Civil Enforcement - Help!

Peppa37

Hi all, after getting my charge notice through the post from Civil Enforcement Ltd £150 (reduced to £75 paid in the first 2 weeks) I happened to put an annoyed status on my facebook page and had a lot of friends posting and saying 'do not pay' and directing me here.

Bit of background, I parked on a retail park in Bury, Lancs to shop in Smyths Toy Store on a sunday, the signage is fairly new but very small, and all the other car parks in the very close vincinty are free on a sunday which I what I naively assumed this was (I've since took photos of all the signage, this includes free parking on the road on a sunday with the council). I did overstay by being there exactly 3 hours and 15 minutes, genuinely did not realise that it wasn't free on a sunday. (I've been back and looked and it's a 2 hour free car park £2 for an extra hour max of 3 hours, very very small T&Cs)

I'm thinking of firstly writing to CEL and stating I will not pay, and the various mitigating circumstances etc etc, and then was planning on ignoring as everyone suggests. And also writing to the head office of Smyths Toy Store asking for the land owners details so I can pay the £2 for the extra hour and any admin fees.

Does all this sound plasable? And I don't fully understand what the changes on 1st Oct are?

I have a young family and the threatening letters, and 'fake' court papers, and the 'baliffs' are on their way, will shake me up and not sure how I will hold my ground, so I guess I'm asking for some support?

A worried Mum

prosnap

Firstly .... Don't panic.

The whole private parking business relies on misrepresentation of authority. They are not the council, police, or government, so they can't legally issue fines or penalties. All they have sent you is a civil invoice, which you have no legal obligation to pay or acknowledge.

Contacting them is generally a waste of time, their appeals process is worthless as it is not run by an impartial third party but rather by themselves so it's obviously within their interests to reject it.

Over 99.9% of the time they will not take you to court, because the more times they take people to court, and lose, the more chance that other members of the public get to hear that the invoices can be ignored. This would then lead to parking companies having no income because there would be no more gullible people left!

Taking people to court actually hurts their business ... Which is why they hardly ever try it.

BASFORDLAD

You can expect fake court papers from cel.

Usual scare tactic. They don't do court but just send them out to scare people

Coupon-mad

Peppa37 wrote: »

I have a young family and the threatening letters, and 'fake' court papers, and the 'baliffs' are on their way, will shake me up and not sure how I will hold my ground, so I guess I'm asking for some support?

A worried Mum

Worry ye not! It's ONLY JUNK MAIL! TELL OTHERS ON FACEBOOK!!

If you ignore them you are likely to get the letters shown under CE here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2329119

But if you want to try the POPLA appeal route and complaint to the DVLA then go for it! Similar pepipoo thread from a newbie here, with advice from several posters explaining the ways in which CE breach the BPA Code of Practice:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=73843

Do not post on that thread - but if you want you can start a new thread of your own on pepipoo of course (they have a strict 'one case one thread' rule in order to ensure no dates & details are confused). They will tell you the same as us though - and lots of us are on there (I am SchoolRunMum on pepipoo).

I doubt that CE are going to want to see a decent appeal in front of POPLA, not least because they are exceeding the maximum £100 suggested by the BPA and using the words 'Enforcement Notice' and hiding their name in the small print to confuse people. All very nawty.

If you do nothing else and ignore them (which is the easy answer) then please at least send a copy of your fake PCN to the DVLA using the email addy shown in that pepipoo thread. There's an example of what to say there too, just tweak the info to state your own circumstances & car park. I suspect with this amount of breaches that CE are teetering on the edge of a ban (could be wrong). The more complaints to the DVLA from genuine people with these threatening letters, the better.

The_Slithy_Tove

Peppa37 wrote: »

I'm thinking of firstly writing to CEL and stating I will not pay, and the various mitigating circumstances etc etc,

Do not do that. Talking about mitigating circumstances is putting you on the back foot in admitting that you were doing something wrong in the first place. If you're going to write at all, which probably isn't worth it, you can't appeal to the "better side" of these PPCs, then go straight for the jugular, e.g. unlawful penatlies, zero losses to landowner, etc.

Peppa37

Thanks everyone for your messages, and links to pepipoo.

I will write them a letter to say I'm not paying because of X,Y,Z ask them for POPLA details if they reject my letter (not calling it an appeal). Them send POPLA, Smyths Toy Store and DVLA letters, further backing up my case IF it goes as far as court.

