Parking Charge passed to Debt Recovery

AlexS_77

Me and my Dad rent some coworking office which recently (late September/early October) implementing a paying for parking policy, which we do not pay for. The initial signage said Monday to Friday 5am-10pm you have to be on a whitelist to park. As this is an office with a gym, many people have to transport office equipment and would also like to use the gym so we queried both of these points and were told by reception staff that it would be a relaxed policy after 5pm. 

In November I received a PCN from Smart Parking, the usual £60 pay within 2 weeks and then up to £100 etc. about using the carpark at ~7pm on 22/10/2024 and my dad also received a PCN for another date that I cant recall, we queried this with the building landlord who said he would get these removed, so we didn't pay it. We both get no follow up messages from Smart Parking so we treated that as problem resolved. 

Now today we both receive correspondence from Debt Recovery Plus (dated 20th December, so 8 days ago) that Smart Parking have passed the debt onto them and we both now owe £170 (assuming the £100 plus an admin fee) which we need to pay by the 3rd of Jan. Their website FAQ  says we should have received reminder letters from Smart Parking which we never received otherwise we would have chased this up with the landlord. I cannot contact DRP until Monday because they are closed, which leaves me with 5 days to get this resolved, with one of them being New Years Day, which they will be closed for as well. As it's the festive period, getting hold of and resolving with the landlord and Smart Parking in 4 days will be almost impossible, how do we proceed with this? and when contacting DRP on Monday what are the right things to say?

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

The fourth post of the NEWBIES thread explains exactly how to deal with debt collector's letters, but to summarise that post - ignore them.

Coupon-mad

AlexS_77 said:

when contacting DRP on Monday what are the right things to say?

Eh? "When contacting DRP"?

You are obviously not going to do that!

Scotland or England? Either way:

Please read the 4th post of the NEWBIES thread, then search the forum for:

Smart Parking Debt Recovery Plus ignore

AlexS_77

Coupon-mad said:

AlexS_77 said:

when contacting DRP on Monday what are the right things to say?

Eh? "When contacting DRP"?

You are obviously not going to do that!

Scotland or England? Either way:

Please read the 4th post of the NEWBIES thread, then search the forum for:

Smart Parking Debt Recovery Plus ignore

why should I not contact them?

KeithP

AlexS_77 said:

Coupon-mad said:

AlexS_77 said:

when contacting DRP on Monday what are the right things to say?

Eh? "When contacting DRP"?

You are obviously not going to do that!

Scotland or England? Either way:

Please read the 4th post of the NEWBIES thread, then search the forum for:

Smart Parking Debt Recovery Plus ignore

why should I not contact them?

Because they are harmless and not worth any effort on your part.

Now... please read The fourth post of the NEWBIES thread before asking any more questions.

Gr1pr

because all they can do is bully you into making full payment, that is their M.O.

so unless you were foolish enough to pay them the £170 in full, which we do not agree with, then you do not contact them at all. they are completely powerless, no authority and should never be contacted, which the 4th post in the newbies sticky thread explains

DO NOT CONTACT POWERLESS DEBT COLLECTORS

there are no imminent deadlines, its all make believe

AlexS_77

Gr1pr said:

because all they can do is bully you into making full payment, that is their M.O.

so unless you were foolish enough to pay them the £170 in full, which we do not agree with, then you do not contact them at all. they are completely powerless, no authority and should never be contacted, which the 4th post in the newbies sticky thread explains

DO NOT CONTACT POWERLESS DEBT COLLECTORS

there are no imminent deadlines, its all make believe

the post just said to not contact them, didn't say why not, unless I am misreading it, so thank you for the explanation

Coupon-mad

But I also gave you exact copy & paste search words in bold, to read threads like yours and learn about it.

Gr1pr

OK, well go back to plan A and complain about these PCNs to the landlord, giving copies and insisting that the pcns are cancelled ASAP,  be forceful about it,  starting in January,  next month , when they are available again 

So yes, you do contact somebody,  that somebody is the landlord or the person who hired Smart parking 

Also insist that all the VRM details are added to the whitelist ASAP too

In other words,  keep having a pop at the organ grinder and ignore the powerless dancing monkeys