger wants to go down that route then he does need to put them on notice that they are barking up the wrong tree, as Manx suggests.

Edit: Meteor won't have sold the (non-existent) debt. Roxburghe just send out these letters as part of the scam process, to scare people into thinking they are a real debt collector, and presumably keep whatever they can collect over and above whatever Meteor demanded.

ManxRed

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

Or you could save yourself the trouble and ignore everything...
Some fights are worth it and some are not, you would have to prove that a couple of letters in the post are harming you..How would you do this ???
Sit back ignore everything don't write any letters to anyone, appeal nothing, just ignore..

Its down to choice. The OP can ignore, or if he wants to fight back, then what I have suggested is perfectly feasible and has already been successfully executed by Give Them FA and others.

If the letters are demands for money and threats of court action with no basis (or proper cause of action) then it wouldn't be too hard to establish harassment.

Most PPCs wouldn't fight to be honest, the potential sound of floodgates opening has so far provoked them to settle out of court. A wise move on their part.

sandhabibi

Today had another Graham white letter and it is the letter number 2 the top of list which says no longer being sent, just to let you know....

When will they give up anyone know?

ManxRed

I think from memory, when it gets to £207.25 they give up.

LincolnshireYokel

You think calling it 'ASSecurity' was deliberate ?