TNC Parking PCN / Plate Clone

cavershambles

Hi,

Apologies if there has been a similar thread before, but I'm getting a little overwhelmed by all the advice knocking about on how to deal with these situations...

In late February, I received a letter from TCN alleging that I had parked my car on private land in Edinburgh on 2 occasions on both the 4th & 6th January 2014. The letter in question was a demand for payment of £200, as I had failed to pay either ticket within their own payment terms. I had not been contacted in any way before.

I should explain that I had (at the time) never been to Edinburgh. The dates my 'offences' occurred I had actually been visiting my family in the New Forest (I have proof to back this up) and I had actually been using my car in Hampshire the same time my car had been parked in Edinburgh.

After calling TNC to discuss this (they were incredibly rude and patronising) I asked for them to provide images of the car in question. Sure enough, they were able to - however the car photographed is not mine!

Following advice sought from the Police, DVLA, and the gov.uk website, I then immediately sent recorded letters to TNC, P4Parking (the company who had issued the tickets) and the DVLA to alert them to the potential cloning of my vehicles registration. The letters included proof of my being in the New Forest at the time of the first ticket, and at work (in Reading town centre) at the time of the second. Within the letter I provided evidence of my whereabouts at both time and instructed them to close the matter.

This was the last I heard from TNC until 2 weeks ago, where they had sent me a letter (second class) advising that they would be referring my case to 'Country court' (it actually said country court!) if I did not pay the fine within 14 days of the letter (which had been delivered to me 10 days after it was dated).

On advice, I ignored this letter. I had had no acknowledgement from either company of my recorded letters sent in February (although I do have proof of delivery of all 4 letters). But there was no mention of this within their letter. I have since received further notification from TNC advising that the fine has now been increased to £280 and that if I do not pay within 7 days the matter will be recommended to the client as court action....

I am at a bit of a loss what I can do? The advice differs between England and Scotland, and as an Englishman with a Scottish fine, does this affect matters? Most people are telling me to ignore the issue, but it is becoming unsettling and I'm feeling really quite helpless.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks.

da_rule

First off it's not a fine, it's a speculative invoice.

Secondly as this happened in Scotland you don't need to worry. The law in Scotland is that only the driver is liable, and they can never prove who the driver is.

What I would suggest is one letter to all of the parties involved setting out that:
1) The car registration was cloned (if the make and model of the cloaned car don't match the make and model of your car then point this out too)
2) As this was in Scotland only the driver can be liable, and you don't know who this is
3) As this was in Scotland the next course of action is the Sheriffs Court not the County (or Country) Court
4) You will not be entering into any further correspondence with any party in relation to this matter
5) If you receive any further correspondence, other than confirmation of cancellation, you will consider it to be harrassment and reserve the right to take legal action

Stroma

As you can see these companies don't give a monkeys about the fact that you were not at fault here, they just want your money and they don't care whether they are entitled to it.

This is harassment pure and simple, if you are bloody minded you could send them your own threats of a claim against them all, but only do that if you are willing to go forward with this.

One thing, the debt collectors cannot take you to court at all, this parking company have never ever issued any claims, and it being in Scotland they cannot even issue in a county court.

I presume you have a some kind of crime number off the police? If so include that in any letter to them, don't call them

Half_way

Before you get worried about your number plate being cloned, do you have clear pictures showing the cloned number plate on the vehicle?
A lot of cases ( if not the majority ) where it appears a number plate has been cloned can usually be attributed to either the anpr software not being up to much, human error, or both.
If it is anpr error then you are not the first victim of this, and most certainly wont be the last. Which does raise the question of how many people would just pay up, as he letters are very threatening/scary looking?
And if thats happening and the parking companies are not taking steps to make sure that this does not happen again then could there be a case for something more sinister levied against those who employ/allow these companies to operate on their land, as well as the car parking companies themselves?

cavershambles

Thanks for all the advice!