NCP Trace Debt recovery

Jimbobaroobob

Good evening all. 

My first post so please bear with me, note I have read the Newbie guide and sticky!
Long story short..I paid in full for parking at an NCP car park but I failed to fully enter my car registration into the ticket machine, only entering ‘L’ and missing the other 4 letters and 2 numbers due to a distraction. I have a photo of my ticket and NCP photos confirm my ticket covers me from arrival and until around 20 minutes after my departure time. 
I appealed the parking £100 penalty with NCP first and then Popla without success and hoped it would go away. 

I now have my first letter from trace debt recovery with a fee of £170.

I see all the advice to ignore any demands at the ‘Ignore the debt collectors’ stage.

The next stage after the debt recovery letters will be escalation to a solicitor (further costs) and I intend to ignore these too if I understand correctly.

After this stage if I read things correctly the recovery agency will revert back to NCP and issue of a small claim. 

The questions I have are
1. As I have already gone through the appeal process with NCP and POPLA, I have effectively acknowledged who was the driver. Does this void the option to appeal as if it was a ‘notice to keeper’?
2. Can anyone on this forum confirm that they have experienced similar and had success by ignoring the debt recovery agency and subsequent solicitors letters?

3. Is it likely that after the debt collection agency have not had success that NCP will ‘give up’ or do they routinely go for a small claim?

4. Can anyone confirm personal success in the event of it going to a small claim?
Many thanks
Jim

Redx

1) yes , POFA only protects a non driving keeper anyway , your account is better coming from the driver , a first person witness

2) depends what you mean by success ? The statute is 6 years , a long time

3) the latter , a small claim , eventually

4) check the successful court claim discussions on here for any examples , using a title to a well known hit record by Queen   Hint , AOBTD !!

The BPA CoP version 8 gives a discount for keying errors , plus it will be in the 2022 government CoP , plus if full payment was made there was no loss so the penalty rule seems to be engaged , mentioned in the Beavis case , it's a trivial matter not worthy of a court claim , so de minimis

Coupon-mad

 I failed to fully enter my car registration into the ticket machine, only entering ‘L’ and missing the other 4 letters and 2 numbers due to a distraction.

Are you SURE this was your fault and not an error of the machine?  Did you just assume it was you?

Do you still have the PDTicket from the machine?

Sounds like a system error either way, because why would the machine print a ticket when an impossible 'VRM' of one digit only?  You do see short and personalised numberplates but never one single letter alone.

Did NCP offer to settle at £20 for a keying error, before POPLA?

What was the date of the parking event?

D_P_Dance

4. Can anyone confirm personal success in the event of it going to a small claim?

It is thought that we win 99% of such cases.

Jimbobaroobob

Thanks all
Very good points you have all made here….
In hindsight I should have blamed the machine, I’m a bit baffled what went wrong here but remember helping a young mother use the adjacent machine as she was struggling while dealing with the child. I explained this in the appeal but no joy.
they initially offered me to reduce the fee to £10 as an administrative cost but I (foolishly) declined as I had paid for a ticket and in principal thought Popla would back me (foolishly again)
I cited that the technology should not have let me print a ticket without any registration numbers and the ANPR technology could have been used better to stop me or warn me I was leaving without payment but no Joy.

I’ll read up on the small claims process again in case we get that far on the newbie thread but I am concerned personally with no real knowledge of courts or law I may be out of my depth….

email received today and text message from Trace to ask to contact them.

I’m not sure if normal but after I had the negative Popla, I’ve had no reminder or anything at all since from NCP before getting the debt recovery letter with an increase from £100 to £170

patient_dream

Jimbobaroobob said:

email received today and text message from Trace to ask to contact them.

I’m not sure if normal but after I had the negative Popla, I’ve had no reminder or anything at all since from NCP before getting the debt recovery letter with an increase from £100 to £170

Why would you contact a money scammer ???  Block Trace on your phone and allocate their email to your spam folder ..... simples ... you must ignore them ... ZERO POWER

REMINDER .... YOU DO NOT OWE £170

Coupon-mad

I’m not sure if normal but after I had the negative Popla, I’ve had no reminder or anything at all since from NCP before getting the debt recovery letter with an increase from £100 to £170.

It's technically a breach of the BPA CoP para 24.4 but the way that mandatory rule is written, it technically seems only to apply to registered keepers (makes no sense that keepers should have two reminder letters before fake 'costs' get layered on, but drivers don't).

Jimbobaroobob

Ok thanks all
just to clarify, do I sit on my hands at this Debt collector stage and do nothing until the small claims stage, then follow the advice for small claims on the Newbie post?

Umkomaas

Jimbobaroobob said:

Ok thanks all
just to clarify, do I sit on my hands at this Debt collector stage and do nothing until the small claims stage, then follow the advice for small claims on the Newbie post?

That's what's been said. 

patient_dream

Jimbobaroobob said:

Ok thanks all
just to clarify, do I sit on my hands at this Debt collector stage and do nothing until the small claims stage, then follow the advice for small claims on the Newbie post?

One word YES

NCP tend to use a legal called called BWLegal who follow this forum.  The regulars on here are professionals and these court cases are much the same comprising of copy and paste with some nonsense thrown in

We cannot guarantee what a judge will say and that applies to BWLegal as well ?  BWLegal hate this forum and a win for them becomes less and less

If it does go to court, it will be months away from now. Do come back here if you get a letter before claim trying to collect this monopoly money.   

D_P_Dance

 with an increase from £100 to £170

They have added what appears to be an extra unlawful amount for debt collection.

This amounts to double recovery and Judges all over the country are dismissing these spurious additions. Indeed some judges have dismissed entire claims because of this. Read this and complain to Trading Standards and your MP,

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V%20Excel%20v%20Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

However, VCS appealed this so it may not apply in all cases, read this

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ntksx9g7177ahyg/VCS v Percy v1 Amendments (2).pdf?dl=0Also read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6279348/witness-statements-2-transcripts-re-parking-firms-false-costs-recorder-cohen-qc-judgment-2021/p1

Also consider complaining to The SRA about the solicitor, if one is involved They are fully aware of the unlawful nature of most of thse additions yet persist in adding them..

https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/