Help - DPL/Parking Eye/ZZPS/DCBL

Rec001

Hoping someone can help. Having spent the last couple of days looking through all the posts i couldn't find what im looking for of the next steps to follow so would appreciate some guidance. 

So for a bit of context work for a recovery company who attend a hotel next to an airport (based in Scotland) on a regular basis to collect broken down vehicles, our vehicles are leased. 

We have received the below and unsure what to do regarding next steps:

- Letter received from Parking Eye on 26th March 2020 dated 22nd March 2020 for a parking charge issued on 13th March 2020 for £100. Contacted them straight away on 26th March to advise of the reason for us being there which could be confirmed by the hotel and cameras and that the ticket would not be paid for this reason and have received no response from them. We have just received a letter dated 8th March 2022 on 28th March 2022 from Debt Recovery Plus advising to pay parking charge of £170 by 22nd March however we didn't receive it until after this date. 

- Letter received from DCBL dated 23rd June 2021, date of contravention 16th July 2019. We responded to them requesting information as we have received no previous communication from Parking Eye with regards to this charge, No response was received from DCBL. Letter received from Debt Recovery Plus on 28th February 2022 dated 18th Feb 2022. Replied to them the same as DCBL. Received reply from them on 29th March 2022 dated 7th March 2022 advising that the time to challenge has expired and it is to be paid (£170). 

- Lease company received a letter on 28th March 2022 dated 8th March 2022 from ZZPS for a final warning for a £170 outstanding amount on a charge from 2nd February 2022, They/ourselves have received zero communication from Parking Eye or anyone else so have no images etc or paperwork relating to this so do not have reference or anything to contact Parking Eye to discuss. Lease company have then received a letter yesterday 29th March from GCTT advising it has been transferred to them for payment or they will be pursuing the matter through courts. 

All communication we have done has been through the companies websites. 

Do we contact the hotel in question to see if this is something they can resolve?
We obviously have details of the customers we were attending at this location on these dates however GDPR/Data Protection. 

Just really unsure where to go from here and any help would be appreciated. 

The_Slithy_Tove

Why is ZZPS writing to the lease company when you have already been in contact? Does PE have your name and address as the person to correspond with after you contacted them in 2020? Be careful. If companies are writing to a lease company, the lease company could (a) pay up and try to charge you and (b) charge you an admin fee for their efforts anyway. You want neither.

On the upside, PE tend to do their own chasing. They normally only resort to debt collectors and the like when they know it's a lost cause and they know it's unlikely to go near court.

If the hotel in question is a Holiday Inn, you can try contacting them, but they have a record of being completely unhelpful.

Rec001

The letter is to the leasing company from ZZPS we have not been in touch regarding that one as we knew nothing about it until the leasing company advised us they have received a letter from ZZPS/GCTT. Thankfully our lease company isn't like the big leasing companies and they wont do admin charges etc. They tell us when they receive any communication so we are at least aware it (should) in theory reach us at some point. 
It's not a holiday inn however it does look to be a chain as such (unsure if it is a good idea to put the name of the hotel here). 
Would you recommend responding to the letters/contacting PE or just ignoring them?. It seems to have come in a wave like they are going through old cases and trying to claim money especially considering either ourselves or the leasing company have had zero communication or little communication. 
Is there a time limit in which they can claim in Scotland? 
Many Thanks for your response. 

Fruitcake

DRP and ZZPS are the same company. Different desk, same office. They are debt collectors and can safely be ignored.

When you say DCBL, do you mean DCB Limited or DCB Legal? The former are debt collectors and can safely be ignored. 

In Scotland, the vehicle keeper cannot (currently) be held liable, only the driver. If the PCNs have been sent to the lease company then it is their responsibility to deal with it as they see fit. They can either ignore them, or send the tear off strip to the PPC naming the hirer/lessee, who should then be sent a NTH.
If they don't tell the PPC who the hirer/lessee is, then it remains theirs to deal with and is nothing to do with you or anyone else.

