Rossendales Collect letter, but no ticket...

legoland

Bit of a strange one. Don't think it's already covered by the stickies. Apologies if so, but I'm not all THAT familiar with all the terminology.

So I would appreciate any advice on this.

I parked in a car park serving a few businesses on the retail park. Was parked there for about 45 mins, certainly no more than one hour. No signage detailing any parking restrictions, no pay and display machine etc. So no clear reason at all not to park there.

Went back to my car... no ticket on the windscreen or anywhere else. Absolutely no problems... drove away and thought nothing of it. Didn't receive any letters in the mail saying I owed anything.

Four or five days later, and a letter comes through from Rossendales Collect, saying the following:

Vehicle Control Services Limited - Parking Charge Notice
Original Amount: £100.00
Fee: £36
Outstanding amount: £136.00
Reference number: XXXXXXXXXX
Our reference: XXXXXXX
Date: 24 March 2014

Dear XXXXXXXXX

Your debt has been passed to us by the above client. We are instructed that you have ignored previous request for payment, and as a result of this an administration fee of £36 has been added to the original balance which means the outstanding balance is now £136.00. It is our intention to recover this outstanding debt immediately.

Unless you pay us the debt amount within 7 days or contact us immediately with your proposals recovery action will commence.

IT IS IN YOUR INTEREST TO DEAL WITH THIS MATTER IMMEDIATELY.

Now, the more observant among you will have noticed this was a couple of weeks ago (I got the letter through on Fri 28 March, for the 'offence' supposedly on Monday 24th). Thing is, I've had one of these things before a couple of years ago (although not quite the same circumstances) and the advice on here then was to just ignore it, so I thought I'd do that and didn't think to look into it until now. Perhaps stupid and naive of me, I know, but as I say I don't really keep up with this stuff, so I just assumed I'd take the same course of action as I did before.

Another thing is.... I had no ticket, and had no PCN letter from VCS, so how on earth they can claim I owe an admin fee for late payment when I didn't receive anything in the first place, I have no idea?!

Can anybody advise on the best course of action (preferably without any hassle)? From my admittedly ill-informed point of view, I can't see how they can charge me anything when:
1) there was no clear signage or any other indication not to park there
2) they sent me a 'debt collection' letter without having given out a PCN ticket/letter.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can advise.

Stroma

Can you just correct if I'm wrong

1) parked 24/03/2014
2) Notice to Keeper 28/03/2014
3) debt collectors letter ??/04/2014

Yes ?

legoland

Stroma wrote: »

Can you just correct if I'm wrong

1) parked 24/03/2014
2) Notice to Keeper 28/03/2014
3) debt collectors letter ??/04/2014

Yes ?

No.

Parked 24/03
Debt collectors letter 28/03

Nothing else, in between or after.

I know it's (possibly) stupid to have left it this long to seek advice, but I didn't really think much of it after just ignoring it last time it happened to me.

ColliesCarer

What makes you think this relates to a parking event on 24/03/14?

From the info you have posted the 24/03/2014 looks to me like the date of the letter from Rossendales. Is there actually anything in the letter that states the date of the alleged event?

legoland

ColliesCarer wrote: »

What makes you think this relates to a parking event on 24/03/14?

From the info you have posted the 24/03/2014 looks to me like the date of the letter from Rossendales. Is there actually any thing in the letter that states the date of the alleged event?

Well I know it's a parking event because the client is Vehicle Control Services.

The only place I went that day, the 24th March, (and, in fact, the only thing I did all that day) was go to that business park, park up for a while whilst I went into my appointment at one of the businesses.

But you've got a fair point. I don't know it relates to that parking event. Only reason I assumed so was because that's all I did that day, and the date and the fact it's a parking related thing is the only indication I have of what it could relate to. There are no further details and no pictures.

But I haven't had any other parking notices since the one I had a couple of years ago, which I ignored (as per the advice at the time) and it eventually went away (or so I thought).

Hmmmm..

legoland

Thanks for that ColliesCarer. You've just made me question it.

It can't be for an 'offence' on 24/3, can it?! It just doesn't make sense.

I've just dug out the letters from the case I had a couple of years ago. Here are the details:

13/7/2012 - PCN from Vehicle Control Services (asking for £60)
3/9/2012 - 'Final demand notice' from VCS (asking for £100)
7/1/2013 - Roxburghe debt collectors letter (asking for £142)
18/1/2013 - Graham White Solicitors letter (asking for £207.25)
31/1/2013 - Roxburghe debt collectors letter (asking for £142 again)

...and now, a whole 15 months later, this letter from Rossendales asking for £136.

It doesn't make sense to me, if it does relate to this incident back in 2012. Why did it go away for over a year and then resurface? For what it's worth, I ignored this string of letters (from July 2012 to January 2013), because that was the correct advice given on here at the time.

Or if it does relate to where I parked on 24/3 this year (which I am beginning to seriously doubt) then why no ticket/pcn letter, but a debt collectors letter?!

Can anyone say whether it's likely to be relating to this parking 'offence' that occurred almost 2 years ago? If so, why so long between letters, and what is the best course of action?

Coupon-mad

legoland wrote: »

It doesn't make sense to me, if it does relate to this incident back in 2012. Why did it go away for over a year and then resurface? Can anyone say whether it's likely to be relating to this parking 'offence' that occurred almost 2 years ago? If so, why so long between letters, and what is the best course of action?

It will be the old 2012 case, they are doing it to scare people and get money from some idiots. Search this forum for 'Rossendales 2012' and 'Newlyn 2012' because VCS have got some debt collectors to scrape the barrel trying to extract money on old 2012 cases, that's all. Already discussed in LOTS of threads, all currently about VCS and old 2012 cases, you can read by searching this forum for both sets of keywords.

Debt collector letters are nothing. I collect them myself!

legoland

Coupon-mad wrote: »

It will be the old 2012 case. Search this forum for 'Rossendales 2012' and 'Newlyn 2012' because VCS have got some debt collectors to scrape the barrel trying to extract money on old 2012 cases, that's all. Already discussed in LOTS of threads you can read by searching this forum for both sets of keywords.

Debt collector letters are nothing.

Ok, thanks.

Sorry for starting a new thread. Did actually just look at some of those old ones. Wouldn't have started the thread if I would've originally thought on that they were trying to chase up the 'debt' from 2012.

Thanks again for your responses, folks.

Coupon-mad

Happy reading of all the other threads like this, now the mystery is solved. Nowt to worry about!

legoland

Not so much a mystery, more me just being dumb and not thinking it through properly!! Doh! :rotfl:

ColliesCarer

No worries - given you still have all the paper work from the incident in July 2012 I would say your normally pretty organised

And as you still have the papers, if you haven't already done so, just check if the PCN number matches up with any of the reference numbers given in the Rossendales letter - then you'll know for sure but I would agree with C-M that it's very likely to be the old VCS event.

Seems a lot of the parking companies are resurrecting old PCN's lately - times must be hard - my heart bleeds for them ............ not