Debt Recovery Plus

[Marty Funkhouser]

My missus works in a&e in the local hospital.

During the bulk of this year the hospital over issued staff parking permits as they had so many temporary staff due to staff isolating.

As a consequence she could not park anywhere and has accumulated 6 tickets. She had been told by the hospital admin to ignore them as they would be rescinded due to the pandemic.

She’s now received several “pay now” or face “potential court action” from a company called Debt Recovery Plus They want £150 to settle each ticket.

She’s emailed explaining the situation and awaits a response. Their first reaction over the phone was to say there was nothing they could do.

Does she have any options to stop these people taking her to court other than paying up?

TIA

[Boosted LS1]

Who controlled the car parks that she used?

[hidetheelephants]

Marty Funkhouser said:

She had been told by the hospital admin to ignore them as they would be rescinded due to the pandemic.

She got that in writing? I'd be going back to admin and getting them to sort it before it progresses any further.

[Marty Funkhouser]

Nothing in writing.

The car park is owned by the hospital afaik and they have a contract with a parking ticket firm.

[Boosted LS1]

Which hospital btw?

[efcgriswold]

Off to admin with the demands and ask them to sort it out.

[Terminator X]

Should never have ignored them. Contest all and every ticket that the car parking scumbags issue is my motto. It is fairly unusual to hear from them other than cancelled ticket if they are private companies as they rely on the 99% of people that just pay up^.

^no citation if Twig "comes for me".

TX.

[Ian Geary]

Marty Funkhouser said:

As a consequence she could not park anywhere and has accumulated 6 tickets. She had been told by the hospital admin to ignore them as they would be rescinded due to the pandemic.

TIA

Pedant mode: she must have parked somewhere if she's received a ticket? I assume she wasn't able to park where she was allowed?

But generally, yes she should get admin to act on their assurances, and then contest.

Or otherwise, get her best sad face ready for the local paper, before the UK forgets about key workers in the rush to get on holiday.

If she's struggling to summon a sad face, this might help give inspiration

[A205GTI]

If it's anything like Gloucester NHS, you will find 90% of all fines go back to the NHS trust, I would be taking it up with the admin department.

[PisstNBroke]

A hospital I use to work for used an outside contractor, I only got the one ticket which they inaccurately described the timings and therefore issued before the 1 hour was up.
They wouldn't accept it and so had the threats of debt collection with nothing occurring in the end. Another colleague got several tickets and they pleaded with him to pay but he said no and instead got a written warning from the same hospital. His response was cheaper than paying a ticket...

Edited by PisstNBroke on Sunday 19th September 21:54

[hidetheelephants]

Ian Geary said:

Pedant mode: she must have parked somewhere if she's received a ticket? I assume she wasn't able to park where she was allowed?

But generally, yes she should get admin to act on their assurances, and then contest.

Or otherwise, get her best sad face ready for the local paper, before the UK forgets about key workers in the rush to get on holiday.

If she's struggling to summon a sad face, this might help give inspiration

[silverfoxcc]

Just tell her to tell the Debt collectors that the debt is denied and to refer back to their principle.

They have ZERO powers just shaved gorillas who intimidate people to pay up
They CANNOT enter you premises of remove goods and chattel
They are toothless

However Baliffs appointed by the court are different and can do all those things

Tell her to get onto pepipoo it may not be to late, all they are rying to get is money for an unsoicited invoice IT IS NOT A FINE

[theguvernor15]

Hi all,

Rather than start a new thread, i did a quick search & though i could piggyback off of this thread.

Short story:

Paid via the Ringgo app to park in a local leisure centre car park. Paid for 5 hours.
Came back to the car after 3 hours & 4 mins, stopped the session, invoiced for 5 hours & paid.
By the time i'd exited the carpark it was 3 hours 9 minutes, still well within the 5 hours paid for. (I can't remember exactly why it took 5 minutes to leave the carpark).

I lodged an appeal with Smart Parking, they received it, i got an email saying the charge was on hold for 28 days pending a decision.
After this email i received no further correspondence from Smart Parking. I assumed the charge had been cancelled.

Until i got a Debt Recovery Plus letter.
I've tried to call Smart Parking a number of times since, but they're impossible to get through to.

I've now had about 4-5 letters from DRP, the latest 'imminent legal action'.

Google says there's mediation before it gets to small claims.

I was just wandering if any other PH'ers have gone through this sort of process from DRP?

[martin_t]

theguvernor15 said:

Hi all,

Short story:

Shame you appealed really. But, c'est la vie.

www.ftla.uk is probably your best bet to get it sorted.

You'll need to do a fair amount of swatting up on the ins and outs on the site. First off all read the instructions for newbies.

The first thing they'll almost certainly do is look for non-compliance from the parking company. Then for holes in your story.

Many of the cases they deal with end successfully, though if you just messed up they'll tell you to just pay up (doesn't happen very often).

There is also nationalconsumerservice.co.uk who do a good job too.

Edited by martin_t on Monday 10th August 15:00

[Ganglandboss]

I had four letters from these. I parked on a pay and display car park in Liverpool and paid.

I got no correspondence from the parking company, then DRP wrote to me demanding £170. I wrote back to them:

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am in receipt of your letter, reference xxxx, sent on behalf of your client, xxxx, relating to a parking charge I am said to have received. The letter says I receved the charge on xxxx at xxxx.

I can confirm I did park at this site on that date, however, I paid for a ticket (which my card records show). I have not received any other parking charge relating to this site.

I therefore have no knowledge of the debt and I dispute any personal liability for it.

Please do not contact me regarding this matter unless you can provide evidence of the debt. I await your written confirmation that the matter is now closed.

I sent a copy to their client. Neither the parking company or DRP responded to the letter.

Just over a month later, I received a second generic demand, with a big red 'PAY NOW' stamp, and a flow chart showing where I was in the legal process. Then attached to that was a letter labelled 'Terminal Notice, Pre-Legal Action' supposedly from somebody called Abigale, who would be looking after the case for me and help me get a fair outcome.

At this point, I took the decision top ignore it. I have proof of payment, and proof that I disputed the debt.

They wrote a month later, with the same 'PAY NOW' stamp, same flow chart, and stating 'Residents of [my postcode] pay parking charges like yours within 28 days or appeal. We will be checking how long it takes you to pay.'

I had another 'Terminal Notice', requesting I share their details with my solicitor., and saying legal action was imminent. It had a link to a supreme court case.

I got another a month later from Stuart Clure, Managing Director, telling me I had to pay by a date two weeks from the letter or a CCJ can be issued against me. This was the last I heard from them, around 18 months ago.

[WrekinCrew]

Ganglandboss said:

"I can confirm I did park at this site on that date..."

Never admit you were the driver. Always reply as the registered keeper. Few private companies fully comply with POFA (assuming England or Wales) so cannot transfer liability from the driver (who they don't otherwise know) to the RK.