Hospital parking ticket

jayship

A family member parked his vehicle at the London Hospital where their baby was born. They are allowed to park provided they pay a reduced charge of £2.50 per day (with voucher) which expires at midnight. However in the excitement he cannot remember whether he had paid and displayed the ticket.


Over 6 weeks later he received a PCN from the company who manages the car park and I suggested he ignores as being an invoice asking for payment. Today he has received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd demanding payment or they will recommend to the creditors solicitor that court action should be taken.


I have suggested that this is very unlikely and as they never sent the PCN with a photo showing that a ticket was not displayed and they would be unable to prove the breach otherwise.


I trust we are doing the right thing by ignoring the demand. Hopefully they will be sensible enough to realise that hospital parking overnight is a must in certain circumstances.


I look forward to advice from forum readers please.

Coupon-mad

I trust we are doing the right thing by ignoring the demand

Nope, sorry, unless this was NI or Scotland, that's not been the advice here for a year...and did you miss the sticky threads?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/64274803#Comment_64274803

Should be complaining to the Hospital then as you have wrongly ignored and missed the appeal chance & POPLA. Complain to PALS (explained in one of the sticky threads).

Dare we ask who the PCN was from, I do hope you haven't let them ignore ParkingEye?!

And was there a ticket on the windscreen that night - a PCN?

Does the first letter 6 weeks later say there 'was a PCN which remains unpaid', or is it the actual PCN issued by camera/ANPR?

jayship

Thanks for your advice Coupon -Mad. I will have to get the info from the family member to your questions and post later.
However reading the letter from DRP Ltd it was issued by CP Plus and from what I know no PCN was displayed on the windscreen. I am not sure that they have cameras in the car park.


Will read the sticky thread later but in the meantime would it be wise to contest the charge or pay it off.

Coupon-mad

Errrmmm...show me where we ever say 'pay'!?!

jayship

Thanks Coupon-Mad. I agree that you never said pay the PCN but he was concerned that it may end up in court. Hence the question.


They never knew that they had a parking ticket until they received a letter in the post 6 weeks later in which they implied that a ticket was issued and attached to the windscreen which is not true and that the ticket remains unpaid. I wonder if they will be able to prove this with a photograph as they never sent a pic with the letter.


Should we enter into correspondence now would mean that we did receive their letter 6 weeks later.

Coupon-mad

Should we enter into correspondence now would mean that we did receive their letter 6 weeks later

Your choice - respond or ignore. It is all covered in the linked thread for 'NEWBIES to read first', in the thread I linked in reply #2 above.

And the complaint to PALS to cancel it is covered in the other sticky thread linked there, 'successful complaints'. That's why I created those 2 stickies, to avoid covering the same ground every day and so people could see how to respond at certain stages - and how to complain if it's a Hospital or wherever. It was getting silly a few months ago saying the same old stuff every flippin' day to people who think they are going to court just because they've missed the appeal chance and are getting some junk mail. We couldn't carry on like we were...can't repeat what's already on the forum every day!

And a quick search of the forum for 'Recovery' as a keyword shows all the posts about these same letters, posts every day. No-one pays but get PALS to help cancel it.

Coupon-mad

Update - the OP tells me the complaint to the Hospital worked!


''Hi Coupon-mad
Thank you for your recent input on my thread regarding a parking ticket at the local hospital. We followed your advice and wrote to the facilities dept albeit rather little late. The good news is that they have on this occasion cancelled the parking ticket. Thanks once again.''