Spanish Speeding Fine Nightmare

taffy056

rdwarr wrote: »

Perhaps because you committed the offence and have some sort of conscience?

I can imagine how some of you would react if foreign drivers were getting away with speeding on UK roads.

Foreign drivers do ignore it, how can the police here enforce a fine on someone not resident in the UK ? There is no sharing of data between agencies . Having conscience has nothing to do with it at all and has no relevance, this is about advice on how to deal with what would be speculative invoice from a subsidiary of euro car parks who act as debt collectors if its your car, or letters being sent to you that has no legal standing in the UK

taffy056

Welsh_Exile wrote: »

Do you mean British drivers abroad or foreign drivers on British roads, or both?
In any case, do you have any evidence for your assertion?

Yes there is evidence from the various police forces for foreign owned vehicles in the UK, I saw a FOI request on this some time ago. As for abroad it's a big place but I imagine that once letters are received from the agencies abroad there is no way they can enforce it at all. You are not talking about penalties that interpol would get involved with

RENEGADE_2

There is a difference between a foreign driver paying a penalty when caught and paying one in retrospect from his homeland from where he cannot be touched. And who would honestly even pay a normal speeding ticket if he found he could get away with it?

WickedWolfie

RENEGADE wrote: »

There is a difference between a foreign driver paying a penalty when caught and paying one in retrospect from his homeland from where he cannot be touched. And who would honestly even pay a normal speeding ticket if he found he could get away with it?

In general agreed BUT we are talking about a hire car here. In the T&Cs of every hire car agreement I have ever seen is a clause that essentially says that if the car is subject to a fine the company will pay it and then charge the hirer for the privilege! Those T&Cs form a legally binding contract and the credit card company will pay! I suspect the OP will find a nasty Euro transaction figuring on his account before long. I am unsure if closing the card might avoid the debt or whether the fine payment would be regarded as a pre-existing commitment and as such the card company would go after the OP if they were not paid.

meer53

You might not have the option to ignore the fine. In my experience, the fine will probably be taken from your credit card by the hire company. Check with the hire company.

Closing the card won't help as authorisation was given at the time of hire.

RENEGADE_2

WickedWolfie wrote: »

In general agreed BUT we are talking about a hire car here. In the T&Cs of every hire car agreement I have ever seen is a clause that essentially says that if the car is subject to a fine the company will pay it and then charge the hirer for the privilege! Those T&Cs form a legally binding contract and the credit card company will pay! I suspect the OP will find a nasty Euro transaction figuring on his account before long. I am unsure if closing the card might avoid the debt or whether the fine payment would be regarded as a pre-existing commitment and as such the card company would go after the OP if they were not paid.

Since it is paid one way or the other, may as well do it the easy way and let the hire company do the donkey work. Personally I would very quickly cancel my card and order a new one containing new details so the old one falls flat -THEN we can see if the foreign authority has any power.

WickedWolfie

RENEGADE wrote: »

Since it is paid one way or the other, may as well do it the easy way and let the hire company do the donkey work. Personally I would very quickly cancel my card and order a new one containing new details so the old one falls flat -THEN we can see if the foreign authority has any power.

the problem with this approach is if the agreement was made before the closure date the credit card company will pay the hire car company. The credit card company will then go after the OP and will, I imagine given the precedent, win!

SRDB

I also received a ticket. It is from the Catalan authorities and so written in Catalan. I managed to get to a translated web page, successfully enter my details, find my ticket, but the link to the payment screen dioes not operate.

I would prefer to pay the €50 rather than risk problems in future, but cannot find a way of doing so.

Has anyone successfully paid a Catalan fine?

pugwash001

I had a penalty note delivered to my UK address. Details were given to the Traffico by car hire firm.
They did charge €35 for the pleasure in doing so. This was deducted from my card, end of. Their ´admin´fees will be in the small print.
Don,t ignore the fine as there is a good chance you will get busted if you visit Spain again. By then the fine will have grown.
If you have contacts in Spain email the penalty notice to them (both sides) and they can pay at most any Santander bank over the counter.
The bank will issue a formal receipt. It can be scanned and sent back to you as evidence of payment. Keep just in case and stick with docs if you go back to Spain.

Stroma

Complete rubbish, in cases like this the best option is to utterly ignore the charge, and the powerless debt collector in the UK. They cannot take it to court as the alleged debt is not even in the juristriction of the small claim here.

Besides how would they know who was driving if more than one person was allowed to drive? As for the penalty increasing in Spain, so what they are not going extradite anyone on this, and they cannot stop you leaving the country for such charges.