Please clarify therefore whether you have received a NTH or not.

Complaints should always be made to the landowner.

In Scotland, the debt ceases to exist after five years.

In England and Wales, the debt may still exist but is statute barred after six years.

Rec001

We have not received any NTH on any of the documents we have received. 
Its got on the letter DCBL - Debt Collection Bailiffs Ltd.  Title of Letter is Notice of Intended Legal Action
The letters from Debt Recovery Plus only have pay your parking charge on them the one letter we have received from PE is a PCN reminder.
ZZPS is a final warning and GCTT is a warning before case is transferred to solicitors. 

Coupon-mad

This one is your major priority, to hook this away from the lease firm by making them transfer liability in writing, to you:

letter is to the leasing company from ZZPS we have not been in touch regarding that one as we knew nothing about it until the leasing company advised us they have received a letter from ZZPS/GCTT. 

All the rest is just trashy debt begging letters to ignore but keep as evidence, in case any of these do end up in court.  Unlikely, as PE do their own litigation.

Rec001

Do we need to do anything regarding the ZZPS or just leave it until we receive any communication in our name?

Fruitcake

As above, you need to instruct your lease company to tell ParkingEye that you are the hirer/lessee for all historic PCNs, and any future ones. They must do this each and every time because keeper liability is coming to a UK Nation near you, meaning they will be liable for these charges in the future.
Once you have a NTH in your/your company's name, you will easily be able to deal with them.

You should also tell the landowner what's going on and get the charges cancelled, and get your vehicles put on a whitelist/exemption list.

Debt Recovery Plus, ZZPS, and DCB Limited can safely be ignored. I have no experience of GCTT, but I suspect they are a Scottish DCA.
Parking companies are unlikely to start legal action in Scotland for individual tickets, but very likely to pursue multiple tickets in the future, so you need to get this under control now.

Coupon-mad

They've been mentioned before.  GCTT are from the same grubby stable as ZZPS, I think.

These are the sort of dodgy firms that need to fall away from the parking industry entirely, IMHO.  There's no place for their aggressive approach and they can go swivel if they think they can add £70 per PCN!

Roxburghe were banned by the OFT for a reason.  ZZPS - the phoenix firm - deserve to be similarly shunned.  Firms like them have actually caused woe to the parking industry, not just consumers.

If some PPCs could get their heads out of the sand and see that DRAs and the roboclaim lot have actually caused much of what's happened in the new framework/Code and DRAs' greed actually stopped PPCs from collecting millions in PCNs that would otherwise have been paid years ago, they might just have the nous to move on to make the 'new normal' work for them.

Some won't survive and that's not a bad thing, if they can't - or won't - change.

Fruitcake

You are right. I've just remembered now that GCTT are a trading name of ZZPS, so they can safely be ignored as well.

Rec001

Phoned the hotel to speak to them, spoke to the manager who then put me onto the "general manager" of the hotel who was disgustingly rude on the phone. Kept huffing and puffing every time i asked a question, became very agressive with "do you want me to help you" comments.
Tried to get clarification on what the best process is to follow for our guys to ensure we dont get any other parking fines and resolution of the ones we currently have. He said our guys need to go in and put the details of their vehicle on the machine and pay a charge i said well we shouldn't be charged because we are their to assist there guests and customers not for parking. So then advised our guys need to speak to a member of staff so they don't get charged which is fine we can do. 
They wont put us on any white list as we are not a supplier apparently attending their guests is not a valid reason and as we are not paying them money they wont put us on list so this doesn't happen. 

So to ask question after my wee rant....

I have been advised to email him with the parking eye reference (he did originally ask for me to email him copy of each letter) as the debt letter references are no use to them as we have only received one letter from parking eye which i can provide however the other letters we have received is from the debt agencies which don't have the Parking Eye reference on them. Will i go directly to parking eye or contact the debt companies to get all the references to be able to provide this so they can have these one's cancelled?

Many Thanks