parking fine from parking eye??

Coupon-mad

Computersaysno wrote: »

Absolutely spot on.

That's the 0.0000001% of cases that ignoring doesn't work on....so in essence ignoring is the correct option [with the caveat that if GENUINE court papers turn up, you need to act].

NOPE. Not the right advice now IMHO, now that we know how to beat PPCs at POPLA in most cases, at their expense. Ignore is good advice for Scotland/NI and for people who are past the appeal stage and just getting threatograms. But not for cases where it's a recent PCN which is clearly unfair and/or the PPC has breached the BPA code, has dodgy signage, won't produce their site agreement/contract - and loads of other issues which POPLA can use to get the thing cancelled.

Why not cost the PPCs money and push up the POPLA % successes through the roof?!

Sir_Roger_deLodger

Coupon-mad wrote: »

NOPE. Not the right advice now IMHO, now that we know how to beat PPCs at POPLA in most cases, at their expense. Ignore is good advice for Scotland/NI and for people who are past the appeal stage and just getting threatograms. But not for cases where it's a recent PCN which is clearly unfair and/or the PPC has breached the BPA code, has dodgy signage, won't produce their site agreement/contract - and loads of other issues which POPLA can use to get the thing cancelled.

Why not cost the PPCs money and push up the POPLA % successes through the roof?!

Because as I have said it lends the pond dwellers an undeserved air of legitimacy. In my opinion ignoring everything except real court papers is still a viable, hassle free option and in the extremely unlikely event of a court claim, a proper defence will still win.

I accept that this is now a minority view on here and as I said previously this is why I no longer advise on the subject on this forum.

nigelbb

Sir_Roger_deLodger wrote: »

I am a firm believer in ignoring until genuine court papers turn up, then submit a defence and win. That's why I don't post much on here now, as I seem to be in a minority.

POPLA may cost the PPCs money but it also gives them the legitimacy that they crave. Victims will think "Oh, there's an independent body I can appeal to, these charges must be official".

I have had 3 since last Oct, [1 PE, 2 Apcoa], have not bothered with POPLA and am still waiting for a letter from Northampton.

Fair enough if you have the grit & determination to fight a court case & are not swayed or worried by the threatograms but most of the time we are advising people who are terrified of debt collectors & CCJs. Using POPLA to beat these bullies brings an end to the matter.

Computersaysno

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Why not cost the PPCs money and push up the POPLA % successes through the roof?!

Because that requires effort, and most people won't be bothered if they know that ignoring [unless genuine court papers turn up] is perfectly effective.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

nigelbb wrote: »

Fair enough if you have the grit & determination to fight a court case & are not swayed or worried by the threatograms but most of the time we are advising people who are terrified of debt collectors & CCJs. Using POPLA to beat these bullies brings an end to the matter.

You seem to think that ignoring leads to a court case. In the vast majority of cases it doesn't. The PPC gives up, bringing an end to the matter and the bullies lose. The 0.001% of victims who actually get court papers can get a good defence here or on Pepipoo, and win. Again the bullies lose.

We used to explain to these "terrified people" that debt collectors have no power and CCJs only result from losing in court and still not paying. Now they are advised to take these PPC scam artists seriously and appeal. What happens if POPLA rejects their appeal? No doubt you will then advise them to ignore POPLA and ignore the PPC until they issue a court claim! So why not do that to start with?

Coupon-mad

Because POPLA costs the PPCs money every time.

Because the PPCs hate POPLA and we hate the PPCs.

Because most POPLA appeals with help from here or pepipoo, now WIN.

Because if the % successful appeals goes through the roof that will be noticed by LondonCouncils and maybe the press. Publicity about this scam is good.

Because if people do nothing, then nothing will ever be done about this scam.

pustit

Absolutely spot on Coupon mad.
Stand for parliament on this one issue and win by a landslide !

hoohoo

+1 for coupon mad

Ignoring *might* make your case go away; you win, but no-one gets to hear about it and you don't appear on any statistics, or hurt the PPC.

Taking your case to POPLA wins with a good defence, but more importantly goes eventually onto the POPLA statistics which means that it helps everybody, not just the one person.

Every case taken to POPLA and won also hurts the PPC bottom line. Not only does it cost them £27, we are seeing the PPCs submitting 40+ pages of evidence, and although many of this is boiler-plate each POPLA case is nevertheless going to be a significant drain on resources - especially if they ever want to win because they only have to fail at a single point to lose.

Eventually, some of the PPCs might get the point that they need to be more careful with their own appeal processes, and not just issue boilerplate refusals. Hitting their bottom line is the best way to acheive this.

Sadly, currently the only people who know the current POPLA statistics are the PPCs, because they can easily pool information to get the overall picture; some are no doubt big enough to get the overall picture just by themselves.

POPLA in their wisdom have decided not to issue any more newsletters following their initial 'hello-here-we-are' October newsletter, and have also decided to stop issuing statistics and instead only publish them once a year.

I'm not sure whether that is because the statistics are so damning they would rather hide them for as long as possible, and whether they are trying to hide them from the general population or (mistakenly) from the PPCs) but I think it may be time to press for greater transparency.

The end result is that a win at POPLA is not just a win for yourself, but for the whole general population.

People like Rodger deLodger, Coupon-Mad and myself aren't going to have any problem with standing up to PPCs, even if they want to take us all the way to court (bring it on!)

It's the elderly, the not so intelligent, the easily pressured and the people without confidence that cave in to the scammers; this is who we are all ultimately fighting for, not ourselves.

Computersaysno

Hoohoo

What you say might well be true wrt the greater good of society being assisted by people going via POPLA etc, but that's not how the advice given comes across.

Using your logic and arguments....IMO the advice should be as follows...

Dear OP, either....
A: write to the PPC, fill in forms and prepare for and complete a POPLA appeal/hearing; all of which requires time and effort on your behalf, or

B: Ignore everything [unless GENUINE court papers arrive, and even then you'll win]; which requires no effort whatsoever on your part.

A and B will both deliver the same result wrt you not paying; B is the easier option but if you do A you may help in some way to change things for the better for the whole of society in several years time [although it's unlikely].

What do you think??

Coupon-mad

We (most of us) think, use POPLA!!! As already explained, for these reasons:

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Because POPLA costs the PPCs money every time.

Because the PPCs hate POPLA and we hate the PPCs.

Because most POPLA appeals with help from here or pepipoo, now WIN.

Because if the % successful appeals goes through the roof that will be noticed by LondonCouncils and maybe the press. Publicity about this scam is good.

Because if people do nothing, then nothing will ever be done about this scam.