Result;

Cardiff Devil - 1

Amazon - 0

They didn't show up to court, as I suspected. On the strength of my paper evidence, judge ruled in my favour and awarded full costs.

Took 9 months of emails and letters but it's finally sorted.

I really wouldn't waste your time writing to them.

Just a quick update on this one. It looks as if the damage to their car is closer to £1000 than the £200 originally stated. The guy has been cautioned and has had to give a written apology to my friend and his wife. What the hell the point of that is I don't know. Anyway, apparently the guy has just signed the letter as "A", as a result they don't have his name or address. Is there any way they can request this from the police in order to take legal action to recover their costs, or am I right in thinking the police won't release that information.

Don't worry mate, they won't take you to court. They know they would lose in spectacular fashion and get laughed out of the building. It's all bluff tactics from them. Just ignore their letters and laugh at how increasingly desperate they are.

Julie: If your other half is determined to write, the template letter written by Bernie the Bolt is below;

Dear Sirs,

 

Re: Your letter dated [dd/mmmm/yyyy] Reference[#]

 

I acknowledge receipt of your captioned letter. It seems that you have got my details from the DVLA and I confirm I am the keeper of the vehicle in question. You need to take this matter up with the driver concerned.

 

In the meantime I absolutely deny your claim that the amount claimed, or any amount at all, is due to you from me.

 

Yours faithfully

However, the advice remains to ignore these people firmly. Even if they do have photos of you entering the store, they have no way of identifying you from these photos. If he must write, try to make sure he keeps to the above letter and nothing more. You must try and make him understand that if he does try and appeal to their better nature by explaining the situation, he is putting himself in the firing line for even more harassing junk mail by identifying himself as the driver.

The fault you have described (screen very dark) sounds like the backlight has failed. From experience this generally isn't a sign of misuse. If the LCD layer had cracked or bled, that would signify an impact or excessive pressure but a backlight failure could be nothing more than a loose wire. Given that you are still within 6 months of purchase, the burden of proof lies upon Tesco, however if the manufacturer has sided with them, that muddies the waters a bit.

Having worked in retail and dealt with electrical returns, the manufacturers are usually very quick to blame the customer for any fault.

Best course of action is to send the laptop off for an independent second opinion and get them to draft a written and signed report. You will have to pay for this but keep all receipts, you should be able to claim it back later if the report goes in your favour.

Keep us posted.

I would simply ignore it, it's an unenforcable parking invoice, not an official PCN.

You paid their parking tariff, if the signs are unclear and the markings on their "permit only" bays are illegible, that's not your problem.

Don't bother writing to them to appeal the "charge", they won't overturn it. You will receive several threatening letters from NCP, their debt collectors and eventually their solicitors but nothing will ever come of it.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Holding a valid MOT certificate does not mean the vehicle is automatically deemed roadworthy. It simply means it met the required standards at the time it was tested. Any subsequent faults that arise could render the car unroadworthy. Although you can't prove it, you did mention to the trader at the time of the test drive that you could hear a hissing noise, he tried to fob you off by saying it was the fans.

You bought an 11 year old car, so it would be reasonable to expect some odd minor little faults but a leaking brake servo is not minor at all, as someone said above, in an emergency stop situation having less pressure in the braking system could be disastrous.

Some good advice given above. Make sure you keep copies of all documentation and you keep your correspondence with the dealer to writing, sent via recorded post only. That way, he can't deny ever receiving anything.

Good luck, and stick to your guns.

Double yellow lines have no legal status on private land, only public highways. Just the same as disabled bays and "parent and child" spaces. Therefore it's not possible for her to get a "record". Even if by a thousand to one chance they tried to take it to the county court, she still wouldn't get a "record" as it's not a criminal matter.

These PPCs love to use groundless threats of debt collectors, bailiffs, CCJs and removal of assets, when they have absolutely no legal right whatsoever to do any of these things. It's all hot air.

Your daughter can safely continue to ignore these clowns.

Who does the road belong to? You may need to sue both them and the clampers to get your money back.

They can't charge you extra just because they've "called the truck", that's a common tactic that they use.

You will need to go back and get pictures of all signage, especially ones that are high up or obscured.

Hi.

 

If i have admitted to being the driver in an appeal, do they have a case?

 

or should i just ignore any other correspondance?

 

Thanks

Hi,

It's generally not advisable to admit being the driver in any case involving a private parking company, however they still don't have any concrete case against you since their actual losses are nothing compared to what they will actually hassle you for.

