They want loads of money for nothing ?parking Eye

Mr_RK

Letter in German sent to my door in Germany ..
I traveled to the uk for a benifit event ,raising money for a cancer charity ...
After the event we traveled north to visit my old mother near Hull

It is totally normal on a long journey to take enough rest so not to causes accidents on the motor way ..

I have not lived in the uk for over 26 years ,but know the great service stations ...stopped for coffee and a longer rest ,did not even leave the car much but spent enough time to be able to travel on safely .
I even filled my tank ready for the rest of the travels ...

Now I have my second letter for 163,23 € for stopping at the a Welcome Break Leicester forest east ...
Got in at 3.12 am and left at 7.26 am ...just a rest !!!!!!

Do I pay this or do I stick to my guns and just ignore it all ...

Anybody here in Germany can use our roads and stop up to 2 days as long as they are not in the way .....

Thanks for any help

mr RK

Stroma

Okay this a first, so you parked in the uk and they chasing you in Germany ? I gather you hired a car here yes? Who is writing to you, debt collector, hire company, parking eye?

GermanKeeper

I guess you got the 2 letters from Euro Parking Collection (EPC) in behalf of Parking Eye? And your car is registered in Germany.

I for myself got these two letters in November and December 2012 after a parking event in September 2012 on a Welcome Break MSA in England. In winter 2013 I recieved a letter from a dept collector in London. Then after a break of several months a German dept collector started to write letters to me. Up to now I recieved 4 letters from "Media-Inkasso" in Gütersloh .

The 4th letter now is a "special offer": the amount is reduced to almost the same as in the second letter of EPC.
So ignoring these letters will be a good strategy.

You should never write to them who the driver was. There is no keeper liability unless all conditions in the Protection of freedom acts (POFA) are satisfied: the car has to be registered in UK, the notice to keeper has to arrive within 14 days after the parking event, and the first letter has to contain a lot of statements and information required by POFA 2012.

Stroma

I am unsure of the operation of debt collectors in Germany , but I can't imagine it being different to here, so they are going to be powerless cretins who just write letters. And EPC are an offshoot of Euro in the uk who have done court twice in a year

Iceweasel

What an absolute disgrace - these despicable low-life scammers have now become international parasites.

Possibly they are thinking that folks outside the UK will take their pathetic grubby money-grabbing letters as something official and more likely to produce results.

Shame on them all. What an image of the UK to send out.

Autobahn service areas in Germany and Austria welcome drivers to stay as long as they need to take a break. Parking overnight on a long journey is completely accepted and commonplace there.

I can well imagine how surprised and disgusted foreign nationals are to receive such crap requests for money.

GermanKeeper

In principle a German dept collector is allowed to start court action by making a petition for a payment order. This will result in a default jugdement if the debitor does not appeal (Widerspruch einlegen) against the payment order (Mahnbescheid). If the debitor makes an appeal then the dept collector is not allowed to represent the claimant at court (the further court action would be at the local court where the debitor lives).
The payment order (Mahnbescheid) would come from the local court (Amtsgericht) Wedding in Berlin, if the claimant has no general venue in Germany. (Wedding is a district in Berlin). So one should not ignore a Mahnbescheid from the Amtsgericht Wedding.

But up to now (remember I got 7 letters up to now!) the depth collector did not announce that court actions will be started. They even do not state that the depth has to do something with contract law.
Instead of that they use words that are used in the German "Ordnungswidrigkeitengesetz" (Act of Regulatory Offences), such as "Ordnungswidrigkeit, Bußgeld, Einspruch". So the people should think that Parking Eye has some state authority. For example in the second letter the German depth collector stated that one may get serious problems crossing the border to UK if one does not pay etc.

Stroma

They are not an authority and this is a civil matter, there will be no orders in the uk as there is no uk address, and even there was it still wouldn't be anything beyond a civil court.

I'm out of my depth on situations out of the uk on this, but ECP are just a useless bunch of scammers connected to euro parking here. They are toothless, and I can't see anything happening.

zzzLazyDaisy

How on earth is PE going to issue proceedings against a german RK? (I am presuming that OP has not identified himself as the driver?). Germany is out of the jurisdiction and POFA doesn't apply in Germany. Am I missing something obvious?

Stroma

Yes the vehicle could be hired, so there is a chance that the hire company could pay

Iceweasel

I wouldn't put it past these PE scammers to attempt to pull a fast one on the German debt collecting system by pretending that they had some form of official status to claim cross-border payments.

What PE would describe as a 'failure to obey the rules' could well have been translated (wrongly of course) as a 'crime'.

This needs to be publicised wider I think.

zzzLazyDaisy

Stroma wrote: »

Yes the vehicle could be hired, so there is a chance that the hire company could pay

That would mean that the RK (hire company) is in England and chooses to pay and then recover the money pursuant to the terms of a contract between RK and hirer. That would not involve PE sending debt collector letters to someone in Germany though.