£40 to £100 in one letter??

juliemv1959

Any advice please? I went over my time in a 50p per hour car park and got a Parking Notice for £25, if paid quickly. At the time I had just lost my 3yr old little girl and had more important things on my mind. My friend tried to look into it for me to ascertain whether it was a private notice or council. On the ticket was a tiny triangle, the emblem of Knowsley Borough Council, but on the subsequent letters only Legion Group was mentioned. I ignored all correspondence then a Final Warning Letter came saying if the now £40 wasn't paid in 14 days it would go to court and increase by £5. I then went down south to look after my brother, knowing it would be £45 by the time I got back and owed to the court. I didn't care. I was prepared to pay that. However, upon return, to a mountain of post, there was a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd demanding £100. And a later one, Notice of Intended Litigation, and the bill is still £100 but if they send it to their solicitor for court it will be +£30, +£50, +£22 for court fee to issue, solicitors costs on claims and solicitors costs on entry of judgement. Why did it go from £40 to £100 and where do I go from here? I'm an unemployed lone parent and cannot pay £100! Please help. Legion say they operate under the 1984 Road Traffic Act.

Sagaris

Didn't want to read and run, so sorry for your loss.

Looking online I came up with this shower:

http://www.legion-group.co.uk/

Could they be the company that gave you the ticket?


I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along soon.

Kite2010

If Debt Recovery Plus is involved it smells like a private ticket issued by Legion. I'm assuming it's saying payment & appeals go to them and not Knowsley Council.

Half_way

Road traffic Act+ council logo sounds like it could be a real parking ticket, if in doubt scan your letters and edit out your personal details and post them here. Ifyou read through these forums parking tickets fall into two main categories:
1: Private pakring tickets, which you are usualy safe to ignore all coreresspondance except for genuine court papaers ( very rare )
2: Real parking tickets these must never ever be ignored.

As this appears to be a real ticket you need to move quickly on this and lodge an appeal, it will also be advisable to gather all paper work, scan it ( or photograph it) remove any personal details ( ie name address etc)
another good place for advice on real tickets is pepipoo.com register in there post your scanned tickets and see if you can get some help there as well.


above all if in doubt ASK

The_Slithy_Tove

While aspects of it look like a "real" ticket, mentions of Debt Recovery Plus Ltd and Notice of Intended Litigation smell of private.

Exactly who/where does it say to send payment? We do need to see the ticket (front and back, with personal details removed) to be able to tell.

juliemv1959

Thank you. I'm new at this so hope I'm doing it right. Yes, I looked at that web address you gave me and it looks right. They look like a bona-fide company. There seems to be a difference of opinion on the validity of the original Parking notice at the moment. Thanks again.

taffy056

Okay to clarify then, who is the payment to? Who is the appeal to? Does it say parking charge notice on it? or penalty charge notice?

juliemv1959

Thankyou. Yes, on the Legion demands the money was to go to them in Morecambe and on the Debt Recovery demands to Dukinfield. Even if Legion are authorised by Knowsley Borough Council to run their car park(I was in a proper carpark, parked properly) does that qualify them to pass it on to Debt Recovery and them to increase it from £40 - £100? Should I wait and see if they send it to court? This has all escalated from 50p.

taffy056

juliemv1959 wrote: »

Thankyou. Yes, on the Legion demands the money was to go to them in Morecambe and on the Debt Recovery demands to Dukinfield. Even if Legion are authorised by Knowsley Borough Council to run their car park(I was in a proper carpark, parked properly) does that qualify them to pass it on to Debt Recovery and them to increase it from £40 - £100? Should I wait and see if they send it to court? This has all escalated from 50p.

Its a parking charge notice then, which means it can be ignored as its not issued on behalf of the council, its unregulated so they can charge what they like, it doesn't mean you have to pay them. When dealing with private parking charges the best advice is to ignore them completely.

In regards to the ticket itself, if it has a council logo on it, they are obviously misrepresenting themselves, they do act for councils but in this case they do not. I would scan the ticket in and email the local trading standards as they are clearly in breach.

juliemv1959

Thankyou. I don't know if I'm doing these replies correctly! Legion said send money to Morecambe and Debt Recovery to Dukinfield. I know some councils engage private companies to run their carparks, but does that just make Legion a private issuer or does that give them the clout that the council would have had had they issued the ticket? I've spent hours on sites trying to ascertain which type of ticket it is, including Martins. It's just called a Parking Notice. I'm not savvy enough to scan/get things onto the laptop.

taffy056

Julie,

Its not issued by them on behalf of the council, the appeal would go directly to the council, and any payment as well. What it looks like to me is that they have used the council logo on their ticket to misrepresent themselves, and try to force payment from you. In regards to the scan, try taking a photo instead, most phones have very good cameras these days, you can just connect it to a pc then. Or go into an asda/tesco and print it from a phone. or even photcopy it in a libary, then pop into the council with a letter and the photocopy and make a complaint