Free Traffic Legal Advice

 So I just recieved a private parking fine letter from a debt collection company a year and half from the date of contravention
believe they did not have my up to date address at the time of the contravention as I was also moving houses around that
I never received the chance to pay the original fine with the discount as I never received those letters

As this is almost two years from the date of contravention I feel like ignoring this
 
Any advice?

Firstly thank you for your reponse

So the original parking company is called MET parking services ltd

I will try find the DPO and email them,

Just give you some extra context

It was a mcdonald's car park, there was a 90mins mins limit, I was there for around that not exactly sure

However it wasn't like I parked there and walked away, I was actually inside the mcdonald's eating with friends

Also very important

I moved address maybe 1-2 weeks maybe before the date of contravention

However 2 weeks after the contravention I got involved in a major accident where the car got written off completely by insurance, and was taking to a scrapyard/auction, therefore the vehicle wasn't no longer on my name hence why it the address hasn't been changed since.


The 14 days of warning from the debt collectors has passed do I contact them or wait till I speak to the private company first

(the reason why I wanted to ignore was, once I contact them it's a sign of acknowledgement that I received the letter)

Did you inform the DVLA of the status of the car, written off due to RTC, SORN, etc.

MET can only access your DVLA data once. At the time thy used that address and if your had moved and didn’t have a postal redirection service in place, you’d never have received anything. What has happened since is irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Do not contact the debt collector. They are powerless and not a party to any alleged breach of contract by the driver. Ignore the 14 days. It is irrelevant.

Anything that gives you only 14 days can be used as emergency toilet paper. A real Letter of Claim will give you 30 days. Tell us about that if you receive one. We really do not need to know about any debt collector letters and you can safely ignore those.

You will find the DPO contact email in METs privacy policy link on their website, usually a tiny link at the bottom of the page.

What was the location of this McDonalds? It is especially relevant if it was one of their outlets based at an airport.

Please stop calling it a “fine”. I’ll give you £100 for every occurrence of the word ”fine” or “penalty” you can evidence on the correspondence. What they are chasing is an unpaid, speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver.

The debt collector will not handle anything. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat it, the debt collector has no skin in this game. They are powerless and irrelevant. IGNORE them. They are simply engaged on a no-win, no-fee basis to try and persuade the gullible and ignorant out of their money by using scary words like “CCJ” or “bailiffs”. If you’re adamant on making contact with a debt collector, it should only be to tell them to go sit on a sharp stick and rotate, slowly.

What happens next depends on whether MET want to try and scare you into paying by threatening litigation. They probably will. They are most likely going to use a firm of bulk litigators, usually DCB Legal to send you an LoC. If/when tney do, let us know.

Eventually they will issue a claim in the county court which will arrive as an N1SDT claim form from the CNBC. Again, when it does, show us and we will tell you how to do the Acknowledgement of Service (AoS) and provide a defence template to use.

The whole matter will end early next year when they will discontinue. I say this with greater than 99% certainty. As long as you are here and receiving and following the advice, you won’t be paying a penny to MET.

Irrelevant, especially if you moved around the time of the event.