Parking Eye 'Ticket'

lookingafterthepennies

Could I ask for some advice please?

My Dad received a notice on 17th November, in Hull, in a retail park car park (where you don't pay). They ended up overstaying because of the queue in Matalan :rotfl:

Anyway I have been advising him to just ignore but they keep on getting letters threatening court action and offering him a 'last chance to pay'.

Should he ignore or should he appeal? I keep telling him to ignore the letters but my parents are both pensioners and its worrying them.

Thanks for your help.

Browntoa

still ignore

they will not go to court

Traindriver4

I too have now received a letter from DEBT RECOVERY PLUS LTD - RECOVERY, INVESTIGATIONS AND BAILIFF SERVICES.

This is to recover an unpaid Parking Eye parking notice from 31/12. They are threatening to commence county court proceedings. I am ignoring their letter as per advice on this forum.

grant_uk

My wife received a ticket from the same retail park on the outskirts of Hull last year and we decided to ignore as per the advice on here. We only ever got two letters and then they gave up.

It appears they have become more interested in taking people to court since October, when amended legislation meant they could take the registered keeper of a vehicle to court if the actual driver couldn't be identified. However, this doesn't make their invoices any more enforceable.

The percentage of court cases compared to the invoices they send out still means that ignoring them will most likely result in them going away and I'm not sure they have taken anyone to court for overstaying in a free car park yet. However, if anyone knows different, please correct me.

The letters from Parking Eye and the debt recovery agencies they use should still be ignored. However, don't bin them just in case you are one of the (admittedly rare) unlucky ones. Keep them filed away somewhere until it's obvious they're not chasing any further. If you have any receipts from outlets at the retail park in question, keep those with your letters as well.

Only when genuine court papers are received should you take action and these shouldn't be confused with threatening-sounding letters from debt collectors.

I would presume that it's the most blatant offenders who receive court papers and maybe those who have been a bit more free with their personal details on internet forums who have come a cropper. Private parking companies need to *win* these cases for that to have a beneficial effect on their revenue stream, which must surely have been significantly reduced by the activity on here, Pepipoo and other sources of information. They're not going to do that with shaky reliance on contract law and perceived losses that don't stand up to scrutiny, so you probably aren't going to be the one that they'll do their utmost to take down in court.

Always worth preparing for the worst, just in case. No need to panic. The odds and the law are in your favour.

nigelbb

As I just posted on another thread. Nowadays the best advice if the "offence" was in England or Wales as some PPCs are getting more litigious is that if the PPC is a member of the BPA AOS that you challenge & then take the option of the "independent" appeal body POPLA. A well presented defence at POPLA is all but guaranteed a win because the PPCs ignore the law & even the rules they themselves thought up in the BPA Code of Practice plus they won't produce the contracts with the landowners that actually allow them to pursue people for unpaid parking charges (possibly because they don't exist or they have clauses that the PPCs or landowners don't want revealed). A win at POPLA ends the matter without the worry of ever more strident threatening letters from debt collectors. Even were you to lose at POPLA it's not binding so you would be back to ignoring the threatening letters as now.

There are still some tin pot PPCs who are not members of the BPA who can be ignored & the situation is unchanged in Scotland & Norther Ireland.

pogofish

Traindriver4 wrote: »

I too have now received a letter from DEBT RECOVERY PLUS LTD - RECOVERY, INVESTIGATIONS AND BAILIFF SERVICES.

This is to recover an unpaid Parking Eye parking notice from 31/12. They are threatening to commence county court proceedings. I am ignoring their letter as per advice on this forum.

Are you the OP or handling their case for them?

If not, you really do need to start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else's

Traindriver4

My apologies. New to forum

lookingafterthepennies

pogofish wrote: »

Are you the OP or handling their case for them?

If not, you really do need to start your own thread instead of hijacking someone else's

Little harsh for a newbie perhaps? I did not read it as a hijack but as someone stating they were in a similar position but were sticking to the ignore advice given on these forums

All the replies have been very useful - thank you everyone - will mention the appeal option. I know they have kept the shopping receipts too which will hopefully help if it turns nasty.

Coupon-mad

There's no point now mentioning the appeal option. No point now at all.

DO NOT tell your parents to try an appeal now, a debt collector does NOT handle appeals and it's too late for that. They didn't appeal at the time and they chose ther ignore option - so they need to see this out by ignoring the whole letter chain now and they would be badly advised to contact now.

See this, one of dozens of the same question on here and on pepipoo every single day about debt collectors and still ignoring:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=74154

I post as SchoolRunMum over on pepipoo and my advice is in post #15 (ignore the fact that post is about NCP). There are also DOZENS of threads saying the same about the Parking Eye and Debt Recovery Plus/Zenith letter chain which you'll find on this forum and on pepipoo every single day. Same advice applies to all.

If you choose to ignore that means IGNORE, not 'ignore when you could have appealed and then later on try a pointless appeal when it's too late and make yourself known to the debt collector as a potential credulous victim'. Ignore ALL the letters unless you actually get small claim papers = as rare as a high lottery win so don't hold your breath, it won't turn nasty!