How I was Almost Extorted £200 | Story Series
While looking to find my cousin's Christmas card in the post, I instead found a debt collection notice expecting to receive £150 for a parking charge notice that I never received. I was also notified of another parking charge notice both adding up to £200. This is that story.
New years day
After returning home going on our yearly walk on New Years day, my partner was checking inside our mailbox for a Christmas card that I was expecting from my cousin. She handed me a few letters that were addressed to me.
"You owe us £150, pay up or face legal action." the letter proclaimed in bold red text. Why you might ask? They claimed that it was because I had defaulted on a parking charge notice. The catch? I never actually received a parking charge notice up until that point.
The funny thing was that they claimed that I did not pay for a parking ticket in September 2024. But I checked my records and I could see that I most certainly did pay for a parking ticket on that day.
This put me in a bit of a funk. I had always endeavored to pay for parking every time I reached a location. I also always set up timers to ensure that I pay extra if need be.
I then received a second parking charge notice in the mail that day and it became clear why I was being charged. They were charging me extortionary sums of money because I left the parking lot about 10 minutes after my original parking had expired. This took me back to a time when I was in a similar situation.
When did we lose our humanity?
A few years earlier, I parked my car at a nearby beach and went about my day. Unbeknownst to me, I had completely forgotten to pay for parking.
We rushed back to where we parked our car. From a distance, I could see a man dressed in all black sitting on the bonnet of our car. Just by his attire I was able to tell who he was.
He was the civil enforcement officer for the area. He had been waiting there for a while to see if anyone would show up to have a chat with them. I explained that I had completely forgotten to pay and that I had since paid for parking using the mobile app.
He mentioned that the app takes a while to reflect the new tickets. So he bid me adiau and did not issue a parking charge notice.
This experience was in stark contrast to the parking charge notice issued at the other car park, where they had simply sent a letter. They didn't even send me a follow up letter before sending my case to a debt collection company who demanded roughly 100 times the cost of their lost income (£150 demanded when 10 minutes at £1 equates to ~£0.15).
Resolution
It took me a while to finally have the courage to do something about this. On the one hand, I felt that I could just pay them off off to try and get them off my back (as I was receiving nastier and nastier letters every so often). But my partner rightly pointed out that they were being unreasonable and that there had to be another way out of this situation.
Moreover, she had looked at online forums where people were complaining about being in similar situations. Even a Member of Parliament had criticised debt collection company's loan-shark-esque practices.
Therefore, I set out to try and resolve this without lining the pockets of some shady and unethical company. I tried reaching out to the property (which happened to be an educational institution!) to try explain my situation.
Surprisingly, not only were they completely powerless, they admitted to their own staff being hit with parking charge notices!
They did give me a number to call. I was skeptical that this phone number could do anything to help, but regardless I soldiered on and proceeded to call them the next day.
A friendly sounding guy picked after I waited about 5 minutes to get connected. I explained my situation about how I never received a parking charge notice and instead the first mail I received was from a debt collection company.
They initially hesitated to assist me stating that there was nothing they could do now as the case had been taken off their hands. And so, he gave me the phone number for the debt collection company and asked that I get back in touch if the debt collectors were unable to do anything.
And so I called the debt collection company and surprisingly was connected to a human being not long after I called. I again explained my situation and asked whether they could do anything.
It then became a game of hot potato as this person was telling me that there was nothing he could do and that I needed to pay the whole £150 pounds. He started threatening me a bit stating that they would take me to court if I did nothing.
I wanted to take my chances and so as the first guy had said to call back if nothing came of the debt collection company. So I did get back in touch. I explained everything again, this time to a not-as-friendly sounding guy, including my chat with the debt collection company.
After putting me on hold for a little while, the new guy came back to me saying he'd call off the debt company if I paid the original sum for the parking charge which was a bargain at only 20 times the amount I originally owed.
And so, to put this whole saga to bed, I complied and went ahead with paying the cheap rate.
This story goes to show that despite what the original situation you find yourself in may be, you can always try and reason with people to get to a better outcome.
Have you got a similar story? Reply on the post's thread over on Mastodon!
Until next time, Tony
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