UKCPS - Letter Before Claim (LBC) received - No Stopping at Manchester Piccadilly station

[DaSh60]

I have received 2 of these UKCPS "no stopping" charges at Manchester Piccadilly for instances in Oct & Nov.

 

I am not paying, They will have to take me to court to get anything out of me.

 

Have now received "Final Notice Letter" with charge now at £130.

They threaten "enforcement action which could include County Court proceedings" if there is a failure to pay.

 

Should it come to this, any advice how to proceed ? 

Googling "UKCPS Piccadilly" comes up with other forums on this topic, looks like the practice only started here in Oct, and many others have been caught.

 

Seems elsewhere UKCPS do have a track record of taking people to court, so for sure they're much more experienced than me in these things ! 

 

Any suggestion or advice would be much appreciated.

 

[dx100uk]

just use our search top right 

no stopping.

 

there are 100's of threads here

 

just do not ever respond until/unless you get a letter of claim.

byelaws rule!!

 

please complete this:

 

 

[DaSh60]

Hi dx100uk,

Thanks for the search suggestion - working my way thru those.

About the letter of claim link, I have a few points...

1. this dates back to 2013, is this still current ? have there not been any changes to the law/procedure since ?

2. the process outlined is for someone bringing a claim, but I am bracing myself to defend a claim against me - is there a different write-up from the defensive position perspective ?

3. has anyone done a summary of recent (say last 12-18 months) court cases regarding parking charges on private land ? And specifically, when the case involved "not stopping" ?

4. can you expand a bit on your byelaws rule statement ? I know they do, but would like to know which one I am relying on!

 

(I will post particulars in few days time, I am away from home right now) 

 

Thanks for your attention !!

[dx100uk]

ignore the letter of claim link.

it needs updating.

 

and anyway

you respond with a snotty letter with regard to a speculative invoice letter of claim

 

as for 3+4

simply read up ON CAG SEARCH using 'no stopping'.

lots here already

 

[ericsbrother]

 the claim is supposedly for a breach of contract and that contract is an agreement between the parking co and the driver for PARKING.

 

No stopping isnt a parking event,

the sigange saying this is prohibitive so no offer of anything to you from the parking co.

 

You are allowed 10 minutes to stop, get out of the car, read the signs and decide if you want to be bound by the terms offered and the drive off if you dont

 

so how are you supposed to do all of this if the sign says no stopping but you have to stop and read it?

 

The courts are clear on this and as long as you dont play the parking co's game you wont go wrong

[DaSh60]

just wanted to say that today (28-Jan) I recd LBC for 2 non-stoppings @ Man Picc station in Nov-Dec 2019. I'm going for the "I dispute the debt" option. Prepared for a day in court, should it go that far.

[dx100uk]

Create your own topic

Hit create in the top red banner please

 

Use our snotty letter reply not your thoughts as above nor the reply form!!

[dx100uk]

i've moved your posts to an existing thread outlining the same issues last year?

 

you mean you you have had another 2 PCN's?

so how did you deal with the last two last year at this same time?

 

[DaSh60]

Hi dx100uk,

the LBC received last wk relates to the 2 PCN's in late 2019, not 2 new ones.

Seeing comments of others seems that after a few months hiatus things are moving again now with CST Law involved.

Following advice on the forum I have not responded to anything so far.

Similarly, have now prepared my snotty letter.

(have to say they did make me laugh last yr - during first lockdown they offered a 10% Covid discount !!)

[dx100uk]

pop it up here 1st lets check it

 

dx

 

[DaSh60]

how about this....

 

In this letter I confirm that I dispute the debt because it raises a number of aspects that should be properly addressed in a court of law.

I contend that the practices employed are unreasonable in the extreme and will not be intimidated into any financial settlement regarding this claim.

Please advise your client accordingly and proceed as you see fit.

[dx100uk]

not seen that here as one of our examples used for a snotty letter.....

[DaSh60]

not short of an idea or two of my own, when it comes to snotty letters!

[lookinforinfo]

As you now have 4 PCNs that means that if they win against you they will make a profit.

When they go to Court with just one PCN they lose money because of Court fees, lawyer fees etc they end up with less than £100. But they do it to encourage the others not to go to Court and pay up.

 

With 4 PCNs your situation is a tad different so you will need to be on the ball to ensure you walk away the winner.

That means a fair bit of homework on your part -on PoFA, Byelaws, contracts and Court cases to learn as much as possible.

 

Car parking companies are lying, cheating conniving scumbags  who won't hesitate to lie on their Witness Statement and in Court and they will be going out all out to beat you.

