Help- PCN

tgirl

I got a PCN from a company for allegedly parking in a commercial loading pay on private land. The company is called London Parking Solutions. They wrote to me requesting £120 on 22nd September as apparently I ignored the original £60 fine. I NEVER got a notification of this parking offence until the letter came in the post after the apparent 28 day deadline. Their letter said I can appeal to the IAS - who are they? I looked at the website but it didn't look official. I emailed London Parking Solutions on 25 September and said I got no prior warning of the fine and had no opportunity to pay the reduced fee of £60. I got no response so I emailed again last Monday.

Today I got a letter from UCS- Ultimate Customer Solutions saying that the matter has been referred to them and a £12 charge has been added. Their letter included the line "We are fully aware of anecdotal information being presented on the Internet and on various websites and you may well feel this guidance is worth following. We strongly urge you to seek independent legal advice rather than rely on those opinions."

I sense their are flaws in this but how to I go about this? The letter was on cheaply printed headed paper and signed by a Chris Douglas, Customer Service Manager.

I don't want to throw away £120 nor do I want to make my credit worse by ignoring this.

Any advice appreciated.

bazster

There's no such company as "Ultimate Customer Solutions", does it say somewhere in the small print "trading as Ultimate Customer Solutions"?

If so I'm guessing it says "ZZPS trading as..."

Anyway, you should ignore "Ultimate Customer Solutions" and any other letters from debt collectors, they are utterly toothless and their threats are empty.

Almost certainly not worth appealing this. However, since LPS is an IPC member it is probably pretending that the £100 it wants from you is something you contractually agreed to pay, so you could send them a cancellation of the contract:

Dear Sirs,

You allege that the sum demanded is payable under the terms of a contract entered into with yourselves. The existence of any such contract is denied, but since you assert it does exist please note the following.

I hereby give notice of the cancellation of any contract for the supply of the following service: parking at ?????? on dd/mm/yyyy. This notice is given under the terms of the The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

Sign it, date it, give your address and get a free certificate of posting from the post office. Then ignore everything unless you get a letter before claim from LPS or their solicitors, or you get real court papers.

Can't hurt your credit record unless:

(i) They take you to court
(ii) You lose and
(iii) You fail to pay within 28 days of being ordered to do so by the court.

Clearly you are a long, long way from any of that happening!

Coupon-mad

We are fully aware of anecdotal information being presented on the Internet and on various websites and you may well feel this guidance is worth following.

Put that entire phrase into Google and you will find this letter was used by Roxburghe for years! ZZPS are the new Roxburghe - their staff had to do something when Roxburghe had their CCA Licence revoked, and these template letters are all the thick idiots know...

tgirl

Thanks so much! I Will take this advice

MRSJJ

(Following as I too have had a letter from UCS)