2 year old ticket has come back to life

Jnper

Hi guys,

I have refreshed my reading on the forum having not been here for around a year or so, but have decided to post this anyway as it seems to be an odd case.

As registered keeper I recieved a PCN early/mid 2012 and the advice from the forum at the time was to ignore. I had a raft of letters from the usual suspects, and I checked in with the forum now and then - they were well known letter templates, advice was still to ignore so i did.

It has been nearly a year since the last letter, and then out of the blue I have recieved a letter from Newlyn.

The new letter states:

"NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT AS DEBT COLLECTORS

Offence date: 04/06/2012
Offence details ANPR Vcs Differential charge scheme
Total outstanding: £156.00
Location: Booths Media City
Client: Vehicle Control Services Ltd.

We have been instructed by Vehicle Control Services Ltd. to recover the above parking charges which remain outstanding. As a company specialising in debt recovery we are undertaking to gain payment in full of the debt.

PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER. FURTHER ACTION MAY BE TAKEN AT CONSIDERABLE COST TO YOU IF THE DEBT IS NOT CLEARED.

In order to clear this debt and avoid further action being taken you need to contact us as a matter of urgency on <Phone number> with your proposals to clear this outstanding amount.

Please note you must contact us direct at this stage as all attempts to communicate directly with Vehicle Control Services Ltd. will be referred back to us"

---

Given the long time that has gone by it seems odd to try and suddenly make contact now, but am concerned that the rules have changed and this may now proceed to court.

da_rule

As this was before the Protection of Freedoms Act came into force then the advice continues to be to ignore the debt collectors. Prior to the Act, only the driver could be held responsible, so providing that you have ignored everything so far then you have nothing to be concerned about. They have 6 years to bring a claim, and at the moment there seems to be a lot of barrel scraping going on. I suppose they only need one or two people to panic and cough up the money and they're in profit.

There is a school of thought that says that you should contact the debt collectors, tell them you cannot/will not identify the driver and that they should cease contacting you or face action for harassment. However, that takes time and effort, I'd just file their letters where they belong and continue to ignore them.

Hot_Bring

Two choices :

1. Continue to ignore
2. Contact the debt collectors and tell them the debt is denied and to return it to their client.

The_Deep

I would beg them to take me to court.

Jnper

I was of the same mind, so will continue to ignore. I have all letters kept in a safe place. Is there a standard set of letters that Newlyn will now issue as per the standard sets the collectors used in 2012/2013?

Stroma

The letters are variants of the crap they send out, except for this one which is a new template, we've seen this dozens of times in the last couple of weeks so they have obviously sent out hundreds or possibly thousands of this junk.

Ignore unless you get a notice before keeper

fil_cad

Sounds like the paperwork will be extreemly useful for emergency toilet paper, one never knows when you could get caught short.

Coupon-mad

Just to add, it's the same as here and on lots of threads recently, search this forum for 'Newlyn' as a keyword and you will find several like this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4027635

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4217471

The Newlyn computer has obviously just issued a batch of 'scraping barrel' follow up threatograms which no doubt makes some victims worry and pay up. You are not a victim and on MSE even a small claim is rare and defendable with a high win rate for our posters. I think VCS just lost one last week didn't they, others might recall it, 3 tickets being chased and the defendant was up for the fight! Apart from that I can't recall one before that except Ibbotson which they also lost (shown as a link in the NEWBIES thread, post #6 small claims cases won, well worth reading!).

Jnper

thanks guys, i can see other people have had a similar letter for old fines, so as you say, they are scraping the barrel. will ignore and post back with anything new!

BenefitMaster

Jnper wrote: »

thanks guys, i can see other people have had a similar letter for old fines, so as you say, they are scraping the barrel. will ignore and post back with anything new!

ITS NOT A FINE!!!!! :mad:

bazster

BenefitMaster wrote: »

ITS NOT A FINE!!!!! :mad:

You're wearing out that angry smiley today BM. Pub should be open soon! :beer: