Car park fine - Pt2

I received 2 letters from Dun & Bradstreet and today just receive a letter from A'Beckett Lawyers, like Moray received earlier.

It is really fun and you may like to play around with the debt collectors. I called Dun & Bradstreet earlier and spoke to a woman. She is well trained to threaten callers like me, she told me ANCP is a “really” big corporation and they will not hesitate to take me to court, and if I don’t pay within the due date, my credit rating will be affected.

I was prepared to take these crooks to VCAT. I called up VCAT for more information, and according to VCAT, because I’m not the driver who park in ANCP, I can’t take them to court, and they also said I have no obligation to tell them who the driver was.

I would like to thank everyone here who provided your experiences and knowledge to fence off these crooks. It has been many years and ANCP is still demanding money from the innocent shoppers. I was thinking whether the shopping centre management who hire them can do anything about it?

I wrote to the Barkly Square management complaining about ANCP and told them I would no longer be shopping there. I received a letter basically saying they were happy with ANCP. They made no request for me to reconsider my choice not to shop there. Basically they said, 'bad luck, we like ANCP'.

I have not shopped there since, and am disgusted that management don't give a rats about the store owners/operators. Unfortunately I have misplaced the letter, as I planned on distributing it to all the shop owners, to let them know management is not fighting to keep their customers.

Go for the web site! I'm planning on starting a face book page, just waiting to confirm the final action ANCP will take. It has been a few weeks since the lawyer threatened me. I will send another letter to him, requesting closure on this matter. It is appalling that they threaten you, then don't have the guts/decency to let you know that they will or will not take you to court/forget the thing.

Edited by tigermoth - 01/October/2009 at 19:41

lexieblue, that is the third way to solve the problem. The PPCs won't bite the hand that feeds them by pursuing people who have pestered the centre management pointing out that they shopped there.

But it's much easier to just ignore the PPCs, or if you're of a nervous disposition, send them an angry cease and desist letter.

Originally posted by deuterreds Can we start a web site and start a petition and boycott campaign? I’m a web developer; I can start the website for free if this is what the community wants.

Start the web site and place the URL here and anywhere else people with an interest may visit.

....and still no one has gone to court!!! LOL!

All these letters from ANCP and their representatives are just bait. They need correspondence so they've got someone to pursuit. Don't bite! Once you let them know you are out there they'll be all over you. As Hitrecord mentioned, he contcted them and now they want to pursuit him for another "infringement" from 2007!

So far I have ignored every piece of correspondence from them and from their debt collectors and from their lawyers. I have made no communication with them at all. It seems to be working quite well. As I said before they don't even know if I'm alive or in the country. Right now I'm rather interested to see what their next move will be. Somehow I very much doubt that it will be court. But even if it is I will make application to immediately get it moved to VCAT.

One thing that does interest me is this: Earlier it was stated that ANCP were given access to VicRoads data, which is how they have managed to contact us in the first place. I wonder if that was a once only access or if they are allowed continued access? If it was a once off they really are in the dark about me. But if they are allowed continued access they will know I am still out there.

Chill out lestki. This is only stage one of the correspondence you will receive from them. Next they'll send you a letter giving you 48 hours. Then they'll get some lawyer to write to you. Then the lawyer will give it back to D&B because they too can't get to you. So then D&B will send you another letter giving you 48 hours (Ai, ai, ai!!! again with the 48 hours!).

I really don't think anything is going to happen. It's just a lot of sabre-rattling. Actually that's too polite a term. They're thugs, who are shirt fronting and bullying innocent people. They have no proof to support their allegations. Dun & Bradstreet should be ashamed of themselves for acting for such a disreputable client.

I'm not a lawyer, I'm just another innocent caught up in this debacle, but my advice to you (which has worked for me so far) is to do nothing. Treat them with the contempt they deserve. Ignore them and they're representatives. Do not acknowledge them. Any correspondence from you will give them something to get their hooks into.

As for your credit rating. Any action on that is a long way off. Even if they try to do something it'll be easily fixed. Here are some edited extracts from an earlier post by surroundfan.

Originally posted by surroundfan The other important thing to recognise is that you probably haven’t defaulted on a credit contract. Dun and Bradstreet and other debt collectors writing threatening letters saying that they (or their principal) will make a recording in your file on the grounds that you have defaulted on an account. It is extremely unlikely that you’ve entered a credit contract though, because the contract provides for the payment to occur at the same time as supply of the parking services and is therefore unlikely to meet the definition of a ‘loan’ (no, delaying payment of a claim for liquidated damages is not a loan!). In addition, s 18(8)(c) of the Privacy Act requires that the credit provider (i.e. the PPC) must have, at the time of, or before, acquiring the information on the default, informed you that the information might be disclosed to a credit reporting agency. I don't think any PPC has ever done that! See C v Service Provider [2004] PrivCmrA 17 for more. 2. Ignore, ignore and ignore some more. Preferred. This basically involves doing nothing. Be prepared for 1-2 letters from the PPC, 1-2 letters from a debt collector (Dun and Bradstreet in the case of ANCP) and 1-2 letters from the PPC's tame firm of solicitors (A'Beckett Lawyers in the case of ANCP), each ratcheting up the histrionics and the 'costs' that they won't be able to claim.* It remains to be seen what the outcome of this strategy is, although the experiences of tigermoth and Moray on the forum suggests nothing will occur. If the PPCs here are like those in the UK, they won't go anywhere near a court for fear of getting their bottom spanked. There is a small risk that a PPC will attempt to lodge a false default on your credit history, potentially leading to the hassle of having to get it removed.

Support you 100%, please setup the website & let bring these guys out of business for good.

Hi Everyone

First, thanks for all the great thinking. You all rock! It is nice to have found this forum and to know that I am on the right track.


Something I wanted to ask:

RE: Solicitor Form Letter with fake signature

I recently got the dodgy standard form solicitors letter. It has an nonsense scanned signature and no name attached or on the letterhead.

I rang the solicitors firm to ask who the lawyer was who "wrote" the letter, (they gave me a name - not from the local office) and guess what; the form letter signature is totally unconnected to the lawyer who was alleged to have been behind the letter to me.

Further more I wrote to the lawyers to tell them to bugger off and they replied with a more considered note, and this time I got the real signature of this muppet, and of course it is nothing like the form letter at all.

Does anyone know if it is a breach of VIC law society code to write those original mass letters from a firm with no identifying people or partners named?

I would have thought that it is unethical or against the code for solicitors to be sending letters with neither a real signature or an identifying name or title.

CHEERS, and thanks everyone!

(I once made a complaint to the law society of NSW because a debt collector was using the letterhead of a firm, in breach of the code which made it unethical for a law firm to "loan" its letterhead and partners names for a debt collection exercise. In this case, the phone number of the firm listed in the letter went straight trhrough to a debt collection comany. I made a complaint against each partner on the letterhead and they were told not to do it again).

If the firm's in Victoria, and it's a genuine legal firm but fake solicitor, the Legal Services Board may be a good avenue for complaint, rather than CAV.

http://www.lsb.vic.gov.au/