Can the Bailiffs charge so much?

[Distinctiveshoe]

Please help!

I am in desperate need of assistance. I have recently acquired a number of parking fines which have now been sent to the bailiffs.

 

Collect services Bailiffs......The first two fines issued from Brent council were £50.00 and had both increased to £150.00 by the time they reached Bailiffs. By the time i was contacted by Collect Services the charges added by them had increased the debt to £1582.

 

Drakes Bailiffs....I had the exact say experience where they added such unjustifiable cost staing that an agent had visited my address and blah blah.

 

To be honest this is not the first time this has happened to me and my car has been clamped twice before last year and I paid out a total of £2500 to get the car declamped. :(

 

Two months ago I was stopped on the road side by a army of Drakes bailiffs supported by the metroplitan police who threatened to empound my car unless I paid a cost of £940 to cover the cost of two parking fines. They gave me half an hour to get the money, which I loaned from a relative. When i got back the car was gone and I had to go to the pound later that night to retrieve it costing me an extra £180.

 

I believe that if charges are going to be added then the bailiffs need to be able to send you a breakdown of costs and what they are for. Bailiifs are adding an extra £300 upwards just for sending you a first initial letter. Can this be justified

 

Really I should have learned my lesson by now as this is surely money down the drain. I no longer drive during work hours as my employer refuses to pay any initial parking fines.

 

Please Can anyone tell me if the bailiffs are allowed to charge such costs and if not how can i go about getting my money back.

 

 

Also these bailiffs are thugs and bullies who have approached my 13 year old daughter on the door step on her way home from school and asked if he can wait in the home until I got in from work. This terrified my daughter who saught refuge at the neighbours house. I have been harrassed at my doorstep and spoken to in a intimidating way.

[seylectric]

Two months ago I was stopped on the road side by a army of Drakes bailiffs supported by the metroplitan police who threatened to empound my car unless I paid a cost of £940 to cover the cost of two parking fines. They gave me half an hour to get the money, which I loaned from a relative. When I got back the car was gone and I had to go to the pound later that night to retrieve it costing me an extra £180.

 

Is this true? It sounds absolutely bizarre! Were the parking fines from an area where they are still police controlled? Certainly council hired bailiffs have no power to actually pull you over, nor as far as I know do police bailiffs. I don't get this, a bailiff can't make you get out of the car either or insist that you go and get the money, although a few years ago I did have a bailiff on the doorstep - he hadn't entered the house - who told me I had 30 minutes to go and get the money he wanted.

 

I know now I could have simply told him to f off and there was nothing he could have done but the lying ****** told me at the time that he would break in to take my goods if I didn't go and get the cash.

 

The police can arrest you or impound your car for non-payment of a fine, but only for an offence, not a council-issued parking ticket.

[falcon185]

I agree seylectric,

the only person who can stop you in a car is a Police officer, IN FULL UNIFORM. anyone else tries to pull you over is acting unlawfully. I would certainly report these Bailiffs if thats what they have done, the question is, did they have Police officers there at the time and was it the Police attending do the vehicle stop??

[seylectric]

The question for me is WHY were the police there? This sounds to me like it was an unpaid fine for a police-issued parking ticket.

 

Don't forget that we have this bizarre system whereby in some areas of the country parking "fines" have been decriminalised and are run by the council (who use it as a cash cow, there were 13 police-contolled traffic wardens in my town until the council took over. They increased this to 79 overnight. there are now over 100).

 

In other areas they are still police controlled so you can get arrested and/or your car impounded if you don't pay the fine. Double standards or what?

[seylectric]

I agree seylectric,

the only person who can stop you in a car is a Police officer, IN FULL UNIFORM. anyone else tries to pull you over is acting unlawfully. I would certainly report these Bailiffs if thats what they have done, the question is, did they have Police officers there at the time and was it the Police attending do the vehicle stop??

 

Incidentally I was pulled over by an unmarked car a while back for "overtaking". I was, I overtook a car doing 20mph in a 30 zone on a quiet, clear night. Strangely, the "officer" beckoned me over to his car once we had stopped. Not the usual procedure!

 

I believe it's safest to get past a slow moving car as quickly as possible so no doubt exceeded the speed limit during the overtaking manoevre, but speeding wasn't mentioned. The "officer" asked me why I was overtaking the other car. Then I noticed his cap on the passenger seat. The band around the cap read "TRAFFIC WARDEN". I can't repeat what I said to him but I called the police. To cut a long story short, that's one less traffic warden on the streets!

