Pccn on a lease plan car

tilsbury_2

Apologies if this subject has been discussed already but I've had a look through loads of other threads and couldn't find one like it so hoping someone can advise me.

We recently got a pccn from NCP stating we were parked in a permit bay with no permit. (we weren't, to the best of our knowledge). The fine was £75 with no reduction for early payment which I consider to be daylight robbery.


After reading the advice on here, the general opinion seems to be to ignore it, however the thing is we were driving a leaseplan car and if we ignore it they will send the paperwork to the leaseplan company who will just pay it then pass the fine on to us with a hefty admin fee!


I thought the best plan of action would be to write and say that as the driver of the car all future correspondence should be addressed to us however we consider the parking charge to be unfair and that we refuse to pay. But will that put us at risk of debt collectors? Any advice gratefully received as I dont want to line their thieving pockets but my husband thinks maybe we should just pay the thing to avoid the hassle

ManxRed

I would do it this way:

1. Check the wording in your lease, and that in respect of tickets like these, the lease terms only refer to official fines and penalties issued by relevant authorities (or similar) - in which case these tickets do not come under such terms.

2. Check with the leasing company, and see if they are wise to this scam (some are, some aren't). If they are, great, let them know they may be receiving one and that they are to bin it.

3. If they aren't, then you have two choices. Educate them or write to the PPC. The second may be a lot less hassle.

If you do write, don't say anything about who was driving, just leave it vague like, "Dear Sir/Madam, this ticket was recently attached to my car (copy enclosed), and I have no idea why. Could you possibly clarify?"

At that point, they should address the letters to you, but you will still not have furnished them with the information about who was driving. Not that that matters an awful lot, but the less help you give them, the better.

Then sit back and ignore all the letters.

Stephen_Leak

Car hire/leasing company contract T&Cs usually have a clause about the driver being responsible for fines or penalties. Now, that's fair enough, for legally enforceable fines or penalties from councils, police, train operators and Transport for London.

But this is a speculative invoice from a private company. If they’ve paid it, that's up to them. If they’ve taken the money from your account, ask for it back, or else you’ll sue them for breach of their own contract.

Also advise them of this ...

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2009...s-urged/30698/

... and the guidelines on private parking tickets from the British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association (BVRLA) ...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bvrla+private+parking .

Coupon-mad

tilsbury wrote: »

Apologies if this subject has been discussed already but I've had a look through loads of other threads and couldn't find one like it so hoping someone can advise me.

We recently got a pccn from NCP stating we were parked in a permit bay with no permit. (we weren't, to the best of our knowledge). The fine was £75 with no reduction for early payment which I consider to be daylight robbery.


After reading the advice on here, the general opinion seems to be to ignore it, however the thing is we were driving a leaseplan car and if we ignore it they will send the paperwork to the leaseplan company who will just pay it then pass the fine on to us with a hefty admin fee!


I thought the best plan of action would be to write and say that as the driver of the car all future correspondence should be addressed to us however we consider the parking charge to be unfair and that we refuse to pay. But will that put us at risk of debt collectors? Any advice gratefully received as I dont want to line their thieving pockets but my husband thinks maybe we should just pay the thing to avoid the hassle

Do not pay a scammer to avoid some letters, and anyway you do need to educate your leaseplan co., otherwise you are living under this threat all the time. It's not on!

Anyway a quick search of this forum for the word 'lease' came up with these two threads from this week alone:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4063449

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4064889

Be proactive, do as ManxRed says, and if you need more ammo for the Fleet Manager to show him it's a scam fake ticket, then follow all the links within links, all of it, on that first thread above. There's LOTS of info you can show them to make sure they know the difference between a fake PCN and a real one.

I would not even THINK about paying it, nor about doing nothing. Be proactive and polite and get this sorted out so they hopefully realise you are correct and that they have zero liability anyway.

tilsbury_2

Thank you for all the advice and also for the links- I can't believe I searched for ages and couldn't find any and there's loads! You've all been really helpful. I think in this instance I will send the "I have no idea why this pccn was stuck to my car" letter in order to nip any prospective admin charges in the bud, but will chat to the lease company about any future unfair charges.