Euro Parking Collection

papu

Would be grateful for feedback. Last August whilst on holiday from Germany in Wales we parked on a shop carpark. Didn't see any place to pay and saw that everyone else just went to shop so we did too. In October we get a letter from EPC wanting 120€ for not paying 72€ in time! They are collecting on behalf of parkingeye for us staying 15 minutes too long. So we went into their appeal process and wrote at the end of October, that they should send us a photo or proof of the breach sign so we could see what they were talking about. They said the reply would take up to 8 weeks. Last week we got an E-Mail with attached letter dated 13.01.16 that our appeal is rejected and we should send proof of purchases from the shop and pay p with in 28 days. What can I do? They have obviously dated the letter to make it look like they were on time. When they didn't get back to us, we thought they had given up. I can't even find who to appeal to now - only POPLA for English people - but what about foreigners? Thanks for your help.

pappa_golf

umm , invite PE to take you to YOUR county court , should be fun

Iceweasel

papu wrote: »

I can't even find who to appeal to now - only POPLA for English people - but what about foreigners? Thanks for your help.

You are partly right - POPLA is only of any use to people from England and Wales.

These parking hooligans can do nothing at all with 'foreigners' like you and me - I'm Scottish by the way,

We are resident outwith the jurisdiction of any court they can apply to regarding our terrible 'crimes'. There are no cross-border rules for any of these private car park nonsense attempts to obtain money from us.

My advice is to ignore completely.

Coupon-mad

Yes, ignore it.

A private firm chancing their arm, not a real fine. You WILL NOT be affected by it. You can safely visit England/Wales again!

wursin

Hi
Maybe you are still watching this board. I had a car from Europe parked here in England with a wrongly filled out scratch Card. Now I found a Parking Charge on the window of the car. As the car is registered in a Europeam country I wonder how this private firm can find the registered adress. So I think I may be able to ignore the Charge.
Now you seem to have received a letter to your home country, which means they could find you and issue the charge to you. Is that correct?
As per the advice on the thread below, it might still be ok to ignore all communication from them. What did you conclude?

StaffsSW

wursin wrote: »

Hi

Now you seem to have received a letter to your home country, which means they could find you and issue the charge to you. Is that correct?

Yes and No...

Yes, they have found your address, but No, they can not charge you, but do expect a lot of letters from them.

As above, only Parking Eye can take court action, but if you are a non-UK resident they can't issue a claim against you in Germany/Spain/Hungary etc.

EPC are very good at sending lots of letters. And when they get bored, they send the same letters with a different name at the top, Contractum International Debt Collection. When they get bored, they send it to Rossendales who are a genuine debt collection company but they also know that all they can do in this situation is send letters, rather than take any proper action. Rossendales will pass it back to EPC, and so the process starts again.

I have photos to prove it - see here - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=69693683&postcount=8

fisherjim

wursin wrote: »

Hi
Maybe you are still watching this board. I had a car from Europe parked here in England with a wrongly filled out scratch Card. Now I found a Parking Charge on the window of the car. As the car is registered in a Europeam country I wonder how this private firm can find the registered adress. So I think I may be able to ignore the Charge.
Now you seem to have received a letter to your home country, which means they could find you and issue the charge to you. Is that correct?
As per the advice on the thread below, it might still be ok to ignore all communication from them. What did you conclude?

Are you sure this was a private parking fine?

I might be wrong, but scratch cards are usually for council on street parking.