Stopping excessive mail to someone who doesn’t live herr

[Rhinosaurus]

Help - I feel as if I am being harassed. A legal firm acting for a parking company for disputed charges are sending between 2 to 5 letters a week to my son at my address. My son has not lived here for over a year and is travelling overseas and does not have a forwarding address. The constant letters are really causing me stress and upset now. I don’t open them, but I know where they are from due to the franking/return address:

So far I have returned to sender, I have written politely to them saying he no longer lives here, I have sent normal mail and also email, and recorded mail with return of the letters. I have completed a cease and desist letter earlier this month saying that he no longer lives here and letters are not reaching him, with a fee schedule if I have to spend time and money returning them stating that if they continue to send letters that constitutes agreement to the fees. Since then if anything letters have increased, I have sent four back today - one received daily since last Wednesday with an invoice for my fees.

Surely this constitutes some sort of harassment?
My son is not on the council tax or electoral roll here since he left the uk early last year.

Any ideas gratefully received, is there an omsbudsman I can complain to I? Or the law society as they call themselves a legal firm?

Personally I'd get legal advice and get this sorted.
I also think it's possible to get the post office to not deliver mail which isn't addressed to you, so maybe look into that.

And yes eventually bailiffs eventually turning up would be a worry, they have his email address so I don’t see why they can’t just correspond with him via email.

I suspect if they have any intention of legal action, or if a CCJ has already been issued, they have to have been shown to be writing to his last known address, which appears to be your home.

Just collect them up; write return to sender and throw them back in the post box without a stamp when you've got time. It won't mean they go away - plenty of people hiding from debt and tickets will use the same trick - but you can hope that they send less! Then your son can deal with it when he gets back.

It might be worth encouraging him to get legal action about where he stands on the ticket at that point, if it's progressed - it'll really depend who is chasing you and whether they have the ability to seek a CCJ.

@Rhinosaurus

A company will not update the address records in the say so of a 3rd party

Bin them & let your son deal with the fall out

Go to the financial ombudsman but it will be a waste of time. The company have not made any mistake sending mail to the address they have for him

Could you get your son to do the Royal Mail re-delivery service so at least the post is going elsewhere?

The Financial Ombudsman can’t help, it’s not a debt regulated by the FCA so they have no powers against the firm for what they’re doing. If it’s a legal firm, speak to the SRA or whoever regulates them for advice on how to make a complaint.

If it goes to CCJ so be it, good luck to them finding him to get their money.

^Wow, great attitude there OP. No one wonder your son is running away from this mess.

@misspiggy19

So what? I happen to agree with him that private parking companies are Cowboy scum. Why on earth would I hope that they get money out of my son or encourage him to pay something in dispute because of bullying tactics?

@misspiggy19 also, I don’t think he planned a round the world trip to escape one parking ticket - hardly a “mess”

Any other debts were cleared before he left - credit card, outstanding phone bill, car finance, this was a trip two years in the planning - it wasn’t running away from anything, or a mess. This demand was not paid as was in dispute, this company don’t appear to listen or acknowledge any correspondence or queries other than asking him to set up a payment plan - why would he? He doesn’t owe it. They then try to swamp you with letters as a bullying tactic. Obviously some posters here would pay something on demand even if they don’t owe it to make it go away, but as a matter of principle and as someone with the full facts I agree with him not paying.

I wouldn’t pay on demand if I could prove that there was no case to answer but I wouldn’t go travelling for (what sounds like) several years knowing that my mother, who gets stressed out by demands for payment even if she’s not the one being pursued, would have to deal with a case that’s still open.

You don’t need to give the specifics but the parking enforcement company - or whoever the debt has been sold to - must think that they have a case. Otherwise your son’s response - that he parked in a parking space you owned - would have done the trick. I’m not being naive, BTW: enforcement companies have no interest in flogging a dead horse if chasing the debt is going to cost them, and nobody buys unenforceable debts.

I got a parking notice from a private enforcement firm a few years ago but the idiots had put the wrong date on it: I replied saying that my car hadn’t been in that spot on the date they wrote on the ticket and they cancelled it straight away. With an ill grace of course, but it was obvious that they would have got nowhere. If your son’s case was strong, he’d have got the same result. I suspect there’s more to this story: did he neglect to display a residents’ permit, for example? (No need to answer)

Forget invoicing the enforcement company for your fees. It’s just silly and takes up more head space. You already seem disproportionately bothered by this. Forget telling Royal Mail not to deliver stuff to your house. Forget posting the letters back with no stamp. I think you need to disengage, as other posters have suggested.

Decide once and for all whether you want to leave it for your son to deal with or whether you want him to do something about it before he comes back to the UK in case a CCJ damages his credit score. If the former, shove the letters into a box when they arrive and don’t think of them again. If the latter, email your son and set out the position so that he can decide what to do. In either case, disengage. Your son is an adult and fretting about his problems is doing you no good.

If the firm in Leeds pursuing the parking fine is Lowell, the parking enforcement company have almost certainly obtained a CCJ already and have sold the debt to Lowell.

I am pretty sure there is no CCJ as I am familiar with the small claims process as a claimant and there has been no correspondence from the county court business centre, even before he left - I am certain of this as we have a mail box and only I have ever had a key.

Be aware that if it does go as far as bailiffs turning up at your door, him being in a foreign country won't mean they walk away. They will want proof that everything you own in that house is yours, eg receipts, otherwise it could go as far as removal of goods.

This is totally untrue. OP doesn't even have to let bailiffs onto her premises.

You say your DS is travelling, and moving from hostel to hostel, surely your address is his permanent home address in the UK then?

Of course it isn't.

Your DS needs to contact them and sort this out, if this is stressing you out then he needs to deal with it.

What exactly does he need to sort out, and how, @ChangeItChild? He's told them he was parked legally and explained why. What else can he possibly do?

Actually OP I’d go the other way. I would put the letters in a bin bag in the garage and forget about them- maybe just bin them.

I’m not surprised they’re driving you potty and am agog at other posters suggesting you or your son should be jumping to action over this- who gives a fuck about a bunch of semi criminals getting an erroneous debt paid? Fuck em, let them waste time and resource sending letters forever

To be honest, as I don’t open the letters and as they seem to bring up “violations” from years ago for all I know there could be more than one ticket they’ve dredged up. The parking firm are a disreputable company run by a ex wheel clamper who are aggressive and unprofessional, I can’t say too much as would out me and don’t know if parking companies look on these forums, but there would be no way I handed them over a penny and I support my son in not wanting voluntarily to pay them. The basics of his heinous “offence” of parking in his mother’s parking space with permission are as I have described, they just won’t give up due to one certain point that they keep trying to make - but as said I don’t want to out myself, and he was legitimately allowed to park there. Which is why I don’t think they will take it to court as they know they would look like idiots, instead trying to harass with letters. Had another one today - that’s one every working day now since last Thursday. If we hadn’t had the bank holiday would have been up to lucky no7!

@passthecherrycoke - I know!! Even to the point of suggesting he cancel his (paid for) trip to stay at home and “sort out the mess”, as if he is doing a runner from it - sometimes I think I live in a parallel universe.

Can you contact a tv consumer rights show to demonstrate how you're being harassed with all the letters? Make a good story and it might help others!

If he's not getting any other post at all, set up a Royal Mail redirect back to the address that all these letters are coming from

I'd gather them all up in one envelope and once a week send them to the company - neglecting to affix a stamp. Or write "NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS" on each and pop them in the postbox. They will give up.

Write to your MP. They can contact the company for you.
Sometimes that works.

Just to clarify, I don’t think that realistically anyone thought that your son should cancel a prearranged and prepaid trip to sort out the parking issues instead!
I think people are meaning that if you don’t take care of these things at the appropriate juncture they can spiral out of control. It would have been better to sort it first and then gone on his holiday. Metaphorically closing your eyes like a child shouting it’s not fair and hoping the bad man will go away won’t work with these horrible companies.

As for your thought about him having your permission to park there and they company are picking on one little detail they won’t let go of, if that little detail is something like your registration was on the permit which wasn’t for his car in the space or somesuch and there’s a fee to pay for changes or something that wasn’t done that was a condition of parking there, it could be that it is a valid legal point that you have ignored.

Perhaps it is you who is living in a ‘parallel universe’ where tiny details don’t matter in a legal case, when in actual fact it’s the tiny details that cause the most damage as the law is the law and it’s not always about fairness it’s about keeping within boundaries even if they are tight and stupid boundaries. Which you have broken if you didn’t follow the rules of parking there.

If you knew there were rules, didn’t bother with them and told him he could park there and he gets done, it’s your fault not his? Had he known there was something else to do perhaps he would have done it and avoided fine? Perhaps you should pay it to a) avoid further harassment b) to prevent his credit score being ruined after he worked so hard to get rid of all of his debt and be in the clear before he left and c) because you could have prevented it had you followed the rules

Sorry, I know that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear but I like to be honest and that’s how I see the situation.
I do hope you get it resolved and I’m sorry you are having to go through that crap with that company.

@elieza
It’s nothing to with a permit or registration, but I really can’t say here as it’s quite unique and may out me.

It is not a debt, as it is disputed it is owed and information contained in my lease trumps their query, so they would fail in court. I am not ignorant of the legal process of small claims court, I have won twice as a claimant in small claims, once against a very large company who turned up with a barrister so I know it’s not about emotions or what I “think” is right it’s about points of law.

As it happens I spoke to the business centre for small claims court about what would happen if a claim was received and was advised to send it back unopened with a covering letter and it would go back to the claimant as it would not have been served correctly as the claimant knew my son no longer lived there - the onus would be on the claimant to track down a reliable address. It is not up to me to facilitate them contacting him, it is a civil not criminal matter.

“Just paying it” is what keeps these parking scammers going - if more people stood up to them they wouldn’t be able to carry on with their bullying and ridiculously inflated charges, which most of the time they have no right to legally.

I didn’t start this with the intention of debating parking tickets, I just want to know how to stop an incessant stream of letters when it’s been made crystal clear they have not been and will not be reaching the recipient. But hey, I guess it’s their money they are wasting and it appears there are plenty of people who do give in to their tactics.

Just spoke to my son on the phone, he is going to email them with an address they can use in the country he is currently in. Let’s see if they continue to send daily letters.....