I emailed the Land Owner and Recovery Plus were called off (email included)

downwithdebtrecoveryplus

Hi All,

I thought I would share my experience to help lend additional validity to - and confidence in - the information and procedures outlined in these forums, to help people avoid paying exorbitant and extremely sketchy invoices to any of these awful PCN and debt recovery companies.

To briefly outline our situation... I was sent a PCN notification in November last year for allegedly failing to pay for the duration of parking in the car park at our local leisure centre. We had supposedly stayed slightly longer than the hour we had paid for. For additional context, we always pay for parking and the process of paying for parking had just been changed.

I didn't pay the original PCN within the required timeframes - reduced rate or full - and the matter was promptly passed to the notorious 'Debt Recovery Plus'. Cue frequent threatening letters, etc.

At some point I hopped on these forums and read through the 'Newbies start here' posts. I had already missed the standard appeals window, but decided to follow the advice to contact to the land owner, requesting that the PCN should be cancelled and the hounds called off.

I did that last week, and this morning, I received an email telling me that the PCN has been cancelled and Debt Recovery Plus has been told to return to its kennel.

I wanted to say a quick thank you to all the admins on here for all of the extremely thorough advice. Below is the email I wrote to the manager of the leisure centre, just in case it's useful. I was careful not to admit any liability, and took the line of complaint rather than appeal (not least because I was genuinely aggrieved to have been so harassed by DRP!). It may not be the best email example, but it did the trick!

To the Manager of Waltham Forest Feel Good Centre,

I am writing to complain about the handling of an alleged infraction, relating to a vehicle registered in my name. Despite never receiving a letter or notification of the Parking Penalty Charge Number (PCN) from the company that operates your customer car park - Gemini Parking Solutions - I have been sent letters from a company called Debt Recovery Plus, demanding payment of £170 for an alleged offence, which I have no knowledge of.

My wife and I have been using the Feel Good Centre since we moved to Walthamstow in 2016, and our two sons regularly attend swimming classes at the centre. When we drive, we always pay for parking.

I am outraged that we are being hounded by a debt recovery company, which is threatening to take us to court unless we pay an exorbitant and completely unjustifiable sum to avoid doing so.

My understanding is that as the landowner/responsible tenant for the car park, you have the ability to cancel this Parking Charge, and I would urge you to do the right thing and to contact Gemini Parking Solutions to cancel this parking charge and to instruct their debt recovery contractors to stop harassing me and my family with threatening letters.

We love the Feel Good centre and every other interaction we have there has been a great experience. The way we are being treated by your parking contractor is a real taint on that experience and is making us really question the way you treat local people.

Please reply to this email ASAP and advise how you intend to proceed.

Gemini's PCN for your reference: xxxxxxxxxxxx

Kind regards

Coupon-mad

... I decided to follow the advice to contact to the land owner, requesting that the PCN should be cancelled and the hounds called off.

I did that last week, and this morning, I received an email telling me that the PCN has been cancelled and Debt Recovery Plus has been told to return to its kennel.

I wanted to say a quick thank you to all the admins on here for all of the extremely thorough advice.

Kennel...LOL!

Nicely done.

Albeit, I strongly suggest you immediately go and get your V5C ... because it has your old address on it, doesn't it? That's the reason for the first letter being a thug DRA threatogram, almost invariably.

Secondly: do more people see this, can you please post - and show your example complaint - in SUCCESSFUL COMPLAINTS ABOUT PPCs. *

* EDIT:

I see @Umkomaas already has:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81286651/#Comment_81286651