Newbie help please: Waitrose Parking - At 'debt collection' stage

richlove

Hi there

Firstly, I hope I don't get shot down for not doing enough research. I've read the stickies and dug around the forum but honestly found the volume and variety of advice a bit overwhelming and need some help fairly urgently.

I recently moved to an old market town with no high street parking and as a result use Waitrose car park, monitored by Britannia parking.

Over the course of 6 months of living there I got hit with 4 tickets for being there in 'controlled hours' for various reasons. I received advice from a couple of different sources (even the parking controller intimated along certain lines) of not 'worrying too much' about paying the tickets. One girl said she had a stack of them and never bothered.

I read a bit on these forums about the course of letters and received several from Britannia but this morning received (two copies dated differently) letters of notification from Newlyn Debt Collection Ltd that they're acting on behalf of Britannia and I owe them £780!!

As a newbie I can't post images but if you go to dropbox-dot-com and append the following to the URL, you can see the letters (if anybody who can post images could kindly post those in to a response, that would be lovely, thank you):

Letter front: "s/librvr70uuqkn1n/parking-debt-1.jpg"
Letter rear: "s/bo1ykh3n29bpm3y/parking-debt-2.jpg"

Basically what I'd like to know:

1. How much trouble am I in/Is this serious?
2. Can they take me to court, issue CCJ?
3. Can they at any point legitimately lay claim to any belongings in my house or car?
4. Can I proceed to do nothing (I read a post saying Britannia have never taken anybody to court) or do I need to take action?

Many thanks to anybody who can offer advice.

The_Slithy_Tove

Best to re-read the NEWBIES thread. It's all there, particularly the bits where it tells you how meaningless all the debt collector letters really are, and how it's not serious at all.

DJBenz

Links

http://www.dropbox.com/s/librvr70uuqkn1n/parking-debt-1.jpg
http://www.dropbox.com/s/bo1ykh3n29bpm3y/parking-debt-2.jpg

HTH

Umkomaas

Do not contact a debt collector - all they want is your money, and nothing you can say or write will make one iota of difference. You will come off second best if you phone them; they do this kind of stuff every day of the week!

All you can do now is to ignore anything else that comes your way, other than a LBCCC/LBA from the PPC or county court papers from the bulk handling centre at Northampton County Court. These must not be ignored, please come back to us if you get any of these.

No need to post here every time you get a debt collector letter - we've seen them all before, and the advice (over the past decade) remains - ignore them. Newlyn can do nothing more than send letters/make calls to you.

Britannia have only appeared in the SCC once in the past 18 months for which we have information. It doesn't even necessarily mean it was parking charge related.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/179544/response/444525/attach/3/A%20FINAL%20REPLY%20TO%20LEWIS%2085865.doc

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/205660/response/510306/attach/3/AA%20REPLY%20TO%20Craig%20Lewis%2090006%203.doc

Your amount is quite high and they might be tempted to try a small claim. If you get anything from them (not Newlyn, as debt collectors cannot issue small claims in the context of parking charges) come back. People here will help with a strong defence.

In terms of a CCJ - this can only happen as follows:

1. You go to court
2. You lose your case
3. The Judge awards costs against you
4. You have 28 days to pay up
5. You fail/forget/refuse to pay the costs awarded against you
6. You receive CCJ
7. Credit rating qualified
8. Potential problems getting credit in future.

You're a long way from that, but all within your own control if it got there.

Talk of 'laying claim' to household and car items is the type of hysteria the debt collector likes to generate in potential victims. Have you been watching too many episodes of 'The Sheriffs are Coming'?

HTH

Coupon-mad

Britannia don't do court so you can ignore this trash, although Waitrose would cancel it if you complain to the Head Office or on facebook/Twitter publicly.

richlove

OK, thanks for your input guys, really appreciate this.

How do all these companies get away with all this stuff and shallow threats? Should somebody not be clamping down on all this to make it illegal!?

richlove

Umkomaas - thanks for taking the time to pen an insightful reply, much appreciated

Umkomaas

How do all these companies get away with all this stuff and shallow threats?

All courtesy of the subservience of the bulk of Great Britain's public and their supine reaction to 'authority'. Glad you're not one of them.

richlove

Umkomaas wrote: »

All courtesy of the subservience of the bulk of Great Britain's public and their supine reaction to 'authority'. Glad you're not one of them.

Great quote