DCBL - Legal recovery action letter (do I ignore?)

jwr_14

Hi. First of all, I have read through the newbies thread in detail and also through similar forum posts to do with DCBL legal recovery action letters.

Just quickly, in summary I received a windscreen PCN from F1rst Parking in early March for parking at Aston University car park in early March without paying for a ticket. I was late for an exam and literally had no time to sort out a ticket there an then. I attend quite often and have paid for parking on every other occasion - something I offered to provide proof of as part of my initial appeal to F1rst Parking. The driver was never identified and the appeal failed. 

Back to my question, I understand from the newbie thread that any letter received from a debt collector (as DCBL are acting as in this case) should simply be ignored as it's not worth the paper it's written on. However I've read some conflicting information from other forum posts explaining that I should look to send the original PPC a SAR request to get all the information they hold on me, or to ask DCBL to put the debt on hold pending debt management advice? The debt currently stands at £100 original charge plus £60 for fees.

So far I've received 2 letters, one titled Notice of Debt Recovery, which from other blog posts I was advised to ignore, and a second most recent titled Legal recovery action. Both say This case is not subject to high court or bailiff action. As far as I'm aware there is no outstanding CCJ against me.

So, my question is, do I continue to ignore all correspondence from DCBL in the hope they go away? Should I be sending something to them like a SAR request, or speaking to them about putting the debt on hold, or should I be preparing something in advance for if I'm one of the unlucky ones whose case gets pursued through the court?

I can provide the full letter transcript if needed.

Thanks in advance for your help

Umkomaas

You can send a SAR at anytime. But your case (at the moment) appears only to be at debt collector stage, so there is no legal requirement on the debt collector to put anything on hold. If it comes to a formal Letter of Claim, giving you 30 days to respond and enclosing a number of formal documents, including a financial questionnaire, then that's the time to seek a hold for the seeking of 'debt advice' (which can buy time for a SAR response to be received). If you get a SAR in now, you'll be ahead of the game. 

jwr_14

Umkomaas said:

You can send a SAR at anytime. But your case (at the moment) appears only to be at debt collector stage, so there is no legal requirement on the debt collector to put anything on hold. If it comes to a formal Letter of Claim, giving you 30 days to respond and enclosing a number of formal documents, including a financial questionnaire, then that's the time to seek a hold for the seeking of 'debt advice' (which can buy time for a SAR response to be received). If you get a SAR in now, you'll be ahead of the game. 

Thanks for the reply. So should I make the SAR to the original PPC (F1rst Parking LLP)? 
Is there an official route I should go through to do this, or should I just use the contact email address provided on their website?

Fruitcake

Send the SAR to the DPO of the PPC. Their contact details should be on the privacy page of the PPC's website.
Include a copy of the V5C as proof of ID, or a redacted utility bill/bank statement.
The NEWBIES tells you the wording to use.

DCBL have two different departments. One is a debt collector and powerless. The other is a legal department who can issue court proceedings on behalf of a client. The former will tell you it is not the subject of high court action. The latter will (should) give 30 days to pay (which you don't) and include income and expenditure forms (which you do not fill in).

Get pics of the site and signage asap. Do not expect this to go away, however, should it resulting a court claim, this forum has an extremely good record. Only two losses so far this year out of several hundred cases.

jwr_14

Fruitcake said:

Send the SAR to the DPO of the PPC. Their contact details should be on the privacy page of the PPC's website.
Include a copy of the V5C as proof of ID, or a redacted utility bill/bank statement.
The NEWBIES tells you the wording to use.

DCBL have two different departments. One is a debt collector and powerless. The other is a legal department who can issue court proceedings on behalf of a client. The former will tell you it is not the subject of high court action. The latter will (should) give 30 days to pay (which you don't) and include income and expenditure forms (which you do not fill in).

Get pics of the site and signage asap. Do not expect this to go away, however, should it resulting a court claim, this forum has an extremely good record. Only two losses so far this year out of several hundred cases.

Highly possible that I'm being blind here, but I can't find SAR information anywhere on their website or any mention of their DPO. There is a privacy policy but that seems to be in relation to the website itself. There's a general sales@firstparking.co.uk email address but nothing else that I can see.

beamerguy

It is possible that they are not up to date with the law.  Send to the email shown
sales@firstparking.co.uk and marked for the personal attention of the Data Protection Officer

nosferatu1001

Write a letter then. Mark it to the attention of their Data Protection Officer
The ICO should be informed.