More people should know about this, it's frightening to think how many hard working people pay up because they think it's the right think to do. I also work for a well known radio group, and I'll be having a word with the head of our news team and see if they want to investigate for themselves, I'm sure CEL would be happy to know that as well

Littledancer

Hi I'm new to the site and stummbled on this forum while doing some research into civil enforcement ltd as I too received an enforcement notice for the fee of £150 or reduced fee of £75 withing 14days. It too frightened the crap out of me as the car park in question was for the store I was using, I have been in and spoke to managment at the store and they told me to appeal against it. I have sent them a letter recorded delivery stating that it was ridiculous and that I didnt see why I should have to pay as it was from no fault of my own as the store was extremely busy that day and only 2 staff working the checkouts plus I had major surgery to my back the begining of this year which hasnt solved my problem and I struggle to get round quickly in any circumstances. I read one of the signs when I went and spoke to the management at the store and it stated "To settle this charge at a further reduced rate call 0115 822 5027 before leaving this site", how is that physically possible as how was I to be aware that Id been issued any parking charges!!! I have stated all this in my appeal letter but reading what has been posted it will probably do no good. I have told them point blank that its unfair and Im happy for it to go to court and to be dealt with accordingly. I have also written a letter of complaint to the stores head office in question where I was shopping and also posted an email to watch dog is there anything more that I can do????

I am worried what will come next and am in fear of baliffs coming to my door I have four children whom I bring up on my own which one of them is physically disabled and another is autistic and am worried if they do come how it will effect my children. Friends are telling me to pay the lower price as they said I will not win or get anywhere with an appeal. Please any further help and advice would be most appreciated!!!

BASFORDLAD

Your friends are wrong. Tell your so called friends to come on.hete and explain why they are advising people to pay these scam.invoices. I would like to hear their explanations

You do not pay a scam.

Baliffs will not come to your door as cel do not do court.

So just ignore a future letters. They also send out fake court papers to scare you. I look forward to hearing from your friends

prosnap

Read through the hundreds of posts on this forum by people who have ignored these people.

The whole private parking business relies on misrepresentation of authority. They are not the council, police or government, so they can't legally issue fines or penalties. All they have sent you is a civil invoice, which you have no legal obligation to pay or acknowledge.

Contacting them is generally a waste of time, their appeals process is worthless as it is not run by an impartial third party but rather by themselves so it's obviously within their interests to reject it.

Over 99.9% of the time they will not take you to court, because the more times they take people to court, and lose, the more chance that other members of the public get to hear that the invoices can be ignored. This would then lead to parking companies having no income because there would be no more gullible people left!

Taking people to court actually hurts their business ... Which is why they hardly ever try it.



Out of over 1.1 million private parking invoices issued last year only 49 were heard before a court and the parking companies lost half of those.

trisontana

And, of course, it's not an "enforcement notice", it's just a begging letter.

Coupon-mad

Littledancer wrote: »

Hi I'm new to the site and stummbled on this forum while doing some research into civil enforcement ltd as I too received an enforcement notice for the fee of £150 or reduced fee of £75 withing 14days. It too frightened the crap out of me as the car park in question was for the store I was using, I have been in and spoke to managment at the store and they told me to appeal against it. I have sent them a letter recorded delivery stating that it was ridiculous and that I didnt see why I should have to pay as it was from no fault of my own as the store was extremely busy that day and only 2 staff working the checkouts plus I had major surgery to my back the begining of this year which hasnt solved my problem and I struggle to get round quickly in any circumstances. I read one of the signs when I went and spoke to the management at the store and it stated "To settle this charge at a further reduced rate call 0115 822 5027 before leaving this site", how is that physically possible as how was I to be aware that Id been issued any parking charges!!! I have stated all this in my appeal letter but reading what has been posted it will probably do no good. I have told them point blank that its unfair and Im happy for it to go to court and to be dealt with accordingly. I have also written a letter of complaint to the stores head office in question where I was shopping and also posted an email to watch dog is there anything more that I can do????

I am worried what will come next and am in fear of baliffs coming to my door I have four children whom I bring up on my own which one of them is physically disabled and another is autistic and am worried if they do come how it will effect my children. Friends are telling me to pay the lower price as they said I will not win or get anywhere with an appeal. Please any further help and advice would be most appreciated!!!

You will not have to pay anything - your friends are deluded, please enlighten them about this scam.

You have done very well especially with the complaint - in fact if they continue to let their agent pursue this charge they'd be breaking the Equality Act 2010 as you have presumably told them about your difficulties due to your medical condition? You are protected by the Act and the store has to make a reasonable adjustment for you.

In future the store should be offering you exemption from 'overstay' fake PCNs so you never get harassed like this again - especially as you also have children with disabilities. So fire a reply right back if you get fobbed off, pointing out that they're breaking the Equality Act not to make reasonable adjustments for a known disadvantaged/disabled customer (no Blue Badge needed by the way, it's the law that you are covered).

If you want to try the POPLA appeal route and complaint to the DVLA then go for it! Similar pepipoo thread from a newbie here, with advice from several posters explaining the ways in which CE breach the BPA Code of Practice:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=73843

Hope that helps, DO NOT PAY.