 

I notice that you have not been asked to post up any of your PCNs.

In order to establish that there is a contract between you and UKPC they need to get that right or they have no chance. 

 

Part of the PoFA section of the contract rely on them getting their PCNs and their timing to be compliant.

So it could give you a couple of more arrows to help your case if you could post them up.

 

Photographs [legible] of the signs at the station including at the entrance since poor signage is frequently one reason for cases being dismissed.

 

[FTMDave]

The letter is nowhere near snotty enough.

 

From their point of view, the only reason not to take you to court is because they know they would lose, and lose a lot of money.  So you have to show their case is pants, you're unafraid of giving them a good hiding in court and after winning you would go for an unreasonable costs order.

[DaSh60]

thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

 

A couple of points, first to "lookforinfo",

I only have 2 'no stopping' notices, not 4.

But it is not the maths that is driving me here, it is the feeling of total injustice.

 

I really object to the machine here that is looking to exploit people who have not set out to commit any offence or act in any anti-social way. Accept that this might be a naïve perspective, but hey, life (& the 'system') have been good to me so far, maybe now is my time to step up a bit.

 

I kinda don't want them to go away, just to go after more vulnerable people.

Of course, this back fires if I go to court and they shaft me good & proper, I recognize that.

 

As much as I despise this practice I am quite willing to believe that the people in these enterprises are not some kind of evil alien thugs, they are probably normally brought up and educated people.

 

What have we come to that encourages normal people to work for organisations in this kind of exploitative business ?  Just dodging the bullet here ain't going to be enough.

 

To "FTMDave",

in addition to above, I cling to certain things mentioned in other posts on this specific subject, particularly that Manchester courts are kindly to the citizen in this regard, than to the prosecuting organisation.

 

I had intended to lay out all my objections in my dispute the claim letter but see you advise against this on 'keep your cards close to your chest' grounds. Hence, my abrupt dispute letter.

 

As it happens, I know for a fact I wasn't the driver on each occasion, but I cannot for sure identify who was (though whoever it was they were legally entitled to drive my car).

 

Again appreciate anyone reading this and bothered to reply, shoot me down if you like....

[FTMDave]

No-one will shoot your down!  We're all about support & empowerment here, and hey, sometimes all Caggers get it wrong so other site members who know more will politely put us back on the right track.  Er, BTW that includes me twice in the last two days.

 

I agree with you that most of the people who work for UKCPS will just be doing a job.

 

That does not apply to the people who set up the company though.  They know full well all the stuff about bye-laws and prohibition.  They are simply conmen.  Have a look at post 8 in  https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/topic/420321-ukcps-mnpr-pcn-no-stopping-gateway-house-piccadilly-manchester/  These charlatans have initially deliberately put up pathetic signage to entrap motorists, then recently have put up better signage so they can lie and pretend the latter were in place before.  These are the slime you are dealing with.

 

I'm sure the Manchester civil court would take your side, but surely the point is to avoid court if at all possible?  Therefore you need to send a letter more in line with those shown on the last page of crashlanding21, rocky_sharma & Alaska101's threads, particularly those where the keeper wasn't the driver.

 

[lookinforinfo]

If you were an employee there and you saw that despite the company losing time and again in Court for the same reason but still they sent out more letters to new motorists demanding money for something they know is wrong, would you still work for that company?

 

Even if they were good people when they first started working there, they have now been corrupted by their employer who lie and cheat in order to scare motorists into paying money that is not owed.

 

If these parking companies had cast iron contracts that complied with PoFA there would be few people winning against them in Court. Instead the opposite is true.

 

The few times they do win in Court is when the defendant fails to turn up or the Judge has misinterpreted the Law usually because the prosecuting lawyer has misdirected or blatantly lied in Court or their WS had misdirected or lied.  [Their is the classic when the parking companies stated that although they did not have Council permission for their signage they did not need it since the Council Laws were retrospective! ]

 

Do not think that you are dealing with honest people. They are the lowest of the low and do anything including cheating, lying and threatening in order to get money from you even though they know that no money is owed to them.

 

PS that applies to the largest companies, there are some small localised parking companies that are excellent and highly unlikely that you will ever receive a PCN from them.

 

PPS and that is before I start on the lawyers that work for them. Birds of a feather springs to mind.

[DaSh60]

I am totally with you on the gist of this - it is just a new twist on the ambulance chasing aspect of the legal 'profession'. Which is why I kinda want my day in court, rather than just have them leave me alone.

