PCN - Smart Parking - Incorrect registration

atilla

veedub1989 wrote: »

Yes, the signs mention Smart Parking specifically. They appear to be fairly new.

Interesting.

Carry on ignoring them though unless you want to have fun with them.

Coupon-mad

You don't have to ignore them unless this is Scotland. And what on earth makes you think this is a losing battle? TCP have never taken anyone to Court and in any case, most people win who take PPCs to POPLA and that gets the stupid thing cancelled at their expense. It's very much a winning battle!

You'll see loads of other threads telling people to appeal/challenge the scam PCN and then use POPLA (with help to word it to win; England and Wales only). Read the sticky threads at the top such as the POPLA ones and 'PPC letter chains' and a few new threads below the stickies.

It's your decision, if you do get a letter from the scammers - what suits you? But you certainly don't pay and you can certainly complain at Asda if their agent does follow this rubbish fake PCN up. Even if you didn't buy a P&D ticket you did spend money there (would you have got the £2 refunded at the till anyway?). So you can complain about the harassment by their agents, of a paying Asda customer.

In England/Wales you have a choice (if you do get a Notice to Keeper/Owner).

It's a case of ignoring some debt collector/solicitor 'pay up or else!' letters* for a few months and laughing at them (but making no contact) or challenging the stupid thing and dragging Smart to POPLA with help from here or pepipoo to word the POPLA appeal strongly. Most people win at POPLA which then sees the whole scam end - but don't just fire off any old appeal to POPLA, you need more than a soft 'this is what happened' appeal for them...in fact even your challenge to Smart can be worded to put them on the back foot, not even mentioning whether you bought a ticket or not!

In Scotland the old advice of 'ignore all the way as long as you are the registered keeper' stands.





*you say you are buying a house but that's not affected by this garbage. You do know that this scam can't affect your mortgage or credit record don't you? It's not hassle, it's no more than ignoring phishing emails, it's NOTHING but it is HARASSMENT - so complain if Asda's agents follow it up. Here's a thread explaining why hollow, scary threats of killing your cat and all sorts, from debt collectors over a fake PCN, cannot affect your credit rating:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=24362



HTH

veedub1989

You don't have to ignore them unless this is Scotland. And what on earth makes you think this is a losing battle? TCP have never taken anyone to Court and in any case, most people win who take PPCs to POPLA and that gets the stupid thing cancelled at their expense. It's very much a winning battle!

You'll see loads of other threads telling people to appeal/challenge the scam PCN and then use POPLA (with help to word it to win; England and Wales only). Read the sticky threads at the top such as the POPLA ones and 'PPC letter chains' and a few new threads below the stickies.

Useful info, thanks. But it seems that circumstances have changed regarding Smart Parking's use of their trading name and the correct signage in the car park that I was parked. Therefore, I wonder if my case is less 'winnable'. That being said, I don't place much faith in the ability of a company to employ individuals who are unable to transfer number plate details onto their handheld devices correctly. I doubt a magistrate would either!

It's your decision, if you do get a letter from the scammers - what suits you? But you certainly don't pay and you can certainly complain at Asda if their agent does follow this rubbish fake PCN up. Even if you didn't buy a P&D ticket you did spend money there (would you have got the £2 refunded at the till anyway?). So you can complain about the harassment by their agents, of a paying Asda customer.

Yes, I did spend money in store that was over the threshold required (threshold is £10 - I actually spent ~£50). The store would have refunded my £2 ticket but I, quite simply, did not have cash on me to buy a ticket at the time. Letters from the company are not a problem, I just want to avoid a long, drawn-out process of back and forths if possible.

In England/Wales you have a choice (if you do get a Notice to Keeper/Owner).

It's a case of ignoring some debt collector/solicitor 'pay up or else!' letters* for a few months and laughing at them (but making no contact) or challenging the stupid thing and dragging Smart to POPLA with help from here or pepipoo to word the POPLA appeal strongly. Most people win at POPLA which then sees the whole scam end - but don't just fire off any old appeal to POPLA, you need more than a soft 'this is what happened' appeal for them...in fact even your challenge to Smart can be worded to put them on the back foot, not even mentioning whether you bought a ticket or not!

I really want to avoid spending lots of time if I can help it. My question is whether by ignoring all correspondence, whether this problem will simply go away?

Whilst I begrudge giving this company £40 or £70, this might be considered a potentially better investment of one's time given the effort required to bring the situation to a close. This presumes that just ignoring all correspondence will simply make the problem 'go away' - how likely this is?

In Scotland the old advice of 'ignore all the way as long as you are the registered keeper' stands.

*you say you are buying a house but that's not affected by this garbage. You do know that this scam can't affect your mortgage or credit record don't you? It's not hassle, it's no more than ignoring phishing emails, it's NOTHING but it is HARASSMENT - so complain if Asda's agents follow it up. Here's a thread explaining why hollow, scary threats of killing your cat and all sorts, from debt collectors over a fake PCN, cannot affect your credit rating

My apologies, perhaps I should have been clearer in my post. It was more that that buying a house is a stressful enough process as it is without compounding this with the extra pressure of contesting a parking ticket! Anything for an easy life as they say.

Thanks for you continued advice and to those in this thread.

Coupon-mad

People have ignored TCP for years and yes, if you do get letters and just file and ignore them, it WILL go away. That may be simplest action for you. Keep all the letters in a file and if Smart suddenly decide to try a few small claims (you would know as it would be real Court papers from Northampton) then I would say yours is fairly straightforward to defend anyway and you could get help with a free, robust defence written for you on pepipoo. Won't happen though.

Or complain at Asda and demand they make it go away seeing as you did spend enough to have got free parking so there was no loss - except they will lose you as a customer if the Store Manager doesn't sort it out!

But I honestly think the wrong reg will mean you'll not hear another thing.

atilla

Just ignore.
I collect tickets/letters from these muppets by the bag full.

IF, and that is a big IF, they finally chose to bother themselves by taking further action, it would be easily defended as CM says, but you would be in a very select club if they did.