Jacobs Enforcement Agency

87mave

Hi there.

Today I had a call from my father whilst at work stating that my mum had received a bailiffs letter through the door in my name. She opened the letter because it was already open and she couldn't see the name it was addressed to. It was from Jacobs Enforcement Agency stating that I had to pay £392 (Which was written in red felt!) or they would come to the house within 24 hours and start removing stuff. My mum obviously panicked and shown my sister, who also panicked really bad and went and paid it to them straight away. (This was before my dad called me)

Now. this is for a parking fine in May last year. I will admit to not paying it originally, I had misplaced the form with the reference number and had phoned up my local council stating this, and they said they would get back to me, whilst taking my phone number. Months went by and I left my parents address and moved elsewhere in August last year. My parents always forwarded mail to me, but I am a bit complacent with opening mail, and yeah, obviously I've ignored the letters as such and forgot about it.

It was very daft of me to do so, but I haven't received any mail at that address in about a month now. My sister is currently at work and I'm going to get her to block that payment out when she gets home and I want to deal with the matter myself. I am all for paying a fine, but £392 for a parking ticket 9 months or so ago is completely unjustifiable. I do not want to put my parents and sister through the stress again.

I phoned up the agent and daftly shouted and swore down the phone originally, stating that it's illegal for them to be sending those kind of threats without merit, and that it scared my sister into paying it. He hung up on me and I called back and spoke again. He basically told me that the 'paperwork is all shredded now' and it's all over and done with, but I did say I was complaining to Trading Standards about this and he says he looks forward to the mail, and told me to complain in writing to him. I also said that my sister will be blocking the payment but he didn't really correspond to it.

So what can I do? As I said before, I don't mind paying a fine, but £392 is completely unjustifiable, and this is the 1st time that they had attended the address. I will be phoning the council also tomorrow to see if I can settle with them first. (Something I should've done originally) Also the fact the figure was written in red felt tip pen seems fishy and unprofessional to me.

Thank you.

McKneff

Its unlikely you can block the payment to be honest, just pay your sister back.


As for you jumping up and down protesting about it being unjustifiable, then you are wrong.
There will be charges on top of charges, all because you didn't pay the original fine.


Look at the breakdown of the charges.


You really don't have anyone else to blame.....

sourcrates

I assume she payed with a debt card or was it a credit card ?
If debt card, I doubt they will be able to stop the payment as its deemed to of been authorised.
Only if it were done fraudulently would they be able to refund it, she could request a chargeback, but there could be issues, TBH I would let sleeping dogs lye, you may end up a lot worse off if you start messing around with bailiffs, they have obviously been to court already in order to get a judgement, and more charges would follow.

fatbelly

The original PCN would have been around £50 - you could have settled it for £25 if paid promptly, maybe got it written off if you had followed guidance on this site.

If you ignore it the charge goes to £75 and then the bailiff fees (£310) go on top - I can't quite work out where 392 comes from - possibly £7 court fee though that sounds low.

aha!

an order for recovery is served, the PCN is registered as a debt, a £7 court fee is also added to the PCN.