Even if you have admitted being the driver, it's extremely unlikely they would take a punt against you in court. They generally don't do court at all, it's not worth their while.

For example, if a car park charged £100 per hour and you parked there for 1 hour and paid nothing, you would technically owe them £100.

On the other hand, if it's a free car park with an hour's "allowance" and you stayed for an hour and seven minutes they can't magic an amount out of thin air, as this is clearly a fine/penalty which they cannot issue.

If you have admitted being the driver, don't sweat it. Just ignore any future correspondence from them. If they do submit court papers, don't do anything, come back on here for advice first.

Yes, if the case is under dispute, Lewisham should inform the bailiffs to hold off.

I'm currently selling a caravan on the Auto Trader on behalf of an elderly relative and I've already received calls from companies claiming they've got "definite buyers" lined up and waiting. Of course I've heard of the vehicle matching $cam so I told them where to shove it. I've got the numbers in my call history so I was wondering if it's worth reporting these calls and who to? Police / Trading Standards etc?

Just a quick update on this one. The hearing date in the County Court has been set for May 12th. That's two weeks from today. The deadline for the parties exchange of information is today at 5pm. The postman has been and gone and Amazon have sent me nothing. Looks like they won't be producing any documented evidence in court then.

I have a strange feeling they won't show up to court, but we'll see.

It's really encouraging that folks are starting to wise up to the PPC bullying tactics now. It's disgraceful that these companies can legally intimidate people into paying these joke invoices and make thousands of pounds from doing so. You can help by passing the word to as many people as possible that they don't have to pay these jokers.

There's a tiny little shopping precinct just opened by me, there's a Tesco Metro, Pizza Hut, Subway and KFC there with a few other little shops. The little car park has around 8 normal parking spaces and 4 disabled bays. Got there the other day and there was only a disabled space available, so parked there. Saw a fat git in a PPC uniform writing down my reg number but didn't have a $camvoice left on my car.

Hoping for some PPC correspondence in the near future.

That sounds like a pretty good offer. Glad you got it sorted.

I would wait until your other half gets a confirmed date from the union rep before agreeing to meet the employers. They should provide a reasonable amount of time to allow for arranging representation. I would seriously advise against going in there alone.

Haha, interesting that they're offering the facility to pay monthly by direct debit, presumably without a consumer credit license.

Ignore them, these "debt collectors" have no more rights or special powers than me knocking on your door and asking for cash.

Contact them by writing immediately, send it via recorded delivery stating that you are formally rejecting the goods under the sale of goods act 1979.

See here for a template letter, just fill in the blanks and you're away.

https://consumer-tools.direct.gov.uk/consumer-advice/template_letters/SGA1979/

They will probably try and fob you off by offering a reduced refund but for a 3 month old system this is laughable. I wouldn't accept a penny less than the full amount originally paid. I would also consider claiming back for all your additional postage costs returning faulty components back to them. Given that the system is still well within warranty, THEY should have been responsible for these in the first place.

Could you scan the POC for us?

They could have signs all over the car park but it wouldn't matter, it's an unenforcable speculative invoice, not a penalty, fine or ticket.

Ah, thanks for that Danny, makes sense now.

Did Facebook respond to your mail? If so, make sure you print off a copy of their mail and take it with you, along with any other evidence such as printouts of this "other" profile, showing the log ins from elsewhere in the country.

To be honest, it sounds like you've been tucked up here. It would have taken any reasonably intelligent manager less than 30 seconds to realise that this wasn't your profile, and could not have been you posting the pictures. However they seem to have ignored that altogether.

Have you been in touch with your union yet?

So they essentially dismissed you for your photo being on someone else's Facebook page? Did they clarify how this was bringing the company into disrepute exactly?

Do you have a copy of your company's disciplinary procedures? You should have been notified in writing after being suspended of their reasons for suspending you and the disciplinary procedures should have been freely available to you at this time. Also were you given the opportunity to bring a representative to the meeting? These are all basic procedures that should have been followed. You should also have the right to appeal the decision if you wish to do so. Are you a member of a union? If so, speak to them straight away. If not, I would contact ACAS and see where you stand.

If you are being up front with us, this seems an extremely poor justification for dismissing you, unless said photo of you on Facebook shows you smoking pot on company premises or something similar. If it's just an inocuous photo, I'd say you may have a case for a tribunal.

So what have they sacked you for exactly, having a Facebook account?

The DVLA clearly don't give a s**t who they give our details out to. As long as they get their £2.50 fee, they're happy.

Data protection, my arse.