Letter of claim after legitimate parking at petrol station! DCB legal

qwamoo

hi all,

long time lurker and have followed advice on the newbies threads and other peoples posts but unfortunately for me, have now got to the point where i think i will be needing your support with this "ticket". 

for a bit of history around this- In 2023, my bmw went to a Petrol station run by MFG which offered car jet wash facilities and through to try this out. Upon arrival, there was a long queue for the jet wash which meant that it had to wait in order to use the facilities. A few weeks later, i received a PCN from euro car parks, claiming i had overstayed their parking time and was liable for a fine. we went through the appeals process with them and explained that the delay was due to the long queue, provided bank statements as evidence of the legitimate use of the jet wash. Despite this, the parking company did not accept the explanation and insisted on the overstayed time.

i then sent the appeal to POPLA , who also declined the appeal based on signage issues and other reasons. i also mentioned that i was not the driver of the vehicle but the registered owner and also mentioned that i was not allowed to identify the driver. The outcome from POPLA was that that the defence was not accepted.

Subsequently i spent many months following up with the owner of the land at the petrol station through their complaints system, again sending proof via bank statements, directly contacting the senior management and CEO of MFG and even sent tweets to the company in an effort to get the ticket cancelled, which only came to nought, with the land owner response being that they did not look after the parking on the site and so could not get involved. a very disappointing approach indeed.

Following this, I began receiving letters from various debt recovery companies, which i ignored, as they threatened with with scare tactics to get us to pay. I ignored these letters until recently, when  received one from DCB Legal, it is the same as the one in this thread 

i am preparing to send the initial letter stated here and i wanted to confirm there is still value in doing that and going forward. quite like the other poster- due to all the stress around this- if there is no path to resolution, i would rather get it paid and out of the way as i do not want a court outcome or CCJ.

thanks for all your help! 

qwamoo

link to other thread for copy of letter DCB Legal Letter of Claim — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Coupon-mad

You do want the court claim because it'll end up discontinued. No court hearing. No CCJ.

You don't pay anyone £170 to avoid the winning stage that's ten times EASIER than POPLA was.

qwamoo

thank you for the confidence. i have drafted the letter as below and added the text from the gatwick thread in addition here.  

i suppose i can wait till nearer the 30 days to send the letter as it  is only after this that the claim can be issued. 

SkattyKatty22

Hi qwamoo

I don't know if I was the other poster you referred to but I've just posted that I'm not giving up now .

Looks like there are similarities to my case.

Mine; they want to say;

1. being in a petrol station in the Motorway Services is part of a parking event
2. the whole site is a car park
3. their signs are ok because everyone knows this
4. it's ok not to clearly explain that the position of the exit camera is at the exit of the whole site and not at the edge of the car park

Tactics taken straight from the works of Charles Dickens novels

Good luck with your case and massive thanks to the people on this forum.

Suki

qwamoo

was reading up on your thread and it sounds like you have had quite a lot of paperwork involved - hope it all goes well with your date in court

qwamoo

 i responded to DCB's letter of claim with the initial response letter on the newbies thread. i did not recieve a response to that email although i sent it to all the registered emails by DCB legal. i have now recieved a claim form, which appears to have been filed  days after i sent my response with an increased cost of the original £170 to be claimed before costs.

i wanted to check- can they proceed without a response to my email and is this is all in line with expected behaviour before i go ahead with the AOS and signup for MCOL?

thanks  

Coupon-mad

Yes. Show us the POC.

qwamoo

Thanks for the reply. I have added in the POC, blocking out personal info. I will also start with registering for MCOL

qwamoo

AOS is now submitted and hoping to start my defence. are there any particular ones that i should look out for relevant to the POC above?

Coupon-mad

Any DCB Legal defence except you will have to remove ONLY the single line in shahib's para 3 about the "date issued" as yours says (correctly) 'date of contravention'.