Llangrannog victim - OPS / Moorside Legal

morini3andahalf

Hi everyone,

New here, though I read through a lot of threads before signing up for an account. I can confirm I have read the newbies thread in full (several times!) to try and understand what I need to do to beat these parasites if I end up in court.

My wife and I went for a short break to West Wales in July last year and on one of the days we visited Llangrannog for a walk along the coast. Parked up in the beach carpark not realising it was a no-go parking scam site. I paid for a 2 hour ticket using the pay and display machine on the site. Unfortunately the machine would not let me key in my full VRN, when I keyed in the first character the machine went straight to the payment screen. I completed the transaction anyway and paid the £3 fee by google pay / contactless. The machine printed out my ticket with only the first letter of my VRN shown but I put it on the dashboard anyway. I did quickly look around to see if the site was manned, but soon realised it was ANPR. Decided at that point it would be a good idea to keep the P&D ticket in case of problems down the line (I still have it).

On returning home a PCN arrived on the doormat a few days later - £100 reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. I really wish I'd come here at this point, but unfortunately, like a bull in a china shop, I went through the OPS appeal process and POPLA before doing any proper research. The OPS appeal was rejected virtually instantly but they did offer to reduce the penalty to £20 for a "keying error" if I paid up without appealing to POPLA. My wife wanted to accept this as a quick and easy way to "make it go away", but I'm way more stubborn and there's no way I'm paying a penny to these muppets. Besides, it was NOT a keying error, their machine caused the problem. POPLA sided with OPS saying it is clear in the T&C's that I had to provide a full VRN, they didn't seem to care that the machine would not allow me to comply. Foolishly, because I hadn't done my homework before appealing, I admitted to being the driver.

At this point I wrote a complaint email to Ben Lake, the MP for Ceredigion expressing my outrage at the way OPS operate this car park. I got a response back from his office indicating that this parking company is notorious and they have had many complaints. I'm hoping this response might be useful in a witness statement further down the line? Googling further, I found there is a lot of unhappiness with OPS at Llangrannog and I have read all the complaints on trip advisor along with the information on the Llangrannog welfare site.

I'm probably starting this thread too early as I have not got a letter before claim yet. However, there are a few things making me anxious.

So far I have had four (ignored) debt collector threat-o-grams claiming I owe £170, two from ZZPS and two from GCTT, the last of which informing me if I do not respond they will be passing the case on to solicitors. A couple of weeks after the last GCTT letter I received two calls on my mobile from a number my phone flagged as "spam", I let both go through to voicemail and messages were left. I did listen to the messages, they were automated (not left by a person) something along the lines of "You have outstanding legal business with Moorside Legal ....". At this point I'd never heard of Moorside Legal so deleted the messages as I thought it was just spam. However, the following week I received a letter from Moorside and the penny dropped that it was to do with the OPS PCN. The letter doesn't look like a LBC I don't think, it looks just like the other £170 threat letters. Am I ok to ignore it like the others?

What I want to know is where did Moorside get my phone number? For me this is harassment on another level. Debt collector letters are one thing as I know the DVLA passed on my address to OPS. I'm really not happy with my phone number being circulated around these dodgy firms.

Is there any point in my sending OPS a SAR? If they do have my phone number I'd like to know how.

Apologies for the length of this post.

Gr1pr

Ignore it unless it says its a Letter of Claim and mentions a 30 day deadline 

The LoC is where you join the process

Tracing people and their phone numbers is common industry practice,  not difficult in this electronic age 

You can send a SAR to the various parties a few months after any future court claim,  so at the right time 

Let them make mistakes,  knowing the correct point to engage in battle is the clever option,  too early yet, so curb your curiosity,  you know what happened to the curious cat  !

Coupon-mad

morini3andahalf said:

Hi everyone,

New here, though I read through a lot of threads before signing up for an account. I can confirm I have read the newbies thread in full (several times!) to try and understand what I need to do to beat these parasites if I end up in court.

My wife and I went for a short break to West Wales in July last year and on one of the days we visited Llangrannog for a walk along the coast. Parked up in the beach carpark not realising it was a no-go parking scam site. I paid for a 2 hour ticket using the pay and display machine on the site. Unfortunately the machine would not let me key in my full VRN, when I keyed in the first character the machine went straight to the payment screen. I completed the transaction anyway and paid the £3 fee by google pay / contactless. The machine printed out my ticket with only the first letter of my VRN shown but I put it on the dashboard anyway. I did quickly look around to see if the site was manned, but soon realised it was ANPR. Decided at that point it would be a good idea to keep the P&D ticket in case of problems down the line (I still have it).

