Smart parking ltd fine from Asda

Caddo10

Evening everyone,

I'm very new to this forum thing so please bear with me. I am currently on holiday with my girlfriend and her mother keeps ringing us about a letter from a debt collection agency regarding a fine from smart parking.

We have recently moved from our respective parents houses and my girlfriends mother has also moved out. We haven't received any parking ticket at either my girlfriends previous address (where her car was registered) or our new address, yet they are asking us to pay £130.00 for parking in an unauthorised space, if not laid by the 27th June they will take us to court and is could seriously affect our credit rating.

We are concerned by this as we haven't had a ticket on the car, through the post or any correspondence except this one, your advise is needed urgently as we are out of the country until the 30th!!!

Stroma

You haven't received a fine, just a begging letter asking you to pay their unlawful invoice. The standard advice of ignore debt collectors is the one to follow. However it may be worth contacting them to update the address, or diverting mail directly to you.

Such a letter/email could be along these lines, they won't give you give the popla code, but it encourages them to write to you at your new address


Date

Dear Scammers

In reference to the parking invoice xxxxx dated xxxxx, the keeper denies all liability to your company, and wishes to challenge this invoice through popla. Please provide a verification code for the keeper to do this

Also please note the keeper's new address below

Name
Address

Sincerely

Your name (printed not signed)

Guys_Dad

Well you can stop panicking for a start and read some other threads. The replies will tell you exactly what the position is re Private Parking Companies. I am assuming this is from a PPC.

You will need to tell us which one.

Now, they have written to the car's owner at the address the car is registered at with the DVLA. You need to update that with the DVLA.

Effectively, you can do nothing until you get the NTK (Notice to Keeper) that your GF's mother has. You can then send back one of Stroma's soft appeals - see virtually any thread - and get the POPLA code from the PPC.

Some PPCs such as Parking Eye are getting aggressive and are actually issuing court papers, but way down the line. Most PPCs simply send a chain of empty threat letters from their tame solicitors and debt collectors, then give up.

You have absolutely no fears about debt collectors calling or credit record black marks unless you lose in court and then don't pay.

So get some facts down and then come back.

Edit:- Well b****r me! Stroma has supplied the soft appeal as I was writing this. Excellent!

Caddo10

Thanks so much for your quick replies. I did read a little on here but wanted some clarification.

The company issuing the "fine" is smart parking apparently. We have updated the address with the DVLA but the letter are still going to my gf's mother's previous address and then redirected.

Is it ok to keep this thread open until I am back, I can then upload a picture of correspondence?

Can someone clarify what popla is and how do I find out more information.

Guys_Dad

Caddo10 wrote: »

Thanks so much for your quick replies. I did read a little on here but wanted some clarification.

The company issuing the "fine" is smart parking apparently. We have updated the address with the DVLA but the letter are still going to my gf's mother's previous address and then redirected.

Is it ok to keep this thread open until I am back, I can then upload a picture of correspondence?

Can someone clarify what popla is and how do I find out more information.

http://www.popla.org.uk/

But leave it till you get back and are able to devote a little time on this.

Coupon-mad

Caddo10 wrote: »

Thanks so much for your quick replies. I did read a little on here but wanted some clarification.

The company issuing the "fine" is smart parking apparently. We have updated the address with the DVLA but the letter are still going to my gf's mother's previous address and then redirected.

Is it ok to keep this thread open until I am back, I can then upload a picture of correspondence?

Can someone clarify what popla is and how do I find out more information.

It is OK but really you don't need to as we've seen it all before!

And you are FAR too late for POPLA if you're getting junk mail, that's only for new fake PCNs not old ones being chased by toothless 'debt collection agency' pen-pushers. I would not respond at this stage and my reasons for telling you not to respond are shown in my replies as SchoolRunMum on pepipoo, in all the links I gave to this poster who posted yet another 'Panic about DRP' thread. Read the thread and all the other threads I linked there for that poster, see all the 'same old same old' stuff repeated to everyone:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78495

Please tell your gf's mother to please (how can I put this in the nicest possible way?) wise up and learn to spot a scam when it lands as junk mail on the doormat! IGNORE IT AND LAUGH AT THE WHOLE LETTER CHAIN. There is no effect on credit rating and no-one can send the boys round! Debt collector firms are not court bailiffs, they are minimum wage part-time students in a call centre. Show this to your gf's mother if she actually thought this was important mail because it's not:

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

Have a laugh at the Zenith letters that will follow the Debt Recovery Plus drivel:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3829727

and see the computer template standard letters in all their glory here so you and any householder can play a nice game of snap as they arrive like clockwork:

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



Not saying that private parking companies (we call them PPCs) never try a small claim - because a few of them do - but they are defendable. For that reason do keep all this junk mail in a file marked 'scam' just in case they ever tried to take it further (you would win). And if ever you get a new fake PCN you can beat it with a forum-written strong POPLA appeal if you respond in time (not in this case as you are past that stage).

But Smart Parking do not do Court, wouldn't have a clue, and if they ever tried it the letter would be obviously from Northampton Court and not from 'DebtCollectorsRUs'!






P.S. Let us know what happens when you COMPLAIN to the Asda Store Manager and Jonathan Bottomley at Asda's Head Office Executive Customer Services, maybe written in your own style of 'rant' like the one I recently suggested to a pepipoo poster harassed by this scam:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=79646

atilla

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Well you can stop panicking for a start and read some other threads. The replies will tell you exactly what the position is re Private Parking Companies. I am assuming this is from a PPC.

You will need to tell us which one.

Now, they have written to the car's owner at the address the car is registered at with the DVLA. You need to update that with the DVLA.

Effectively, you can do nothing until you get the NTK (Notice to Keeper) that your GF's mother has. You can then send back one of Stroma's soft appeals - see virtually any thread - and get the POPLA code from the PPC.

Some PPCs such as Parking Eye are getting aggressive and are actually issuing court papers, but way down the line. Most PPCs simply send a chain of empty threat letters from their tame solicitors and debt collectors, then give up.

You have absolutely no fears about debt collectors calling or credit record black marks unless you lose in court and then don't pay.

So get some facts down and then come back.

Edit:- Well b****r me! Stroma has supplied the soft appeal as I was writing this. Excellent!

He did, surely??

Not so smart.