How much would court fees and everything cost?
quite a lot probably
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So, a bit more detail now I’m awake properly:
My local cinema is on a leisure park. Twelve months ago the car park introduced parking restrictions of three hours to stop people abusing the car park. After complaints about the restrictions (more and more films are longer than three hours inc trailers/food), the parking company put tablets in the cinema to put your car reg in to get an additional two hours.
I went to see Endgame in April and stayed for 3 hrs 25 mins. I had recently moved house and hadn’t updated my address on my V5 so they ended up needing to use a tracing service to find me. 10-12 weeks after the parking ‘offence’ I received a debt collection notice at my new address. Because of the time delay I was told there would be no opportunity to appeal the decision.
I have refused to pay the fine because I have proof that I was there using the leisure facilities (the cinema) and that the film was longer than the three hours. I am also convinced that I did infact enter my reg on the tablet (maybe I didn’t tap the final ‘enter’…?). I also know that the parking company have a record of me entering my reg three/four times that week alone (I go to the cinema a lot).
They have set a steady pattern since then of a new letter every 5-6 weeks. It has progressed from one debt collection agency to a second one, each claiming that the parking company may consider legal action if it still remains unpaid. Finally, last week I got a solicitors letter which basically repeated the same line as the DCAs…
Has anyone had similar? Did you cave in and pay? Any pro-bono advice very welcome. 
Never had one myself but believe they’re a bit of a con
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/
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Cheers. I’ll chase this up on Monday when POPLA’s phone lines are open.
Got contacted for ‘overstaying’ in a Lidl. (Through my employer, as I was in a pool vehicle.) My boss advised to ignore as private parking fines aren’t enforceable in Scotland. I looked into it (probably including a look at that MSE advice) and decided he was probably right, so ignored it. Never heard another thing about it.
On the basis of zero knowledge about these things, I’d probably not cave in in your case.
The fact that it’s gone from one debt collection agency to a second one, with the persistent pester letter tactic, and that they only may consider legal action, it sounds like they’re At It in a TV licence style.
Sounds like you’ve got a good body of evidence, too, so I’d be surprised if anything was upheld against you if it did go to court.
Telling these chumps that you’ve got evidence to undermine their claim (without taking them exactly what) would be something I’d maybe consider if things started getting a bit squeaky bum.
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They are enforceable in Scotland, however the fact is that they are rarely enforced. What Scotland has in its favour is we have a presumption of non incrimination so you just ask to see proof from them that you were driving- unless you have a pink Mohican and were hanging out the driver side window then chances are the photo of your car won’t have a good identifiable shot of you as the driver. The onus of proof is on them to prove that you were driving and that you breached the terms of the parking contract. I got one from Aldi recently and went in to speak to the manager and he was really decent and wrote it off.
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Suddenly reminded of this because of the ‘proving you were there’
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Private company? I got ticketed by a private company when my partner was giving birth and then subsequently hospitalised for 10 days, did not fucking pay them They are all massive shitheads