NCP/Greater Anglia parking offence - first notice/contact was from Debt Collection Company

JumboDavis

Firstly, apologies if it is covered in the newbie thread but after reading it, I wasn’t sure what to do in our slightly complicated case.

We have just received (on 24/05/25) a Debt Collection letter dated 14/05/25 from Trace Debt Recovery for a PCN issued by NCP/Greater Anglia for a parking offence on 13/02/25.

This is the very first notification of the offence we received no PCN from NCP themselves.

Naturally we have panicked as they have given us 14 days to response/pay to the debt collection letter which is up tomorrow (closed today due to bank holiday).

Regarding the offense in question, this was a Greater Anglia Station carpark managed by NCP, the day before parking we created an online GA Parking account, added the car reg (date shows it was added day before offence) and also added a credit card for payment. Though it appears we either didn’t then select autopay or it wasn’t registered as when I logged in yesterday while Car Reg and Payment card were present the autopay was not selected.

Annoyingly we have assumed autopay was setup and parked there many times since this date, so can only assume more PCN’s are incoming but we have yet to receive any.

I think we may have panicked and jumped the gun with the Debt Collection letter and have e-mailed but Greater Anglia, NCP and the Debt Collectors stating “we” never received any PCN until the debt collectors’ letter being the first we heard about it. Also provided evidence of the car and card being added to the GA Parking account the day before this offense, and also mentioned we know the car will have also parked in that car park since the first offence date and offered to pay the standard parking payment charge as we obviously tried to setup payment and claimed the autopay setup failed.

One think to note is we haven’t identified the driver (though is ANPR photo of them driving but not very clear), e-mail we sent was just “we” as to be fair 3 separate people do use the car and do park in that car park.

Was wondering how we best proceed, as we are going to get a load more of these parking fines now we know auto-pay was only partially setup. Also mid buying a house to keen nothing adversely effects credit.

Thanks, and appreciate any advice we receive.

Le_Kirk

The usual reason for not receiving initial PCNs is that the V5C (log book) does not have the correct address - worth checking.

JumboDavis

Yes, I think that may have been it as we managed to move twice just before and then 2 months after the "offense" and know the V5 may not have been updated for a good month or so

JumboDavis

Keen to know how we also proceed with the 3-4 or so PCN's we havent heard about yet also, as we know they are coming as we all use that car to park in that station car park.

Coupon-mad

JumboDavis said:

Keen to know how we also proceed with the 3-4 or so PCN's we havent heard about yet also, as we know they are coming as we all use that car to park in that station car park.

Will these come to the right address in time to appeal?

JumboDavis

Maybe half of them may come to the correct address, we don't really know as there is a couple of us using that car to go to the station and another car too (which I have confirmed autopay is setup on) so it's hard to work out what dates we parked there without them notifying us at this point.

We have been on hold for a total of 2 1/2 hours on 3 calls so far and they always cut us off.

We have also emailed their complaints email to firstly ask for a 30 days hold while we seek debt advice and contact NCP appeals due to the issue.

We have made clear that while the registered owner is correct, they weren't driving at the time and the 3 of us using the car had assumed autopay (which shows card and car added day before offence) was in place (just wasn't "ticked").

Coupon-mad

I don't understand why/who you are ringing. Stop trying to phone these people!

In 2023 ... wasn't that when NCP suspended autopay without telling anyone? We had a lady with numerous PCNs as a result, IIRC.

Was the keeper the driver?

JumboDavis

Quick update:

We were trying to ring the debt collection company purely to make sure they had our updated address and remove the old one etc so "if" it did proceed to court we don't get caught out and are not aware. We never did get through.

Managed to speak to PCN and they were actually helpful and "took back" the PCN from the debt collectors so we could make an appeal again (as we never received the PCN). They also gave us reference for any other PCN's alligned to the car reg so we could make appeals.

Regarding the Keeper being the driver, prob 50% of the time - as we just just use whatever car is end of the drive most of the time whoever is driving.

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Good. So you know not to appeal as driver in ANY of them, because appealing as keeper is how you win?

Le_Kirk

To change address (or any data) just send a Data Rectification Notice to the DPO of the parking company and require them to inform any and all of their subcontractors of the change.

JumboDavis

Just a quick update:

So, after NCP provided us with the PCN reference numbers (4 so far with 1 more likely to come as its was fairly recent) they put them on hold for 14 days again allowing as to appeal via the NCP website.

Used some details from the "Newbies" thread saying as the registered keeper we were not willing name the driver etc also added in some evidence showing we had added the car reg and card details to the "autopay" site.

Just got a notice today saying they have accepted the 4 appeals today which is good news, so only 1 more to go when we finally get it through.

Thanks for your help