Debt Recovery Plus Notice - of intended court action

Sky123 · 25 November 2013 at 10:27PM

Hi all,

My Dad has received a Notice of Intended Court Action today from Debt Recovery Plus, and I need some advice please. I was the driver at the time (not him), and we have up until now ignored all of the letters as I was advised by a friend that the best thing is to ignore the letters. Upon further research today I've found that's not the best course of action anymore.

From reading the posts, I need to know what my options are. What is the next letter I am expected to receive? Will it be a letter requesting a reduced payment, and then a further letter reducing the payment further, before a letter confirming court action is sent?

The original fine was from Parking Eye for parking at the Welcome Break services, I was parked for about 10 minutes over the allocated free parking of 2 hours.

I presume I am too late to appeal, but what are my options now? Can I contact Welcome Break directly as stated in some posts, if so what can I say? Should my dad contact Debt Recovery Plus, stating he is not the driver, which will then give me the chance to appeal or can we just send a letter to them stating we will offer a reduced payment of say £20

I'd really appreciate any help or advice on this, as I'm unclear on what would my options are at this stage.

Thanks

S

*** I forgot to add that we have ignored all letters, but I did call them on Friday late afternoon, and spoke to an advisor explaining that I was not the driver, and I have been off long term sick from work and not receiving an income. The advisor was quite abrupt and just said that my dad is liable for the charge and it needs to be paid

Redx · 25 November 2013 at 10:50PM

firstly, it is not a fine , its is an invoice , a fake pcn , a parking charge, not a fine

secondly, if the KEEPER informs them who the driver is, it will reset the clock, they send a notice to the driver and then you can try a soft appeal and then ask for a POPLA code if the soft appeal fails

that is my understanding anyway

also you could try welcome break, and if they are not the landowner try to find out who is and appeal to them to get it cancelled, as that is always the best course of action

Coupon-mad · 25 November 2013 at 11:50PM

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4830341

same advice as I posted not one minute ago, see post #5 in the link above and PLEASE read the sticky threads especially the 'newbies read this NOW!' thread.

Why is my sticky thread being overlooked by newbies, did you not read the stickies first?! The thread I mentioned covers everything a newbie needs to know, to save us typing a reply to endless 'what shall I do?' threads (sorry it's not personal - just feeling like it's Groundhog Day for no reason when the info is on here!).

Also there's a sticky thread about how to complain and it includes Welcome Break, contact details and suggestions, the lot. 'Successful complaints about PPCs'.

A forum can work best for you if you read the sticky threads and follow advice and links there.

Sky123 · 27 November 2013 at 3:08PM

Thanks guys for your advice. I called Welcome Break direct, and they said that Parking Eye will send me an invoice for £20 :j

Should I now contact Debt Recovery Plus and notify them also. Should I do that by letter, or is a phone call okay?

Coupon-mad · 27 November 2013 at 3:10PM

Nah just let DRP stew! Seriously...they are a middle man, forget them and their stupid letters now that Welcome Break have agreed to accept the £10 overstay and £10 admin. Others have also reported that as an acceptable compromise in the past with WB, and you would never have been offered it by ParkingEye without WB's intervention. Look how common this is, you are linked now as #9 of all the recent successful complaints about PE to WB:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4766249

Next time, appeal it in time and come here for help with a winning POPLA appeal and you would have paid NOTHING.

4consumerrights · 27 November 2013 at 3:28PM

ThIS was not a court case yet so:
IMO its a pity the OP offered the £20 settlement as this was only at a debt recovery stage and the Registered Keeper was not the driver.

It would have been a simple process in this case to name the driver and reset the clock for the appeals process - winning 100% of the charge at POPLA stage on GPEOL.

Sky123 · 27 November 2013 at 4:00PM

I completely agree, I wouldn't have paid it if it was not at this stage, and I was able to appeal. I took the £20 offer for a peaceful life! If that happens in future (hopefully it won't!), I will be sure to take the advice here.

I was very close to paying the fine so, this is a huge relief.

Thanks once again all:)

bod1467 · 27 November 2013 at 4:14PM

Sky123 wrote: »

I was very close to paying the [STRIKE]fine[/STRIKE] speculative invoice so, this is a huge relief.

Fixed that for you.

Sky123 · 27 November 2013 at 4:43PM

Lol yes, that's what I meant!

nigelbb · 27 November 2013 at 5:36PM

To be fair the standard parking charge for over 2 hours & less than 24 hours is £10 so the OP did owe that much. An extra £10 'admin' is not unreasonable. The sad part is that if the OP had not ignored but instead appealed in time they would have paid nothing. In fact a call to Welcome Break on receiving the very first letter would have probably had it quashed right at the outset without even an appeal to POPLA.

4consumerrights · 27 November 2013 at 6:33PM

Sky123 wrote: »

The original fine was from Parking Eye for parking at the Welcome Break services, I was parked for about 10 minutes over the allocated free parking of 2 hours.

The OP states they were only 10 minutes over the free parking allowed - whilst I appreciate that parking tariffs apply for longer than 2 hours up to 24 hours, in this case I don't think the criteria for grace periods has been satisfied:

From BPA COP: http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/609_AOS_CoP_June_2013_update.pdf

Grace periods

13.1 Your approach to parking management must allow a
driver who enters your car park but decides not to park,
to leave the car park within a reasonable period without
having their vehicle issued with a parking charge notice.
13.2
You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’
in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the
driver is on your land without permission you should still
allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave
before you take enforcement action.
13.3
You should be prepared to tell us the specific grace period
at a site if our compliance team or our agents ask what it is.
13.4
You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave
the private car park after the parking contract has ended,
before you take enforcement action.

Grace periods are required before entering the "contract" and after the parking period has expired (in this case 2 hours) before enforcement action can be taken.

It was this OP's choice to make and pay the offer and I respect his decision.:)

Debt Recovery Plus Notice - of intended court action

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