UKPC charge not paid now debt recovery letter comes - what do I do?

andreas230460

Having just joined MSE for the specific reason of trying to understand what positionI might be in should I ignore the UKPC letters that are, by the sound of it, likely to follow in the weeks to come.

I parked in the Solatron Business park, Farnborough, Hants when buying some carpet on New Years day. I parked across 2 small bays, obstructed no one and was there for about 30 minutes max. On return I had a PCN - as everyone has mentioned, looking just like a council issued PCN (alas I have had - and paid - a few, ignoring none of them).

In truth there were quite a few signs up outlining the rules of parking, including parking outside of marked bays. Being pedantic, I was across 2 small bays, but arguably in a marked bay (or 2 !). Importantly, I was not obstructing anyone at all.

I actualy did write to them (Uxbridge, Middx) and as it was New Years Day, the weather was awful and I had my 2 young children (and the mother-in-law !) in tow, I parked near to the shop, but not in the way. I tried to appeal to their festive spirit !

FYI, this is a free car park and I spent about £1,200 in Carpet Right.

The response to my letter was perhaps predictable i.e. "the above parking charge was correctly issued".

I have read many comments in this forum and despite my "rejection" and despite the flow of unpleasant letters that are on there way, I am planning on taking the advice of most / all forum contributors and ignore all the letters.

Can anyone see anything in my circumstance that would suggest I should cough up ?

Thanks to all the contributors for their words of encouragement.

surfboy1

andreas230460 wrote: »

Having just joined MSE for the specific reason of trying to understand what positionI might be in should I ignore the UKPC letters that are, by the sound of it, likely to follow in the weeks to come.

I parked in the Solatron Business park, Farnborough, Hants when buying some carpet on New Years day. I parked across 2 small bays, obstructed no one and was there for about 30 minutes max. On return I had a PCN - as everyone has mentioned, looking just like a council issued PCN (alas I have had - and paid - a few, ignoring none of them).

In truth there were quite a few signs up outlining the rules of parking, including parking outside of marked bays. Being pedantic, I was across 2 small bays, but arguably in a marked bay (or 2 !). Importantly, I was not obstructing anyone at all.

I actualy did write to them (Uxbridge, Middx) and as it was New Years Day, the weather was awful and I had my 2 young children (and the mother-in-law !) in tow, I parked near to the shop, but not in the way. I tried to appeal to their festive spirit !

FYI, this is a free car park and I spent about £1,200 in Carpet Right.

The response to my letter was perhaps predictable i.e. "the above parking charge was correctly issued".

I have read many comments in this forum and despite my "rejection" and despite the flow of unpleasant letters that are on there way, I am planning on taking the advice of most / all forum contributors and ignore all the letters.

Can anyone see anything in my circumstance that would suggest I should cough up ?

Thanks to all the contributors for their words of encouragement.

You should not "cough up " as you do not owe the PPC anything!
There are 2 things you could do,
1. Appeal and then ask for a POPLA code upon rejection, then appeal to POPLA, that will cost the PPC £27+vat. Then if that gets turned down , IGNORE.
2. Ignore the PPC totaly but make a strong complaint to carpet world telling them that you will take your custom else where and you will be informing all your family and friends also.

pogofish

andreas230460 wrote: »

Having just joined MSE for the specific reason of trying to understand what positionI might be in should I ignore the UKPC letters that are, by the sound of it, likely to follow in the weeks to come.

You really need to post your own thread, rather than bump an outdated one.

Otherwise. Just keep-on ignoring them and check the letter chain thread for a very good idea of the rubbish they will send you.

rattyslane

Welcome Andreas, I did the same as you as I thought I should tag on the end of a thread the same as my complaint, as I do in other forums.

Don't be put off the advice on here is good.

Userabc123

In early Jan 2013 I received a ticket on Stevenage leisure park for a breach of the terms of parking, the breach states that the vehicle owner/driver left the site. I searched the internet to see if I should pay this fine and the general advice was to ignore and not make contact.

I have done this and have now received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd who are a recovery, investigation & Bailiff service. The charge has gone from £90 to £150 and I’m worried that if I continue to ignore it that the bailiff will be round my house. I know a lot of these companies are not legitimate but can anyone advise where I stand.

Firstly, can they send the Bailiffs round to recover this money?

Secondly, what are my grounds for not paying the fine, do they have to prove I left the leisure park (at present I have a picture of my car that could have been taken anywhere). Do they also have to report loss of earnings? The car park is free for Leisure park users so I can’t see how I’ve cost them £90. I don’t know if it makes any difference but I am a member at David Lloyd and also have an unlimited cinema card.

Any help would be appreciated, should I hold my nerve and wait for it to go away or do I need to contact them?

Thanks

tospig

Firstly, can they send the Bailiffs round to recover this money?

No. You have to have lost in court and still not paid up for this to happen.

Secondly, what are my grounds for not paying the fine

It's not a fine and you don't owe them anything.

should I hold my nerve and wait for it to go away

Yes.


This has all been covered a thousand time on this forum. Have a read around and you'll see it for your self. Even have a read back through this topic you've tagged onto as the advice is still the same.

trisontana

Please don't confuse the roles of bailiffs and debt collectors.In your case the company are acting as a powerless debt collector, nothing else. This means they cannot enter your property, they cannot seize goods and they cannot blacken your credit record.

I am afraid that these companies do rely on this confusion and try a frighten people into paying up. This is another reason why PPCs and their DRCs are held in such contempt by people on here.

Stroma

Debt recovery plus are a useless debt collectors with no powers to enforce anything at all, they will write to you pretending to be someone else, zenith are the same company as debt recovery plus, if you look right at the bottom of the letters you'll see it. If you pay close attention to the signatures they'll be the same, but one will be a woman and one a man, and across supposedly different companies.

As for bailiffs turning up, that is impossible as they would need to take you to court, win the case, and you refuse to pay the judgement within 28 days, then finally they would have to go back to court and pay for court appointed bailiffs. Put it this way there is more chance to win the lotto jackpot than all that panning out.

So the advice of ignore is the correct choice as more than 99.99% of unpaid tickets never go to court.

JIreland

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

I think you might appreciate this, especially page 13, lines 20 to 27 **link removed for quote, but it's still there in Stephen's original post on 19-08-2012, 4:58 AM (post 28)**

As UKPC have lost the contract for this site, then that should make it impossible for them to continue to pursue any outstanding tickets for this site.

That has to be the funniest thing I've read in a very long time :rotfl:I've got got a spare 10 minutes, go and have a read. I bet the judge had a right old chortle about that one on his way home

purgar

Hi all - hoping for reassurance - can i start by saying i have spent hours trawling through this forum and pepipoo so i am not posting this without prior effort. i have followed the advice of this forum and as such have ignored 3 letters from TPS f[or, according to them, overstaying my welcome at a supermarket multi-story car park], 3 from Debt Recovery Plus and now received 1 from Zenith [who i understand are DRP in disguise]. most postings say ignore. but there is clearly a posibility [albeit remote] that they could take me to court. someone has to be that 0.002%! can anyone advise as to what would happen then? what are the chances of me losing and if so what coudl it cost me? i cant find any reference to that - can anyone help??