Debt Recovery Plus not accepting settlement offer..

Magic212

Hi,


I had two parking tickets from TPS in September which I chose to ignore (as I didn't know the legislation changed recently). I tried to appeal in late December but as I was too late to do so, they have ignored my grounds to do so. Last week, I received letters with notice of intended court action from Debt Recovery Plus asking for the full amount of £148.99 for each ticket. I sent this letter back to them....







Debt Recovery Plus Ltd
PO Box 411
Dukinfield
SK14 9DD




6th January 2014




REF: ***** (Parking Charge Notice ***********)





WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS

Dear Sir/Madam,

Total Parking Solutions Limited -v- *******
Notice of intended court action


I refer to your letter dated 3rd January 2014 with regards to intended court action.

That letter is defective in that it fails to comply with the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct.

For the avoidance of doubt, liability is denied in full. Should your client choose to start court action against me, the claim will be vigorously defended.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the above comments, in the spirit of disposing of this matter swiftly and conveniently, I am willing to make an offer of settlement in the sum of £22.50 [£10 parking fee, £2.50 DVLA charge, and £10.00 administration charge] in full and final settlement of your client's claim. This offer is made entirely on a 'without prejudice' basis and with no acceptance of liability.

PLEASE NOTE: This offer will remain open for a period of 23 days from the date of this letter (namely 21 days plus two days for service) after which time the offer will be withdrawn and any court action will be defended in the normal way. In the event of you failing to achieve a judgment in excess of the sum offered in this letter, an application will be made for an order that your client pay the defendant's wasted costs of the action in full.

I respectfully remind you of your client's duty to mitigate its losses and trust that you will advise your client accordingly.

I look forward to receiving your written acceptance of this offer within the timescale stipulated in this letter.

Yours faithfully














They emailed me yesterday saying that they will not accept the payment of £22.50 in settlement but instead reduced the amount to £119.19 (down from original £148.99).


What should I do next folks????


Many thanks,


B

peter_the_piper

Personally, as the popla boat has left, I would ignore. Keep record of the offer, in the very unlikely event of it progressing to county court it is evidence of willingness to settle.

Redx

personally I wouldnt pay the shysters a penny, but I also agree with the last post , you made the offer, they refused , now ignore them and only deal with it if the creditor (not debt collector) contacts you, like say if you get an LBA or LBCCC or court papers

the sticky thread NEWBIES - READ THIS FIRST deals with this, as do a few other sticky threads at the top of the forum

Fergie76

Email them back and say you want to settle this matter without court action and that you are willing to use an arbitration service for this. As the recognised arbitration service is POPLA, ask them to send you a POPLA code, and state that any Court action without attending arbitration will look bad on them.

peter_the_piper

Unfortunately Popla is an adjudication service not arbitration. County court offer an arbitration service first.

The_Deep

I am wondering why you marked your offer "Without Prejudice". I would have thought that this is a matter which should be made known to a judge at the earliest opportunity. After all, it is hardly likely that he would tell you to pay less.

Umkomaas

The_Deep wrote: »

I am wondering why you marked your offer "Without Prejudice". I would have thought that this is a matter which should be made known to a judge at the earliest opportunity. After all, it is hardly likely that he would tell you to pay less.

Far too much indiscriminate use of the phrase - most times writers have little or no idea of what it means (but it don't half sound good, it'll make PPCs quake in their boots, so let's give 'em a bit of legalese to chew over), and in fact, in many cases, it's very much weakening, rather than strengthening, the writer's position. :cool:

Coupon-mad

Really no idea why anyone would offer DRP money! The options available to you at this stage are covered in the 'newbies read this first!' thread and they don't include sending or offering money to this toothless bunch of penpushers.

Have you read the sticky threads, complained to the retailer/landowner and taken on board all the advice already on the forum? Then you would have known not to be drawn in the matter nor think they had somehow upped the ante, just because DRP computers are churning out their usual template threatograms at the rate of several per minute to bother the UK population with.