Parking ticket paid but still being taken to court

LordNolo

Hi all

I recently received an email in mid July asking for payment of £160 with documents showing my vehicle parked in a private car park, a copy of an NTK and a PCN and giving me 14 days to pay. I at first thought this was a hoax email, however it turned out to be in relation to a demand for payment on a parking ticket from November 2016 that was sent to me in June  2021 (I do not have this letter anymore as it was shredded after a year).

It turns out when I received the letter in June 2021 I had sent an email to the company who had sent it asking for evidence in respect of this ticket and it took over a year for this evidence to be sent. I had (due to the length of time being over a year) forgotten all about sending an email asking for evidence and so the email demanding in July (which was not sent as a reply to my original email) came totally out of the blue. I followed up to it asking for the request to be put in writing to my home address, expecting that this would mean a letter of claim would be sent to me. I had no reply to this email but in the meantime did some research and realised it was in response to the letter I had received in June 2021 and the subsequent email I had sent asking for evidence. The 14 days elapsed without a letter before claim materialising but on the following payday (two days after the 14 day deadline they gave had elapsed) I decided to make the payment of £160 anyway as i have previously lost a court case for not paying a parking ticket in the past which ended up costing me about £220 (they had asked for more than this but I got the interest charged reduced, and the additional £60 that had been added removed). I sent an email to the company to state that I had made the payment and now considered the matter settled. 

To my mind paying £160 and saving myself the stress and anxiety of another court case that I may well lose again was worth not having to deal any further with the matter. Unfortunately later that day, when the post arrived, I had a letter from Northampton County Court advising me that a small claim had been entered against me for nearly £300. Therefore I went on to money claims online and responded to the case explaining all of the above stating that I had already made payment despite not having any of the details in writing that I'd asked for. 

I received a response from the court in writing stating that they had reached out to the claimant asking if they wished to proceed further with the case (I can't remember the exact wording of the reply). 

I assumed at this point that as the debt was paid that would be the end of the matter. 

However, I have now been sent an email from the company with an N180 stating that they wish to proceed with the court case. I have replied to them to ask why on the basis that the debt has already been paid to them and to ask why when I asked them to put their correspondence in writing to me this request was ignored. To date I have had no response. 

I'm not sure what the best next steps are here now? I don't really want to have to go through a court case, especially when I've already made a payment, but at the same time I don't really want to fork out even more money that I can ill afford to pay, therefore I'd be grateful to hear if anyone has had a similar experience. Is it worth me writing to the parking company directly to explain that this has already been paid and asking that they ask their intermediary to stand down? Or is that a waste of my time.

N.B. I haven't included names of the companies involved as I don't want to prejudice any case that I have

Thanks

Andrew 

Coupon-mad

I decided to make the payment of £160 anyway as i have previously lost a court case for not paying a parking ticket in the past which ended up costing me about £220 (they had asked for more than this but I got the interest charged reduced, and the additional £60 that had been added removed). I sent an email to the company to state that I had made the payment and now considered the matter settled. 

Looks like you haven't defended the claim?

I went on to money claims online and responded to the case explaining all of the above stating that I had already made payment despite not having any of the details in writing that I'd asked for. 

Can you clarify, which box did you put that in on MCOL? Did you state you would 'defend in full' and then clicked 'start defence' and put in the above as your defence?

Or...did you make a partial admission?

The MCOL record will say which.

LordNolo

Hi - thanks for getting back to me - MCOL form asked for me to submit a defence on the basis it was paid in full. So it looks like a full defence has been submitted. 

patient_dream

N.B. I haven't included names of the companies involved as I don't want to prejudice any case that I have

It will not prejudice your case, each scam parking company and dodgy legal have a trait and we can assist

They all read this forum, they have to see the rubbish they spout and understand you are not a mug

Le_Kirk

LordNolo said:

Hi - thanks for getting back to me - MCOL form asked for me to submit a defence on the basis it was paid in full. So it looks like a full defence has been submitted. 

What, exactly did you put in the box on MCOL?  It is restricted to 120 lines and destroys any formatting you use.

Coupon-mad

LordNolo said:

Hi - thanks for getting back to me - MCOL form asked for me to submit a defence on the basis it was paid in full. So it looks like a full defence has been submitted. 

I am not sure.

Tell us what MCOL status says.

defended or part admission?

LordNolo

Coupon-mad said:

LordNolo said:

Hi - thanks for getting back to me - MCOL form asked for me to submit a defence on the basis it was paid in full. So it looks like a full defence has been submitted. 

I am not sure.

Tell us what MICOL status says.

defended or part admission?

Hi - sorry for the delay in coming back to you. It says defence submitted and defence received and gives me a defence summary. Nothing about a part admissioon

Coupon-mad

That's good.  It sounded like you'd possibly clicked on a part admission instead of defending in full.

They will almost certainly discontinue later.

Is it worth me writing to the parking company directly to explain that this has already been paid and asking that they ask their intermediary to stand down? Or is that a waste of my time.

You can try.  Which PPC?

N.B. I haven't included names of the companies involved as I don't want to prejudice any case that I have.

You won't be prejudiced.  Please tell us which 'barely legal' firm is bothering you and which parking firm is their worthless client?

LordNolo

Thanks -  DCB legal is the parking ticket company and vehicle control services is the client. From reading the forums it appears it may have been worth trying to defend the case in full and not paying them the £160 but in all honesty having been through a case of this nature before and being unsuccessful I just didn't want to devote the time to going through it all again. From reading some forum posts it seems that they don't always notify the clients that payment has been received so I'm going to reach out to the client to let them know. 

Fruitcake

Correction, Vehicle Control Services (VCS) is the parking company. DCB Legal are their solicitors.