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Dilemma
Squirall
Posts: 27 Forumite
Hello,
A dilemma, which hopefully someone may be able to advise.
The Driver went into a multi-storey car park, back in July of 2016.
Parked the car and obtained a ticket for a 1 hour stay, then proceeded to the nearby hospital as a walk in patient – i.e. no appointment.
Realising that the hour was almost up, returned to the car park and paid for an additional 1 hour ticket.
Overrun first ticket by 5 minutes.
ORIGINAL PARKING TICKETS available.
The Driver returned to the car, after being seen at the hospital, 20 minutes BEFORE the second ticket expired.
Exited the car-park, to find that the exit was blocked, by an Ambulance on an emergency call out, could not pass the Ambulance and waited patiently.
Confirmation from the Ambulance authority that there was an Ambulance there at that time on an emergency call out.
A few days later a letter arrived, their website says they are an ‘accredited IPC operator’, this letter informed me that the reason for the letter was:
Unauthorised parking.
It had pictures of the vehicle entering the car park at a specific time and two of the registration plate and another picture of the car leaving the car park, again with a specific time. At this time they were going to charge £100, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days.
Another letter 1 month later, asking for £100 = £30 admin fee.
Felling this was a scam, letters were ignored.
Nothing more from this company.
Received a letter, 3 months (November 2016) later from another company.
This time asking for £160 – received 8 letters from them over a 6 month period – one saying payment would be reduced to £136 if paid and avoided Court action.
All the letters threatening Court action.
Ignored all these letters.
Then, suddenly in November 2018 letters arrived from yet another company, again asking for £160 or be taken to the County Court.
Received 2 more letters, one headed ‘Final Notice’ the last letter headed ‘Letter of Claim’.
have until mid February to respond, the final letter asking for the £160 and of Court costs & Solicitors fees, adding up to £254.81 in total.
Also included in the last letter is a form asking for ALL my Income & Expenditure’s.
At present, all these letters, have been ignored.
No idea how to get rid of these people, determined NOT to pay anything, done nothing wrong, except ignore their letters.
Thank you for any advice you may have.
A dilemma, which hopefully someone may be able to advise.
The Driver went into a multi-storey car park, back in July of 2016.
Parked the car and obtained a ticket for a 1 hour stay, then proceeded to the nearby hospital as a walk in patient – i.e. no appointment.
Realising that the hour was almost up, returned to the car park and paid for an additional 1 hour ticket.
Overrun first ticket by 5 minutes.
ORIGINAL PARKING TICKETS available.
The Driver returned to the car, after being seen at the hospital, 20 minutes BEFORE the second ticket expired.
Exited the car-park, to find that the exit was blocked, by an Ambulance on an emergency call out, could not pass the Ambulance and waited patiently.
Confirmation from the Ambulance authority that there was an Ambulance there at that time on an emergency call out.
A few days later a letter arrived, their website says they are an ‘accredited IPC operator’, this letter informed me that the reason for the letter was:
Unauthorised parking.
It had pictures of the vehicle entering the car park at a specific time and two of the registration plate and another picture of the car leaving the car park, again with a specific time. At this time they were going to charge £100, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days.
Another letter 1 month later, asking for £100 = £30 admin fee.
Felling this was a scam, letters were ignored.
Nothing more from this company.
Received a letter, 3 months (November 2016) later from another company.
This time asking for £160 – received 8 letters from them over a 6 month period – one saying payment would be reduced to £136 if paid and avoided Court action.
All the letters threatening Court action.
Ignored all these letters.
Then, suddenly in November 2018 letters arrived from yet another company, again asking for £160 or be taken to the County Court.
Received 2 more letters, one headed ‘Final Notice’ the last letter headed ‘Letter of Claim’.
have until mid February to respond, the final letter asking for the £160 and of Court costs & Solicitors fees, adding up to £254.81 in total.
Also included in the last letter is a form asking for ALL my Income & Expenditure’s.
At present, all these letters, have been ignored.
No idea how to get rid of these people, determined NOT to pay anything, done nothing wrong, except ignore their letters.
Thank you for any advice you may have.
0
Comments
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First, edit your post to remove information about who did what. Only ever refer to The Driver and The Keeper, who are two different people.
The Keeper has protections in law that The Driver does not.
Do this before you do anything else!
Your mistake was to ignore things. This has not been advised here since the law changed in 2012.
Have you now got an LBC or an actual court claim from the court or MCOL?
What happened when you complained to PALS/the hospital CEO/Manager?
Either way you need to urgently respond using the guide to court written by bargepole that you will find in post 2 f the sticky thread for NEWBIES.
The NEWBIES is just underneath where you clicked on the
buton.
Common acronyms are explained in post 5 of the NEWBIES.I married my cousin. I had to...I don't have a sister.
All my screwdrivers are cordless."You're Safety Is My Primary Concern Dear" - Laks0 -
You can expect a formal claim to come through from BWL (via MCOL) in the next few weeks. It must be defended (or paid) or you will be in receipt of an in-default CCJ against you which could, should you also ignore, result in a complete trashing of your credit rating for the next 6 years.
If you do defend this, you, like the claimant, have a 50:50 chance of winning. The more you put into research* and knowledge enhancement, you improve your ratio. If you win, you pay nothing and the claimant could be paying you for loss of half a day's earnings/annual leave, travel and parking costs on the day. If you lose, the costs awarded against you will not be £254.81, more like £175-£200.
