CST LAW and SMART PARKING

LawrenceES

Hi newbie here,
im In a bit of a pickle with cst right now, smart parking had issued two parking fines last year that I never received as I had moved address and apprently my car is not registered at my new one. About 6 months ago I started receiving letters from debt recovery plus and simply ignored them as I had never received any actual fine letters. 

About a month ago I received a letter from CST LAW as an Unpaid debt reminder before court, I missed the deadline due to completely forgetting about the letter due to work and life in general, found it today and called them, they have demanded I pay in order to stop court proceedings a reduced amount of £289 in full today or £85 a month for 4 months which I cannot afford!

the guy on the phone was ruthless, rude and angered me beyond belief so I ended the call, straight away they have text me a link and a PCN to pay. 

PLEASE ANYONE! Is there anything I can do! Me and my partner are trying to save for a mortgage and then mentioning a CCJ and a fine has terrified me.

DE_612183

you will not get a CCJ - this is just a debt collector - you cannot get a CCJ unless you go to court, lose and then don't pay.

Check the newbees thread, but I think the advice is until you get a court claim - do nothing.

What you should do though is get your V5 updated, and sent letters to inform of your new address and TELL THEM to ERASE the old address.

DE_612183

can you also tell us who the parking firm is, and which car park - that gives people an idea of the best advice you can be given to fight the invoice ( it's not a fine it's an invoice ).

Trainerman

If you have not already done so, update your V5 address at DVLA. There is a real £1000 fine possible there.

Coupon-mad

LawrenceES said:

Hi newbie here,
im In a bit of a pickle with cst right now, smart parking had issued two parking fines last year that I never received as I had moved address and apprently my car is not registered at my new one. About 6 months ago I started receiving letters from debt recovery plus and simply ignored them as I had never received any actual fine letters. 

About a month ago I received a letter from CST LAW as an Unpaid debt reminder before court, I missed the deadline due to completely forgetting about the letter due to work and life in general, found it today and called them, they have demanded I pay in order to stop court proceedings a reduced amount of £289 in full today or £85 a month for 4 months which I cannot afford!

the guy on the phone was ruthless, rude and angered me beyond belief so I ended the call, straight away they have text me a link and a PCN to pay. 

PLEASE ANYONE! Is there anything I can do! Me and my partner are trying to save for a mortgage and then mentioning a CCJ and a fine has terrified me.

Please phone them again, recording the call on another phone and post a link to the recording here (you can use Youtube). Don't record ANY personal names (theirs or yours) or data/refs, phone numbers, email addresses, car reg - stop recording while you answer security ID questions.

We'd like to use calls like that as evidence to the Government for the final Public Consultation.

And it's in your interests to record him, too:

You could use the recording as a basis to complain to Smart Parking, then to the BPA, that they are failing to abide by the BPA CoP which requires debt recovery to be paused, and a new PCN issued, when it is clear that the victim didn't yet receive the PCN.  Which must be re-served with appeal & discount available (BPA CoP v9 - Feb 2024).

Read it.  Mention the above in your call. Record their reply ... record the bullying.

You won't get a CCJ with us, as long as you tell them to ERASE THE OLD ADRESS.

Even if you get a claim, there's no CCJ and we help people defend and win.  Think of it as the ultimate debt resolution. Even if you lost at a hearing: no CCJ because you'd then pay (very rare).

Zero effect on credit rating as long as you do everything we advise and don't miss any court deadlines.

patient_dream

LawrenceES said:

the guy on the phone was ruthless, rude and angered me beyond belief so I ended the call, straight away they have text me a link and a PCN to pay. 

So the guy on the phone from CST was arrogant and ignorant, no surprise, the parking industry is full of them. A legal who employs a "Hooray Henry" SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE SRA as they are not fit to operate

And you DO NOT OWE £289 ... CST are scamming you with rubbish
DO NOT PAY CST A PENNY ..... 

These debt collector letters can only be referred to as "Sh_t for Brains"

LawrenceES

DE_612183 said:

can you also tell us who the parking firm is, and which car park - that gives people an idea of the best advice you can be given to fight the invoice ( it's not a fine it's an invoice ).

Hi, the parking firm was smart parking and the car park was a small one filled with potholes in sedgley,  dudley. It has been free for years until smart parking brought it! The times the “offences” occurred the machine were covered in black bags and the signage didn’t state anything about paying at that time! I have the pictures! Three other family members got fines around the same time and even when they appealed with pictures of the machines they did not accept appeal!

LawrenceES

DE_612183 said:

you will not get a CCJ - this is just a debt collector - you cannot get a CCJ unless you go to court, lose and then don't pay.

Check the newbees thread, but I think the advice is until you get a court claim - do nothing.

What you should do though is get your V5 updated, and sent letters to inform of your new address and TELL THEM to ERASE the old address.

If I do get a court claim doesn’t that mean it will be a county court judgement and I’m screwed or not? Sorry never had to deal with this stuff before.

KeithP

LawrenceES said:

DE_612183 said:

you will not get a CCJ - this is just a debt collector - you cannot get a CCJ unless you go to court, lose and then don't pay.

Check the newbees thread, but I think the advice is until you get a court claim - do nothing.

What you should do though is get your V5 updated, and sent letters to inform of your new address and TELL THEM to ERASE the old address.

If I do get a court claim doesn’t that mean it will be a county court judgement and I’m screwed or not? Sorry never had to deal with this stuff before.

Getting a Claim is not the same as getting a Judgment.
A Judgment will only happen once a court claim has been tried.

Coupon-mad

LawrenceES said:

DE_612183 said:

you will not get a CCJ - this is just a debt collector - you cannot get a CCJ unless you go to court, lose and then don't pay.

Check the newbees thread, but I think the advice is until you get a court claim - do nothing.

What you should do though is get your V5 updated, and sent letters to inform of your new address and TELL THEM to ERASE the old address.

If I do get a court claim doesn’t that mean it will be a county court judgement and I’m screwed or not? Sorry never had to deal with this stuff before.

No. A claim is obviously not a CCJ otherwise everyone we help every day would have a CCJ!

You should read the second post of the NEWBIES thread.  It's there to inform people who have no experience of this.  You'll learn that there is zero risk with what we do here.

troublemaker22

Smart Parking are usually among the easiest to beat because their PCNs don’t bother to use the statutory procedure to transfer the driver’s liability (if any) to the keeper. Provided you didn’t reveal who was driving on any phone calls or in any appeal it should be easy to win this one.