Parking eye - mildly concerned

rev_henry · 23 April 2013 at 4:26PM

Received the usual chain regarding an alleged parking incident at the end of December, and have now had 2 more from 'Debt Recovery Plus Ltd.'

However, I have stumbled across this:
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=74087

This person has had court papers issued shortly after. Is this likely to happen to me? Really cba going to court with it, I've better things to do with my life. Anything I can do now except wait?

Coupon-mad · 23 April 2013 at 8:54PM

No it's not likely to happen to you.

Yes, just ignore the scam as you are already past the appeal period so talking to the debt collector is like rattling the cage of the pet monkey. Don't!

You would have been better stumbling on the many OTHER ''Debt Recovery Plus letter - OMG shall I now reply?!'' threads on pepipoo. It's a shame they've linked that one on their sticky thread as it's not representative (maybe PE chose it as it was already featured in the sticky thread and they ID'd it?). Anyway it's an example of an odd and very rare one - and the person has got a robust defence from pepipoo anyway.

This is more representative, plus all the linked threads I posted (as SchoolRunMum) in slight exasperation in post #9 after a real Groundhog week!:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78129

Your letter chain is as common as these letter chains always are and they would like nothing better than for you to respond like a hooked fish. It would be daft though! IGNORE DRP and Zenith; the whole (non-Court) letter chain is shown in the pre-Oct pictures of letter chains on the MSE sticky thread 'PPC letter chains'.

rev_henry · 24 April 2013 at 12:19PM

Coupon-mad wrote: »

No it's not likely to happen to you.

Yes, just ignore the scam as you are already past the appeal period so talking to the debt collector is like rattling the cage of the pet monkey. Don't!

You would have been better stumbling on the many OTHER ''Debt Recovery Plus letter - OMG shall I now reply?!'' threads on pepipoo. It's a shame they've linked that one on their sticky thread as it's not representative (maybe PE chose it as it was already featured in the sticky thread and they ID'd it?). Anyway it's an example of an odd and very rare one - and the person has got a robust defence from pepipoo anyway.

This is more representative, plus all the linked threads I posted (as SchoolRunMum) in slight exasperation in post #9 after a real Groundhog week!:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78129

Your letter chain is as common as these letter chains always are and they would like nothing better than for you to respond like a hooked fish. It would be daft though! IGNORE DRP and Zenith; the whole (non-Court) letter chain is shown in the pre-Oct pictures of letter chains on the MSE sticky thread 'PPC letter chains'.

Many thanks, sorry I should have looked more thoroughly.

rev_henry · 28 April 2013 at 7:38PM

Just reading through a few threads and have found some people suggesting that parking eye are issuing court papers to EVERYONE ignoring. Anything I could or should do? Still nothing?

Stroma · 28 April 2013 at 7:44PM

rev_henry wrote: »

Just reading through a few threads and have found some people suggesting that parking eye are issuing court papers to EVERYONE ignoring. Anything I could or should do? Still nothing?

They are not issuing claims to everyone who ignores, they have about 160k ignoring tickets last year, so it will be impossible to do that.

bargepole · 28 April 2013 at 7:46PM

rev_henry wrote: »

... Anything I could or should do? Still nothing?

You're long past the time for a POPLA appeal, so all you can do is wait and see if they issue a court claim.

Issuing a claim is one thing; winning the case in court is another matter entirely. If you get (real) court papers, post a new thread on Pepipoo and you'll get help with a defence.

Coupon-mad · 28 April 2013 at 11:57PM

rev_henry wrote: »

Just reading through a few threads and have found some people suggesting that parking eye are issuing court papers to EVERYONE ignoring.

Far from it - that would be an impossible task! Who posted that rubbish?!

And you would be badly advised to respond now IMHO, do NOT wave and say 'here I am' when you are well into the usual threatogram chain - as are thousands of other people! Your name & address are in a computer data list of unconfirmed details right now. Stay there among the thousands.

There is no way that PE will try Court in anything more than a TINY % of all the cases ignored since 2011/12 and - as you are forum-savvy if you were one of that tiny % - you'd be one of those who knows where to get a robust defence (pepipoo).

It's not you that PE would go to a hearing with; they are looking for weak victims who will fold and pay, ignore Court papers (= a default win for PE) or who have a weak defence. You don't fall into that bracket, so relax.

bargepole · 29 April 2013 at 7:54AM

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Far from it - that would be an impossible task! Who posted that rubbish?! ....

I think that was me.

And it's not complete rubbish: PE now have a dedicated department for this, and are churning out perhaps 500 claims a week.

This may not include all ignorers, but unlike previously, the odds are no longer in your favour if you ignore tickets from this particular company, which is why my advice is now to always go through the informal appeal / POPLA route. They never want to show their landowner contracts, so if you make that an appeal point to POPLA, you should win and get the ticket cancelled.

edward123 · 29 April 2013 at 9:15AM

bargepole wrote: »

.

And it's not complete rubbish: PE now have a dedicated department for this, and are churning out perhaps 500 claims a week.

Do you think PE will carry all claims through to actual court if those served continue to not pay their Parking CN's? And how will the courts consider all these from one company?

nigelbb · 29 April 2013 at 9:35AM

edward123 wrote: »

Do you think PE will carry all claims through to actual court if those served continue to not pay their Parking CN's? And how will the courts consider all these from one company?

I think the current spate of court papers is just an extension of the regular threatogram chain. At each stage of the process a certain number of people will give in & cough up. 60% do when they receive a ticket. Yet more will fold when they get letters from debt collectors. More will give in when they get the court papers. A proportion will have moved etc & be unaware while some will ignore the court papers. These all will give a judgement to PE by default.

To maximise their income they don't need to go that final step to actually take a contested case to court. In fact this is the riskiest part of their whole protection racket as if they start losing cases in court then the resultant publicity will be disastrous for their business model. Just like any protection racket they depend on respect & once those they threaten are no longer frightened of the consequences of standing up to them like all bullies their day is done.

Coupon-mad · 29 April 2013 at 9:56AM

bargepole wrote: »

I think that was me.

And it's not complete rubbish: PE now have a dedicated department for this, and are churning out perhaps 500 claims a week.

This may not include all ignorers, but unlike previously, the odds are no longer in your favour if you ignore tickets from this particular company, which is why my advice is now to always go through the informal appeal / POPLA route. They never want to show their landowner contracts, so if you make that an appeal point to POPLA, you should win and get the ticket cancelled.

Oooops, sorry bargepole!

Can't be all ignorers, they must have got thousands going back months/years?

This is quite a terrible example of the PPC industry though as we know the victims who pay, or fall into the trap of a default court judgment, are probably those who can least afford it and were just going about their normal daily lives.

Parking eye - mildly concerned

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