You might find it useful to understand how BWL operate.
Other than the auto acknowledgements and template letters, you will get nothing sensible from BWL - they are dealing with literally hundreds of thousands of unpaid parking charges and are spewing out various threatening letters, using a conveyor belt approach to go through a computer controlled process towards a LBC, and a MCOL Claim - and it is really only at the final stages, as a court hearing becomes a possibility, that there's any real human intervention.
You need to understand that you're not dealing with an old fashioned firm of solicitors, just progressing from a quill and ink operation, BWL are industrial harvesters of debt, using the equivalent of massive combine harvesters to do their work. This is what their website tells you:A multi-award winning law firm specialising in volume collections, across both regulated and unregulated sectors, who are dual regulated through the FCA and SRA.
We employ around 265 people at our Leeds based office which in turn makes us the largest privately owned debt collection law firm in the UK.
* NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2Please note, we are not a legal advice forum. I personally don't get involved in critiquing court case Defences/Witness Statements, so unable to help on that front. Please don't ask. .
I provide only my personal opinion, it is not a legal opinion, it is simply a personal one. I am not a lawyer.
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.#Private Parking Firms - Killing the High Street0 -
I have not received anything with LBC or actual court claim or MCOL
The car-park was nothing to do with the Hospital, it is a totally seperate enterprise.
Thank you0 -
Personally, I would let a judge sort it out, as, imo, if this went in front of one the PPC would be unlikely to prosper. He/she may even consider it a waste of the court's time and look favourably on a CPR27.14(2)(g) claim for costs for unreasonable behaviour.
The whole industry is a scam, relying on threats of court, and the public's ignorance of the Law, A bill is currently before parliament which will regulate the scammers, many of whom are ex-clampers.
This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.
Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially Smart}, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week), hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct
The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers.
Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Second Reading in the Lords this month, and, with a fair wind, will l become Law later this year..
All five readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 7-8 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.You never know how far you can go until you go too far.0 -
I have not received anything with LBC or actual court claim or MCOL
The car-park was nothing to do with the Hospital, it is a totally seperate enterprise.
Thank you
You were advised to edit your initial post before doing anything else. Is there any particular reason why you have ignored this advice? Are you happy to throw away any advantage The Keeper might have in defending this? Scammers and their agents read these fora and have been know to use information from here against posters.
From your initial post, you have received a LOC and need to respond to it accordingly.
Have you complained to the landowner then?I married my cousin. I had to...I don't have a sister.All my screwdrivers are cordless."You're Safety Is My Primary Concern Dear" - Laks0 -
If there are financial information papers then it is a formal Letter Before Claim.0
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I have edited my original post, I am new to all this and to be frank, I am very worried.
I cannot do anything about - ignoring the letters - that is in the past.
And yes you are correct, I have received the LBC, I just didnt realise what LBC stood for, I now do.
I have not complained to the landowner, I do not know who owns the land, that the multi-storey car park stands on.0 -
More editing needed.
it was the driver who parked the car and bought a ticket. It was the driver who drove out of the car park etc.
You need to remove every first or other person reference - this is not being pedantic, as already explained it's to give more protection to the keeper to whom the notices are being sent.All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Pedant alert - it's could have, not could of.0 -
I have edited my original post, I am new to all this and to be frank, I am very worried.
I cannot do anything about - ignoring the letters - that is in the past.
And yes you are correct, I have received the LBC, I just didnt realise what LBC stood for, I now do.
I have not complained to the landowner, I do not know who owns the land, that the multi-storey car park stands on.
The driver's identity is clearly given in your initial post. You need to edit it if you don't want the scammers to find out who it is. Only refer to The Driver or The Keeper.
The Driver went into a car park.
The Driver parked,
The Keeper got the LOC,
etcetera.I married my cousin. I had to...I don't have a sister.All my screwdrivers are cordless."You're Safety Is My Primary Concern Dear" - Laks0 -
I think you need to analyse what you are worried about. I'm not suggesting for one moment that the whole scam is not without its worries, but worry is the biggest gun in the scammers' arsenal.I am new to all this and to be frank, I am very worried.
If it's 'court' that worries you, please get that into perspective - the court is going to save you money, even if you lose! It's a no brainer not to want to look forward in someways to the experience as the alternative is to hand over a much larger wad to ease your current worry. And I can almost guarantee, that if you did pay them off, you would be living for a long time kicking yourself for having capitulated to a scam without a whimper.
The current harvesting exercise being undertaken by BWL has only recently started. They are hoovering up semi-dormant cases from hitherto court-shy PPCs, possibly on a no win, no fee, or low-rent basis. They are bashing out thousands of letters aimed mainly at traumatising recipients into reaching for their cheque books. Whether they will proceed to court with the recalcitrants who then fight back is open to conjecture - time will tell, but we're up for the fight here on the forum to help anyone who is prepared to fight back.Please note, we are not a legal advice forum. I personally don't get involved in critiquing court case Defences/Witness Statements, so unable to help on that front. Please don't ask. .
I provide only my personal opinion, it is not a legal opinion, it is simply a personal one. I am not a lawyer.
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.#Private Parking Firms - Killing the High Street1
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