 

I have some faith left in the system, can't believe we're completely in some Kafkaesque dystopian nightmare that means all we need to do is act as individuals in order to dodge being sucked in at all costs. Part of me really wants to find out if a court will actually defend the practices employed here, particularly the sudden introducing of a no stopping zone to a commonly used drop-off / pick-up point as a money making enterprise, and the subsequent menacing practices to extract payment.

 

If all we do is act individually to find loopholes to avoid payment then all it will do is give these conmen chance to tighten up their act a bit and carry on regardless. The more they lose in court the harder it hits them, and perhaps slightly more likely that some legislation may follow to curb these practices. 

[dx100uk]

but thats not the point of these companies that pump out speculative invoices..nor the DCA's..

 

any dca is a totally powerless company 

they are not bailiffs and have absolutely no legal powers whatsoever on any debt no matter what it's type.

 

however as 99.9% of the mug population think otherwise and wet themselves and blindly pay on all manner of debts and speculative invoices ...you can't blame them for trying.

 

 

[FTMDave]

55 minutes ago, DaSh60 said:

Which is why I kinda want my day in court, rather than just have them leave me alone.

 

OK, I see where you're coming from now - apologies!

 

From the point of view of the forum, the vast majority of people who come here for help want to avoid court.  There are a minority who are terrified of county court, because they don't understand what it's like, so we try to reassure them it's no big deal.  Most people aren't like that but they do want to avoid court.  So this is why we advise the "snotty letter strategy".  There are no guarantees, but an aggressive response ridiculing the claim has a better chance of the motorist being flagged up as bad news for the PPC and therefore being left in peace, simply because the PPC don't want to lose money in court.

 

If instead you are confident enough to want a day in court to give them a thrashing, then fine, send your letter instead of a snotty one.  Not replying at all to a LBC would encourage court even more, as the PPC would hope for a default judgement.

[dx100uk]

If you get a letter of claim (rather than one being sent to an old address) and fail to reply... i'm not really sure it encourages a PPC to issue a court claim nor hope for a default judgement, which can only happen should the defendant thus ignore the claimform too which might follow.

 

 Knowingly getting a letter of claim AND ignoring one places the defendant in an awkward backfooted position before ever entering a courtroom door should they then decide to defend a latter court claim. But that doesn't mean you don't thus file a defence. likewise the opposite applies to a claimant should they fail to send one and jump straight to raising a court claim. it's one of the reasons why the pre action protocol was introduced in the 1st place.

 

To Employ either method to simply guarantee you do get a court claim is a bit of a stupid idea, as is baiting the claimant in your PAPLOC reply to take you to court, again it's not what the Pre Action Protocol was put there for.

 

now if you are the kind of person that wants to 'have your day' in court, just remember that notions of how bad all these PPC's are by dreaming up these parking schemes and how big a giant scam it all is and 'i want to do some good for everyone' by fronting them , have all been tried time and time again. they don't do any real good even the ones that do succeed. 

 

Be very careful being gun hoe and firing some or all your bullets in a PAPLOC reply ....

[FTMDave]

Can you please fill in the sticky in post 3?

 

This will show us (a) whether the fleecers have even attempted to send out their bilge within the legal timeframe, and (b) when the event took place.  Two other Caggers have done great work in finding out that UKCPS have twice changed their signage, of course because the original signage was complete pants.

[DaSh60]

no clue on filling in stickies !  but assume these are the details you're asking..

The date of infringement?

24/10/2019 & 15/11/2019
 

2 Have you yet appealed to the parking company yet? [Y/N?]

No
 

have you received a Notice To Keeper? (NTK) [must be received by you between 29-56 days]

Y 

what date is on it

13/11/2019 & 11/12/2019

Did the NTK provide photographic evidence?

Y, reference to MNPR
   

3 Did the NTK mention Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA) [Y/N?]

“NON POFA” stated in the header

4 If you appealed after receiving the NTK,

did the parking company give you any information regarding the further appeals process?

[it is well known that parking companies will reject any appeal whatever the circumstances]

Reference to ukcps appeal process & then IAS
 

5 Who is the parking company?

ukcps
 

6. where exactly [Carpark name and town] did you park?

On the NTK it states Gateway House Piccadilly station Manchester

It is actually a service road off Store St, leading to a couple of car parks and a side entrance to the station

 

 

[FTMDave]

Thanks for that.  Excellent news.

 

They have scored four own goals, both invoices were sent out too late to create keeper liability, and they've written "NON POFA" on them!

 

Due to their signage being absolutely carp, one Cagger, Spannerz, has found out they put up new signs some time between 16.11.2019 and 18.12.2019, plus another Cagger, flusterer, has sussed extra signage going up between  02.01.2020 and 04.03.2020.  All this after you were ticketed.