Payment Didn't Go Through = Fine & Impending Court!

Spaceconcept · 4 March 2019 at 10:00PM

Hi,

My wife parked the car in a Civil Enforcement car park last April. She called them to pay the parking fee. She got no confirmation that it did or did not go through, so she assumed it did (there are many different parking companies here and they don't all send confirmations).

Subsequently, we got a penalty charge. We appealed and sent them proof of the 4 minute call to their payment number, during which my wife gave card details etc to pay for the ticket.
Their responce was to state that no payment has been made.
We reiterated to them that they can see the attempt at payment has been made and that it is their system failure which has caused the lack of payment to go through. We requested they check their records.
They have not ever addressed the point made, or made any reference to their own record of the call.
Why else would someone spend 4 minutes on a call to a car park payment number?

Unfortunately, being ignorant of penalty charges, we missed the POPLA appeal time and foolishly assuming Civil Enforcement would be reasonable.
We later got advice from Citizens Advice and POPLA to request from Civil Enforcement that they provide us with a new POPLA code, so we can appeal. They declined, of course.

So we are now at the Claim letter stage and we need to formulate our defence.

I am going to see this to the end as it is clearly not reasonable for us to pay a fine when we have proof of the call which demonstrates the intent to pay for the ticket and in no way try to avoid the payment, We have sent the proof of call to ZZPS and QDR Solicitors acting on behalf of Civil Enforcement, emails went bouncing around, but eventually Civil E. just instructed them to proceed...

Any advice on how to formulate our defence please?
And should we counterclaim for the 11 months of agravation and time spent writing all the emails/letters etc?

Thanks,

Chris.

ShakeItOff · 4 March 2019 at 10:13PM

Welcome!

You need to have a mooch on over to the NEWBIES thread, specifically post #2 as this covers the court claim process.

Have you send a SAR to the PPC? You (your wife) should do so today if you haven't already. There is a Legal Beagles template in the NEWBIES post, and the email address for the data protection officer contact will be on the PPC's privacy page.

Assume the court claim came from CCBC in Northampton? What was the issue date?

Umkomaas · 4 March 2019 at 10:24PM

Any advice on how to formulate our defence please?

All available in the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2. Links to exemplar defences there.

In addition, search on keywords 'CEL Defence' and 'Civil Enforcement Defence' using the forum search engine to read how others have so developed their own.

HOW TO USE THE FORUM SEARCH FUNCTION:

Hit your 'Back' button to get back to the forum thread list. On the bar just above the threads you'll see the 'Search' function. Click on the 'Advanced Search' button and on the following page place your keyword(s) in the 'Search By Keyword(s)' and make sure the 'Show Results As' button (at the foot of the window) is changed from 'Threads' to 'Posts'.

We later got advice from Citizens Advice and POPLA to request from Civil Enforcement that they provide us with a new POPLA code, so we can appeal. They declined, of course.

Further proof (if it was ever needed) that the CAB have absolutely no idea where private parking tickets are concerned. There was no possible way that CEL would issue a duplicate POPLA Code.

And should we counterclaim for the 11 months of agravation and time spent writing all the emails/letters etc?

Just because you're hissed off with the PPC does not provide you with enough ammo for a counterclaim. On what basis were you thinking you could cc? What you've suggested is pretty much what every recipient of court proceedings are going through here.

Spaceconcept · 4 March 2019 at 10:51PM

Thanks both for the quick replies. Appreciate it.

I'll take a look at that thread. We have not sent an SAR (need to find out what one is first!).
Yes, it's Northampton. Issue date was 25th Feb.

I'll do the CEL searches, thanks.
The basis for the counterclaim is that I'm annoyed, so perhaps not then!

Do you think we have a decent chance, if the defence is worded well?

Umkomaas · 4 March 2019 at 10:56PM

We have not sent an SAR (need to find out what one is first!).

Google is your friend.

Also:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5849784/june-2018-start-of-the-new-ppc-and-dvla-fightback-gdpr-related

And:

From Legal Beagles

https://legalbeagles.info/library/guides_and_letters/court/subject-access-request/

beamerguy · 4 March 2019 at 11:00PM

CEL are known scammers and QDR are just a cheapo version of the disgraced Wright Hassall solicitors

So the app says you paid and CEL says you did not ???

The app needs investigating and CEL needs to provide stats of that day to prove otherwise

KeithP · 4 March 2019 at 11:03PM

Spaceconcept wrote: »

Yes, it's Northampton. Issue date was 25th Feb.

With a Claim Issue Date of 25th February, you have until Monday 18th March to do the Acknowledgement of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. To do the AoS, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox link from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread. About ten minutes work - no thinking required.

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Monday 1st April 2019 to file your Defence.

That's four weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but don't leave it to the very last minute.

When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as suggested here:

Sign it and date it.
Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
Do not be surprised to receive a copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to put you under pressure.
Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

Spaceconcept · 4 March 2019 at 11:04PM

It was not an app. My wife didn't bother to download the app, she decided to pay by phone. So there is no proof of payment, only proof of her call to the payment line.

Spaceconcept · 4 March 2019 at 11:07PM

Thanks for the help.

KeithP · 4 March 2019 at 11:08PM

Spaceconcept wrote: »

...only proof of her call to the payment line.

And on the balance of probabilities she was paying for parking.

If the time of that phone call matches the time of parking, the BoPs increase dramatically.

Perhaps another phone call to the payment line's customer services will reveal exactly how much was paid and for which car park.

Spaceconcept · 4 March 2019 at 11:18PM

The call time matches the parking. Call length 4mins as she input the car park details and card details etc, but no payment was taken. It failed somewhere in the process, so I doubt their customer service can help.

Incidentally, we have searched online and it seems others have had parking fines due to telephone payments not going through for this car park.

Payment Didn't Go Through = Fine & Impending Court!

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