Shopping centre private car-park sent threatening letter invoicing for £3000

Umkomaas

I guess this is Meadowhall Sheffield. We’ve seen a few of these.

Which debt collector has issued the LBC referencing the Pre-action Protocol?

In terms of the latest ticket 15/11/17. This is in scope for an appeal through POPLA. So that needs good work on it to ensure you get the appeal upheld by POPLA. If you get that it will serve a very useful purpose should the rest of the issue get to court.

Firstly you need to get the blue text appeal from the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #1 sent to CP Plus by the method they require as stated in their NtK. Do not add to or change anything in the template. Get your rejection with your POPLA code and we can get that underway.

Simultaneously you must email a complaint to the BPA and the DVLA that the debt collector had been instructed to pursue you when the appeal period is still open. Write to the following, enclosing copies of the 15/11 NtK and the 17/11 debt collector letter.

steve.c@britishparking.co.uk

david.dunford@dvla.gsi.gov.uk

In terms of the other tickets. It’s beyond belief that none of those listed were not followed by a NtK. But if post was going to a former address they might well have gone astray there.

When did your gf vacate that former address and what period do the list of tickets cover. Remember a PPC can only work on the address they are given by the DVLA. The DVLA work on the last notified address given to them by the vehicle’s keeper. The PPC can only apply once for keeper details for each ticket.

It suggests to me that the DVLA haven’t been updated with the current address, which now needs to be done urgently, or there’s a real fine of a further £1,000 potentially on its way! Two separate notifications needed - one for the V5C logbook, one for the driving licence.

Calvinm

Umkomaas wrote: »

I guess this is Meadowhall Sheffield. We’ve seen a few of these.

Which debt collector has issued the LBC referencing the Pre-action Protocol?

In terms of the latest ticket 15/11/17. This is in scope for an appeal through POPLA. So that needs good work on it to ensure you get the appeal upheld by POPLA. If you get that it will serve a very useful purpose should the rest of the issue get to court.

Firstly you need to get the blue text appeal from the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #1 sent to CP Plus by the method they require as stated in their NtK. Do not add to or change anything in the template. Get your rejection with your POPLA code and we can get that underway.

Simultaneously you must email a complaint to the BPA and the DVLA that the debt collector had been instructed to pursue you when the appeal period is still open. Write to the following, enclosing copies of the 15/11 NtK and the 17/11 debt collector letter.

steve.c@britishparking.co.uk

david.dunford@dvla.gsi.gov.uk

In terms of the other tickets. It’s beyond belief that none of those listed were not followed by a NtK. But if post was going to a former address they might well have gone astray there.

When did your gf vacate that former address and what period do the list of tickets cover. Remember a PPC can only work on the address they are given by the DVLA. The DVLA work on the last notified address given to them by the vehicle’s keeper. The PPC can only apply once for keeper details for each ticket.

It suggests to me that the DVLA haven’t been updated with the current address, which now needs to be done urgently, or there’s a real fine of a further £1,000 potentially on its way! Two separate notifications needed - one for the V5C logbook, one for the driving licence.

It is indeed Meadowhall. SCS Law were the ones to send the LBC.

I've just been informed that there HAVE been letters sent to the previous address (by previous, I mean her parent's address and not her personal current one) for other parking fines. This meant that I don't think that complaint will be valid as the appeal period is closed for the old tickets on the LBC which doesn't have the most recent ticket in the NTK. So apologies for that inaccurate information, it seems there were previous NTKs.

I will make sure that address gets updated though, thank you.

This still raises questions about the evidence backing these tickets. Her car is registered as staff but it doesn't look like they have any evidence to prove she was on-duty at the time the tickets were issued. Does this work in her favour?

Edit: and when you refer to the blue text appeal, do you mean the one that refers to the 'signs failing the test of 'large lettering' and prominence?

Thank you for your help thus far. I can appreciate that new posters coming in with similar problems as other people must be frustrating, I'm just so overwhelmed with the stickies and other information out there -- it's very difficult to understand exactly what I should do.

Half_way

If you/she has any live tickets that are still within the time frame for a POPLA challenge , this option should be used.
If all the previous tickets are for an identical situation then a POPLA win could be used as a defence should they push for court.

Initial feelings on this is that your Girlfreind needs to post on here, as she needs to be very careful in how this is dealt with due to the amount of money being demanded, coupled with the possibility of playing court lottery, the fewer go-betweens the less chance of a Chinese whispers effect

pappa_golf

staff? is that 24/7

when its your day off , you are still "staff"

Calvinm

Half_way wrote: »

If you/she has any live tickets that are still within the time frame for a POPLA challenge , this option should be used.
If all the previous tickets are for an identical situation then a POPLA win could be used as a defence should they push for court.

Initial feelings on this is that your Girlfreind needs to post on here, as she needs to be very careful in how this is dealt with due to the amount of money being demanded, coupled with the possibility of playing court lottery, the fewer go-betweens the less chance of a Chinese whispers effect

Okay, I understand that, we are just filling out an online appeal for the most recent ticket now.

I completely agree, and she is reading all of this and going through it with me, I'm just further down the rabbit hole so she's even more confused than I am about it. Apologies for the awkward approach in me posting on her behalf.

Calvinm

pappa_golf wrote: »

staff? is that 24/7

when its your day off , you are still "staff"

I don't think that's true, the signs in that car-park specifically state "This car park is private land and is for the use of Meadowhall Shopping Centre customers only. No parking for on-duty staff members". If she comes there on her day off to shop, surely that makes her a customer? How could they know if she's on-duty?

Umkomaas

SCS Law were the ones to send the LBC.

They are an offshoot of LPC Law and tend to act in a debt collection capacity. But they let the mist as to whether they are pursuing as solicitors or as debt collectors confuse and pressurise people they are chasing. Our advice is to err on the side of caution and respond as if this is an authentic LBC from them - especially given the size of the potential claim.

However, to help you, any debt LBC issued from 1/10/17 has to follow the new PaP and issuers have to provide the defendant with a whole raft of new information which doesn’t make it quite so easy for them to be dishing out LBCs. So read up on this and when you send a robust response to the LBC (example available in the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2) you list anything and everything you want from them in order for you to understand their claim and look at ways to resolve it.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/pdf/protocols/pre-action-protocol-for-debt-claims.pdf

Her car is registered as staff but it doesn't look like they have any evidence to prove she was on-duty at the time the tickets were issued. Does this work in her favour?

Well it could do, the onus would be on CPP to prove she was at work, but it would ultimately need a judge to decide, who could ask the simple question ‘Were you or were you not at work on those dates/times?’ I don’t need to remind you that telling porkies in court isn’t anyone’s best plan.

pappa_golf

Calvinm wrote: »

I don't think that's true, the signs in that car-park specifically state "This car park is private land and is for the use of Meadowhall Shopping Centre customers only. No parking for on-duty staff members". If she comes there on her day off to shop, surely that makes her a customer? How could they know if she's on-duty?

time sheet , clocking in card

Johno100

pappa_golf wrote: »

staff? is that 24/7

when its your day off , you are still "staff"

So if you work at a shopping centre and you (or another driver of the vehicle) goes to the centre for there own personal business on their day off they're meant to park in the staff car park?

Calvinm

pappa_golf wrote: »

time sheet , clocking in card

What I mean is, I don't think the people issuing out these tickets had access to that information. All they have is a sheet of registration plates of staff members there and just hand out tickets based on what matches, regardless if they are actually on duty or not. Or would time sheets be allowed to be accessed if this did go to court?