Gladstones Solicitors Letter Before Claim

bas32

Hi, I have received this letter telling me to either pay £160 "fine" in a time of 30 days or face court, which I have no experience on. I have been ignoring the letters demanding payment since I received the parking notice in May.


Bottom line is I dont really want to go to court and defend myself so I would prefer to just pay £160 and get these scammers off my back and hopefully never see them again.


However, I do not know how I should pay them. I logged in online and no outstanding balance is shown, despite entering the right refernece number so typing in my debit card details seems dodgey. Alternatively I could pay by bank transfer but that does not seem safe AT ALL,


Help would be appreciated, thanks

Fruitcake

If you want to pay, you are asking the wrong people. We give up our time for free to help people with unfair parking charges who don't want to pay, not help put money in the pockets of scammers so they can scam others.

You will get help here if you want to defend the court claim, and this forum has a very good success rate. Incidentally, the claim can't be for £160 as that includes a double charge which isn't allowed.

The advice to ignore has not been given here since the law changed in 2012. If you really want to pay the scammers, why not ask the people who gave you incorrect old advice to have a whip round?

bas32

I would try a defence if it was unfair, but the private parking was (somewhat) clearly displayed (hidden behind a wall which you cannot see until you park there).

It was right next to a council car park which was free as it was a Sunday, giving the impression the whole car park was free.

I'm not sure I can defend such a case surely?

nosferatu1001

WEll, if you tell the world who drove the car, then youre throwing away one very good defence - keeper liability. Not all Parking firms manage to hold the keeper liable.

By any chance does it tell you to pay DRP?

bas32

Nope, it's directly to Gladstone's ( reference number is 1xxxxx.xxxx) and I've been given 30 days to reply (24th of December is the date on the paper)

Coupon-mad

bas32 wrote: »

I would try a defence if it was unfair, but the private parking was (somewhat) clearly displayed (hidden behind a wall which you cannot see until you park there).

It was right next to a council car park which was free as it was a Sunday so I had assumed these parking spots were free too as all the others were taken.

I'm not sure I can defend such a case surely?

What, even though the NEWBIES thread tells you how, and tells you that we see wins 99% of the time, with just a handful of defended cases reported as lost each year, and hundreds won?

ALL private parking charges are unfair, the entire industry is rotten and operates an 'outrageous scam' as outed in Parliament in 2018, and a Bill is working its way through to try to curb the worst rip off practices.

Every single poster has a case to defend, everyone potentially, can win.

Bottom line is I don't really want to go to court and defend myself so I would prefer to just pay £160 and get these scammers off my back and hopefully never see them again.

No, you don't.

We are here to help people win, it's what we do to beat these scams.

Your stage is fully covered in the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread and why not search the forum for another one bites the dust to read all the successes v Gladstones?!

nosferatu1001

SO edit post 1, so we cant work out who drove.

OP - its up to you if you want to pay, but you could just easilty enough send a cheque into them, with the ref number on it in a covering letter. Its not a difficult concept.
Defending? You'll get help
Rolling over a tthe simplest step? Nope.

bas32

Okay, so should I send the parking firm an email asking for evidence regarding the incident and the solicitors an email stating I've done so?
Should I use a template or write my own and if so, how do I go about writing it?


Should I send the parking firm a SAR?


Edit: It seems that Gladstones have no email to contact them or I am blind, and sending a letter is risky as I assume that they are well known for "letters never arriving".