[Distinctiveshoe]

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.......Certainly in many parts of London Court appointed bailiffs Drakes are stopping motorists during rush hour and are impounding vehicles. They are accommpanied by the metropolitan police who have very little interaction and are only there to keep the peace. These bailiffs set roadside vigilance and use a special scanning computer which takes a note of your registration number, but the time you get further up the road you are ushered over by roadside police and drakes bailiffs who are standing at roadside.

 

This has become common practice in London and i am not sure if it is carried out elsewhere. These are just for normal parking fines: ie mainly because I overstayed on a few client visits by a few minutes and my ticket ran out. On two occasions I got to the car when the warden was issueing the ticket only to be told that once they enter the details into the computer, that they are unable to cancel.

 

I think however that the addtional charges added on by the Drakes bailiffs are more my concern, which is the reason why you dodge them in the first place. I could have paid these fines initially but did not have the money to do so. By the time I was in a financial posistion to pay the fine gone up to much i could not afford to pay. I did call them on many occasions trying to attempt a settlement but their office staff are rude and do no t offer any kind of solution to your problem. Also they did not answer either of my two letters which I wrote.

 

Surely there must be a guideline as to how much these companies can charge. Apparently people are being faced with loosing their vehicles for the price of a parking fine........Is that fair????

[Distinctiveshoe]

I must also stress........I do not have ANY road traffic offences.......only parking fines from London Borough Councils, who use this as revenue. In Hayes Middlesex......they have a warden on a moped who issues fines on the residential streets where there is no parking restictions or markings. My financial advisor was almost given a ticket for parking across my private driveway. When we asked the warden he said it warranted a fine as it contrevened "some kind of rule"??? This made little sense as my property is owned by me and the drive is jointly owned by myself and the neighbour.......aparently the warden stressed that we did not own the street as the drivers side wheels where on the road???

 

TERRIBLE!!!

[Rob S]

It would be interesting to see what powers the bailiffs are using to stop vehicles on the public highway. As far as I am aware it is only the police who have powers to do this. The police would not be able to stop vehicles on behalf of the bailiffs either. This appears to be an interesting escalation in the tactics being used by the bailiffs.

[seylectric]

Agreed, unless they have introduced some sort of new laws for London (such as they did with the congestion charge) bailiffs have no legal right to do this!

 

If they HAVE introduced such a draconian law I'm staggered that they have got away with it in this day and age. I have always maintained that in the vast majority of cases unless an obstuction is caused, parking "illegally" doesn't even warrant a fine.

 

The motorist has always been hammered but it's now reaching farcicle proportions and i'm convinced it's just another method of trying to get cars off the road.

[Rob S]

I would be very surprised if Bailiffs have access to the automatic number plate recognition systems (ANPR) that the police have access to. I can't see the police running joint operations with bailiffs either as in most cases the collection of unpaid parking tickets is a civil matter. Police would usually get involved only if called to a situation that has already developed and their role is purely to prevent a breach of the peace.

[falcon185]

I totally agree Rob S,

I cant see how Bailiffs can be given such systems and use them carte blanch. As for joint operations, bear in mind that the Police are Council Police effectively. The Police will work around the requests of the local councils but as for civil debt the police should not even contemplate getting involved.

This may be another ploy by Taliban For London and Red Ken, well, he needs to finance his trips abroad somehow doesnt he? Even if they dont want him ;-)

My question to any Police officer (in uniform) that stopped me woud be, "what moving traffic offence have I committed?) If you havent committed a moving traffic offence then it could be deemed as an unlawful stop?? IMO

[Rob S]

Falcon,

 

You could well ask that question but the reply you would get is "I can stop you using my powers under the Road Traffic Act for the purpose of ascertaining if you have a driving licence, insurance and a valid MOT if the car requires it". What they can't do is use their RTA powers to stop someone and then let a bailiff loose on you.

 

The moving traffic violation comes into it when they want you to take a roadside breath test. You have to have committed a moving offence (with the exception of a rear number plate light being out), been involved in an accident or if they suspect you may have consumed alcohol before they can require you to take a roadside breath test.

[Distinctiveshoe]

What do we do now.......they have decided to put yellow lines everywhere....extend the conjestion charge zone. I cant be expected to get my 4 children off to school including a pair of 2 year old twins on one of Ken livinstones buses. Not only do you wait for ages but there is little provision for a double buggy and children during rush hour anyway.

 

I hope someone comes along with a solution for roadside bailiff stops,,,,,,Im sure that the police would rather be out stopping criminals anyway as the sight of me crying my eyes out as I was so skint must have been heart renching.