Parked unaware due to mental health in 2015, now received a Letter of Claim

Le_Kirk

Please consider how your company is liable for how CP Plus conducts itself in your name. The firm is acting excessively aggressively in a sensitive time for all people of the world. Can you imagine how this common, exceptional stress is affecting me, a person with long-standing anxiety problems?

Just one small change - I like your attitude, let's hope they read and act upon your missive.

moonpie1963

I wrote this as a letter to my MP, but I'm not sure about the call to action... not sure what there is to actually do for this problem at parliament. I also need to add a call to pressure MOTO to behave better. Opinions?
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I’m writing out of concern for a considerable problem that many Britons face in the most ordinary of circumstances, that of driving, or rather, parking. I came to this situation from personal experience, but it is my understanding through research that this problem is widespread and is in no way restricted to the company or location in which I have encountered it.

Did you know there are parking companies, hired by retailers and other private landowners, that charge unfair fees to motorists observing road safety by staying off the roads when they are tired or in distress, who then harass these motorists into paying the fees in addition to unenforceable ‘administration fees’ which can double the amount the company is claiming? Enquire at the Citizens Advice Bureau and you will see that this is the case all too often, especially in current times when these dodgy companies are desperately pressuring regular suffering people into paying their unfair and unenforceable fees by threatening to take them to court!

In my own case, I was stopping at a service station to relax after experiencing physical distress that I feared would cause me to drive unsafely. My wife and I had been to this station many times before and not once had we noticed any signs indicating there was a parking limit or how to pay any fees. Once I felt like it was safe to drive again, we turned around and went home. A little over a week later, we had a letter claiming we owed £100 for staying two hours over the free parking limit!

This is a thing they do! It’s part of their business practice! They place small signs in inconspicuous locations, they make it difficult for you to pay the regular fees, and then they come after you regardless of your reasoning. We tried to explain to them it  was a matter of safety and a lack of signage and they coldly rejected our appeal with a form email.

We are by far not the only people to have been targeted by these companies. A parking (code of practice) bill was debated in parliament on 2 February 2018 in which MPs told many stories of their constituents receiving aggressive and manipulative demands for payments of parking charge notices they should never have been issued. They discuss how they have tried to engage these companies on the subject and been paid lip service, the fee dropped by no changes to process or infrastructure made. The term ‘parking charge notice’, or PCN, alone is a confidence game meant to confuse the motorist into believing the parking company has more authority than it does, leading us to believe it is the same a penalty charge notice from a local authority.

You can read the content of this debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-02-02/debates/CC84AF5E-AC6E-4E14-81B1-066E6A892807/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill I strongly encourage it! We are being taken advantage of, yet the act that was passed in March 2019 has done nothing for motorists like me. None of the suggestions from the previously mentioned debate were enacted in this bill that would truly protect me!

I beg you to consider taking these earlier suggestions back to parliament, to take these cowboy parking companies to task. There may not be anything you can do for me or my family now. But you can bolster the Parking Act 2019 with these and you will be doing your constituents a service indeed.

I would greatly appreciate hearing back from you on what you intend to do about this.

Coupon-mad

You can read the content of this debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-02-02/debates/CC84AF5E-AC6E-4E14-81B1-066E6A892807/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill I strongly encourage it! We are being taken advantage of, yet the act that was passed in March 2019 has done nothing for motorists like me.

That's because COVID delayed the Code of Practice drafts but it was still worked on and went out for public consultation in September/October 2020 (five months ago).  As was reported here at the time, that final weekend, we witnessed under 1000 comments, mainly from the public, get literally buried under copy & paste responses from the industry, taking it to lord knows how many thousand.  

Talk about delay tactics from the industry.  That also bombarded the consultation with white noise demanding to be able to clamp again!

Picking through that lot can't be easy but this forum is hopeful of seeing the new COP and framework coming to fruition later this year.  

moonpie1963

I have now sent the complaint to MOTO, SAR to CP Plus, and response to DCB Legal... will send the letter to my MP tomorrow after I look it over again. My partner read everything over first and actually said he is proud of me. I was stunned, this has been an absolutely horrible experience.

Le_Kirk

Get that complaint sent to MOTO.

moonpie1963

Lol that should've read I have *now* sent the complaint. Sorry, fixed it.

moonpie1963

I've got a reply from CP Plus' DPO requesting identification (I forgot to attach the utility bill, ofc). I'm reading up on GDPR for how to argue against providing the ID and proof of ownership. (A. They shouldn't have anything so sensitive it requires an ID, that would be an unreasonable measure, and B. They already know he was the owner on the 'date in [the] request' or they wouldn't have any of our data).

But what about timing? Should I hurry to reply to them because they will be able to file the claim if I do not do it within the original 30 day limit?

nosferatu1001

Yes, of cvourse you supply appropriate ID - utility bills -ASAP
The SAR is totally separate from their ability to file a claim. Nothing to do with it whatsoever

Le_Kirk

nosferatu1001 said:

Yes, of course you supply appropriate ID - utility bills -ASAP
The SAR is totally separate from their ability to file a claim. Nothing to do with it whatsoever

It is normally enough to submit a scan of the PCN (if you still have it/ever received it) plus a scan of the V5C (if it relates to the same car) or finally the utility bills BUT not driving licence or passport.

moonpie1963

Yes, we do not own the car anymore, so I'm sending a utility bill. Good call on the PCN, it's good faith if nothing else.