Civil Enforcement Ltd - Final reminder - Advice pls

Tedsdad

All

Appreciate any genuine advice you may have time to share.

First post on the forum, still learning to navigate it but a little confused.

My Company Lease Car apparently overstayed a 2hr maximum limit in a supermarket. I wasnt driving the car at the time and can prove this. Seems grossly unfair if the car was being used for shopping and the actual driver undertook a significant shop in the store.

I received a note from Civil Enforcement and replied stating that I was not the driver, using the stock letter on the forum. Was this an error? Should I have ignored?

I now have the Red Final reminder and have read all the notes telling me to ignore further correspondence as its a scam, however.... I note on the PPC Letter Chains page of the forum that the next letter "Letter 3 (new version - sent with court papers)" comes with court papers. Are these genuine? Will I need to respond to these?

In addition, Civil Enforcement sent me a letter telling me I am obliged under the "Norwich Pharmacal Order" to provide details of the driver or I they will seek a court order requiring me to provide this info.

So I suppose the key questions are

1) Do I ignore?
2) Do I need to provide driver details or is this sufficient defence?
3) What happens next, will this go to court? and what has happened to others? Especially when dealing with CE ltd?
4) Should the store be contacted to complain, if in fact the purpose of the visit was to buy goods?

Again, would appreciate any and all genuine advice.

Many thanks

give_them_FA

Yes, unfortunately, and it is a "known problem" the template letters should have been superceded.

However, you have done nothing wrong. From here on, you should just ignore CE's totally asinine rubbish. The "Norwich Pharmacal" order is a total piece of bullsh*t used to try and pull the wool over your eyes, it has no application or meaning in this situation.

If you proceed on the basis that EVERYTHING which these toerags tell you is a pack of lies, you will be on firm ground. They are pretending to be something they are not, i.e. people with some authority- even down to their pretentious name.

They have no authority and their sole purpose of existence is to try and bully credulous people into paying unenforceable fines.

If you ignore them, like all idiotic pests, they go away and look for someone easier to con.

I have got rid of over 80 fake tickets and never paid anyone a penny.

Join me!

Oh and BTW IGNORE means just that, do not even think about bowing to their demands to know who was driving, who the hell do they think they are?

But a complaint to the shop would not go amiss. Tell them that their parking protection racket has cost them at least one customer.

ManxRed

A Norwich Pharmacal Order will cost the PPC a LOT of money, which is not reclaimable via you. They must bear the costs of this. Also, the Norwich Pharamacal only requires you to divulge what you know. If you genuinely don't know who the driver was, then that is a valid response. The PPC would be insane to try this. They will outlay more than they could ever hope to recoup from you via a small claims case.

The court papers they sometimes send are NOT genuine and are merely the claim form itself, unsubmitted.

If you have already told them that you were not the driver and they are still pursuing you, they are guilty of harassment.

vax2002

If you have unstamped court papers, I would fill them in and return them to the court.
This will cause quite a bit of trouble at the court as they try to track down the case only to realise that someone is breeching crown copyright licence by making unauthorised copies of a document for purposes outside of the licence conditions.
If every does the same they will soon get fed up and do something about them using this tactic of abusing the court process to claim a private invoice.

give_them_FA

Just to add, a N.P. Order is a request for documents, not information. So unless you had a document showing who was driving... but as Manx says it ain't going to happen, it is pure bull.

However, one thing you need to do is to put your lease company in the loop on this one. When rebuffed at the front door, the scammers sometimes sneak around to the back, and try to get the leasing company (if they are the registered keeper) to pay.

Make sure the back door is locked. You don't want the lease company to pay and try reclaiming from you.

They cannot make it stick- you could refuse- but it's aggravation you don't need.

Tedsdad

All, Thanks so much for the advice. For the uninitiated the MSE main page is a little confusing and ambiguous, the forums seem to be far clearer.

Leasing company notified, Employer notified, holding pattern established, will report back with any further developments!

Thanks again

Sirdan

give_them_FA wrote: »

Just to add, a N.P. Order is a request for documents, not information. .

Although it is a moot point, that is not strictly accurate.

However if the information is not documented, then it easily ......forgotten , can't see how a court can enforce an order of an individual's memory or lack of it !!

give_them_FA

If you want to sue them for harassment, just say. As you have advised them you weren't the driver its an easy case. These people routinely break the law thinking no-one's going to take them to task over it. Worth a few hundred pounds probably if you do it.

Tedsdad

All

I hoped this had all gone away but no. Despite having stated that I was not the driver, I have received a letter from "Newlyn Debt Collection" telling me that "Civil Enforcemnt Ltd" have instructed them to recover the parking charge notice.

I am right in thinking that they cannot do this without a court order? Do I continue to ignore?

Many thanks

ManxRed

Correct. Despite the fact that they are a firm of bailiffs, they cannot behave like bailiffs without a court order (which will never happen, obviously).

In this instance, they are acting as Debt Collectors and have no more powers than you or I.

HO87

ManxRed wrote: »

Correct. Despite the fact that they are a firm of bailiffs, they cannot behave like bailiffs without a court order (which will never happen, obviously).

In this instance, they are acting as Debt Collectors and have no more powers than you or I.

+1

The only thing you need to know about debt collectors is the very thing they don't want you to know - as M_R has already stated - they have no more power than you or I and can only ask you to pay. They don't want you to know that so that their veiled threats and bluster take on some substance. Once you understand that their pompous spoutings have all the substance of a stream of urine.