On returning home a PCN arrived on the doormat a few days later - £100 reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. I really wish I'd come here at this point, but unfortunately, like a bull in a china shop, I went through the OPS appeal process and POPLA before doing any proper research. The OPS appeal was rejected virtually instantly but they did offer to reduce the penalty to £20 for a "keying error" if I paid up without appealing to POPLA. My wife wanted to accept this as a quick and easy way to "make it go away", but I'm way more stubborn and there's no way I'm paying a penny to these muppets. Besides, it was NOT a keying error, their machine caused the problem. POPLA sided with OPS saying it is clear in the T&C's that I had to provide a full VRN, they didn't seem to care that the machine would not allow me to comply. Foolishly, because I hadn't done my homework before appealing, I admitted to being the driver.

At this point I wrote a complaint email to Ben Lake, the MP for Ceredigion expressing my outrage at the way OPS operate this car park. I got a response back from his office indicating that this parking company is notorious and they have had many complaints. I'm hoping this response might be useful in a witness statement further down the line?

So far I have had four (ignored) debt collector threat-o-grams claiming I owe £170, two from ZZPS and two from GCTT, the last of which informing me if I do not respond they will be passing the case on to solicitors.

A couple of weeks after the last GCTT letter I received two calls on my mobile from a number my phone flagged as "spam", I let both go through to voicemail and messages were left. I did listen to the messages, they were automated (not left by a person) something along the lines of "You have outstanding legal business with Moorside Legal ....". At this point I'd never heard of Moorside Legal so deleted the messages as I thought it was just spam.

However, the following week I received a letter from Moorside and the penny dropped that it was to do with the OPS PCN. The letter doesn't look like a LBC I don't think, it looks just like the other £170 threat letters. Am I ok to ignore it like the others?

@ParkingMad (my fellow Brighton lady PCN fighter) knows a lot about Llangrannog cases.  She might add a reply here with useful info.

You'll win in court, if Moorside issue a claim which we expect they will.  No worries!  We'll help you. Loads of experience of OPS here. And yes you can use the MP's response as evidence.

Tell your wife from me that she's wrong to have wanted to pay (horrific ex-clampers) OPS £20 to make it go away. Don't be anxious.

ParkingMad

OPS know that the P&D machine is faulty. Here is a video of the issue from June 2023-

https://youtube.com/shorts/FthD--xZARw?feature=share

The video is from the Llangrannog Welfare Committee website, which I know you’ve already found, where there is more information and also photos of the signage, which might be helpful in a witness statement.

https://llangrannogwelfare.org/beachfront-car-park

morini3andahalf

Thanks all. I will sit tight and wait for Moorsides next move,

I would just like to say I think all you ladies and gents on here do a stellar job helping ordinary people like me. As a layman having zero legal knowledge I would not feel confident to defend this on my own.

kryten3000

I've helped several people win at this location, one lady didn't pay at all.
 
There are recent Excel cases where the motorist did not enter the full VRM or in one case entered "Ford" instead.  
These have all been successful in court because payment was made for the duration of the stay.

I also helped a gentleman (at a different location) who couldn't enter the correct VRM because the letters were so faded on the keyboard. This claim was also dismissed

One of the team over on the Facebook groups has been collecting examples of how these machines switch to the payment screen before the full VRM is entered, it is completely deliberate and all part of the scam.

morini3andahalf

I received a letter of claim from Moorside Legal through the post today. I understand I have 30 days to respond to this and as per post 2 in the newbies thread it should be done via email rather than sending a letter. Does anyone know the correct email address I should use for Moorside? I looked on the contact page of their website, but there are only phone numbers ad a contact form.

morini3andahalf

Ah, just searched (sorry, should have done that first) and it appears it is Help@moorsidelegal.co.uk

morini3andahalf

Just wondering, should I expect any response to the email I sent Moorside in response to their LOC? I sent the email (more or less straight copy of the template in newbies thread) on 12th March. All I've received back is an automated acknowledgement.

Umkomaas

morini3andahalf said:

Just wondering, should I expect any response to the email I sent Moorside in response to their LOC? I sent the email (more or less straight copy of the template in newbies thread) on 12th March. All I've received back is an automated acknowledgement.

They're not required to do so, and are unlikely to do so. This isn't a process based on pleasantries!

morini3andahalf

So they aren't required to answer the two questions in that template reply, or confirm the matter has been put on hold for 30 days? Seems totally pointless responding to a loc at all. I may as well have ignored it like all the other letters and just waited for the claim to arrive.