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Hi,

Hope you can help as the registered keeper is being asked to pay £170 to Vehicle Solutions Limited following a 46) Stopping in a zone where stopping is not permitted.

The driver of the vehicle in question was dropping a passenger off at Bristol airport Hilton hotel on 26/10/23.

Having noticed a barrier to enter the car park, the driver turned around, spent 1 minute researching where to drop the passenger, then waited for people in the road to clear (which can be seen on the photo) and then pulled away. The car was captured on CCTV.

The registered keeper received a CN, NTK from Vehicle Control Services Ltd on 17/11/23

The registered keeper appealed the notice on 17/11/2023 on 2 accounts. (There is no copy of the exact wording of the appeal submitted as it was entered into the myparkingcharge.co.uk portal.)

1) The driver was not the registered keeper
2) the CN was received outside of the notice period

On 9/01/24 the registered keeper received a demand for payment letter

The keeper did not receive a response to the appeal and responded to the demand for payment with an email on 08/01/2024

The registered keeper received a response claiming that the response was sent and attaching the response (rejection) to the appeal dated 22/11/23.

All communications are here https://imgur.com/a/PyoXnjL

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I can't see the attachments (possibly due to my co. firewall)

Nor can I.

There are some tips on uploading images in the 'read this first' thread at the top of the private parking forum. If you're struggling PM me.

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There is some upload space on this site but it's quite limited, so it's best to upload to a picture hosting site (such as https://imgur.com or similar) and post links
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Hey guys, any advice on what my best course of action is? Is it a lost cause and I'm better off paying the fine?

As I have informed you that I wasn't the driver...

It's not clear that he has at this stage, as he does not have a copy of the initial appeal, which was made as keeper, but we don't know whether it made clear he was not the driver.

Either way, I agree that a letter along those lines, making clear you're not the driver, and that as such you have no liability, and it would be unreasonable for them to pursue you on the assumption that you were the driver, as you have confirmed to them that you are not.

And remember - this isn't a "fine".  It's a demand for money that the keeper does not owe

How long have they given you in this "letter" to pay? Is it 14 days or 30 days. Does the letter include the necessary forms (which you never fill in) as required under the Pre Action Protocols (PAP) for debt claims?

Why not post the letter with your personal details redacted and we can give you an opinion.

Have you had a response to the email you were advised to send to VCS by @H C Andersen?

Only low hanging fruit on the gullible tree pay VCS for a scam claim such as this. You need to fully get this into your head that no matter what VCS put in their NtK, they cannot hold the keeper liable for their allegation. They can only hold the driver liable. They have no idea who the driver is. Even if they had a high resolution image of the driver they still would not know who it is. There is no magical database with which they can compare images to in order to identify the driver. They are not allowed to use images for forensic purposes. They are not the police or any form of authority. They are a bunch of ex-clampers operating an unregulated private parking company, issuing speculative invoices for alleged breaches of contract under civil, not criminal law.

In other words, they are scammers operating on the principle that the majority of their victims are too ignorant of the law to figure out what to do and are likely to just pay up.

Should this proceed as far as a claim, you would win this in court. They know this but live in the hope that you will capitulate under the pressure of the threats about CCJs and bailiffs that they throw at you.

Whatever that letter says, you would never pay as much as that if it went to court and you lost. For a single PCN in the small claims track it would be in the region of £185-£200. Even if you were so unlucky as to lose the claim, you would never have a CCJ on your record if it was fully paid within 30 days of judgment. They are using the general publics lack of education on civil law to scare them into paying up with idle threats of CCJs etc. You are dealing with ex-clamper thugs trying to scam you.

Ignore the date you received any letter. A letter is "deemed" to have been delivered two working days after it is sent first class. You should keep any envelope that has a postmark on it. If they use a bulk delivery company with no postmark, unless they have a "proof of posting" certificate (free from any post office), then it is difficult to prove unless you can get a statement from your postman that they did indeed deliver it on any specific date.

It is not unknown for these scammers to claim they posted something but didn't actually do so and it is a failing that nothing has been enacted to force them to use proof of posting for correspondence that relies on dates for legal challenges. That is why email is a much better systems you have tracking date in the headers.

For example, you state above that VCS claim that they emailed you back on 22/11/2023. Are you claiming that you did not receive that email? If so, demand that they provide you with a copy of that email including all headers.

The letter you refer to that you received (Final demand) is nothing but more paper for lining the poop tray of a hamster. You should ignore anything other than a Letter of Claim from VCS or their solicitors or an actual claim form from the CNBC. If you need to familiarise yourself with what an actual letter of claim must include, please have a read of paragraph 3 of the PAP for debt claims that they must abide by:

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/pdf/protocols/debt-pap.pdf

If the letter doesn't include what it says in the PAP then it isn't a letter of claim and can be ignored.

You are at the stage where you must wait and see if they actually do issue an LoC or an actual claim. There is nothing you can do until then. Do not under any circumstances respond to any debt collector letters. Only a judge can decide whether you owe a debt to the scammers at VCS and according to the law (PoFA) you do not because you cannot be held liable as the keeper.