Smart Parking Ltd - Didn't receive letter

Anon1337

Hi MSE people,

I received a letter from "Debt Recovery Plus" claiming that I owed their client, Smart Parking Ltd, a sum of £160 for parking past a free grace period in a small car park outside a Spar shop.

This is the first letter I have received. I did not receive a PCN from Smart Parking Ltd. Having read the newbie forum post, I realise I made a couple of errors:

I have tried making a claim to Smart Parking, but it's past the 28 day period (because I never received the original letter)

I have called the Debt Recovery company to tell them that I was making an appeal. They told me that I cannot make an appeal now and that further action will be taken if I don't pay the £160 to them within 14 days.

I think I am a victim of ANPR double dipping, as my vehicle was parked twice in that car park on the date they say the violation happened. It was parked for a short period each time.

I do not want to end up in court, but also don't think it's fair that I should be asked to pay £160 for a contravention that didn't happen.

Does anyone have any advice for me?

pogofish

Post Four of the Newbies Sticky covers DRP entirely. Please read it before doing anything else - contacting them is bad enough!

Redx

never , NEVER contact the DRP sc@mmers

NEVER phone them up

what they failed to tell you is that you have the option to IGNORE them

they dont get paid unless they lie and cheat their way into getting you to pay them , never ask a sc@mmer about a sc@m

as mentioned above, you ignored post #4 of that NEWBIES thread

please read it again

then IGNORE

come back if you get an LBC or an MCOL within 6 years

Anon1337

Hi both,

Thanks so much for taking time to reply to me. I didn't ignore the post as such, just panicked and ended up calling them before my sanity returned and I decided to actually take some time and read all the information available on this site.

My question was more around the fact that I had appealed "too late" and whether this would mean that I was unable to appeal and would be forced by a court to pay the full £160. But reading post #4 as you instructed seems to indicate that this will not be the case.

Is there likely to be any negative effect of me calling them? I did not make any verbal agreement with them on the phone to pay, I simply asked them what would happen and then said that I would "think about my options".

Quentin

The negative in contacting debt collectors/ppcs is you may inadvertently give away information helpful to them (eg say "I" visited twice, instead of"the driver" visited twice etc).

It also lets them know you are hooked and consider you more vulnerable to their unpleasant and threatening activities

Anon1337

I see. I guess I just have to toughen up a bit and see what happens then!

I will come back to you guys if things escalate (not debt recovery letters or whatever - I have read the newbies thread at length now)