I would attempt to head off the involvement of a debt collection agency by telling them to either sue you within 14 days or drop the matter. Involving a debt collection agency is premature as no debt has been established and the proper channel available to them is the county court. This will also show you genuinely believe you owe them nothing. If they proceed with the DCA anyway then report them for harassment and blackmail, citing your letter.

I'm not saying the situation is exactly the same: I was clear in my first post that the age and price paid affects the expected standard of what is satisfactory.

That isn't what I said. The SOGA applies to cars, laptops, anything you can buy, as long as it's from a business. The consequences of this for the trade are irrelevant to whether the law applies or not.

Sounds like you're making the leap of faith, frankly. The later act takes precedence, and the SOGA spells out in black and white that goods bought from a business come with a statutory warranty that cannot be excluded. It makes no exception for different types of business or new vs second hand. The possible final consequences of the law for the car trade are irrelevant.

Debt collection agencies have no additional powers than the company itself. It's basically a bluff tactic. It is a breach of OFT debt guidelines to ignore disputes or to act unreasonably. They have no power to ask for payment along with a dispute (it's not an appeal, except in their own little world), and this is an unfair tactic to trick people into paying. Write again, explaining that your previous correspondence was based on the belief that the ticket was official, and denying that any money is owed. You could include your points 1 and 3, according to taste really, it certainly won't do any harm. It is an offence for them to use tactics that encourage you to think they are connected to official parking tickets, this would include sending "notice to owners" which is an official term.

The SOGA does apply to second hand goods bought from a business. However, the price of the goods and any description of them have to be taken into account when evaluating what is satisfactory quality. I doubt three months would be an acceptable amount of time for even a used laptop though, unless the price was very low, or faults were pointed out.

Do not pay. Private tickets have no legal basis anyway, and in this case they clearly gave you permission to park overnight in return for £20. You should also look into whether it was clearly brought to your attention on the signs that staying past midnight would result in as large a fee as £20. I expect it is there, but worth looking into, based on the apparent low level of their understanding. Also find out who these building security people are. There may be offences being committed by them (fraud, blackmail), and by NCP if they are allowing them to operate.

I doubt there is much you can do, as you have no statutory right of return since the goods are not faulty. The only right of return you will have will be what their signs offer, which is almost certainly going to say you need a receipt. One possibility is that they may give store credit or an exchange instead.

Signs like that DO mean that parking is unrestricted outside the hours shown. But unfortunately it looks like they got you in this case.

I think it depends on the age of the vehicle, price paid, and how it was described. They are wrong to rely on a 'no warranty' clause, but they may have a case for claiming it is a consumable item.

As the problem was put right, I don't think you are entitled to a refund, provided the service was otherwise carried out correctly. £100 credit sounds like a reasonable result, though I sympathize that it must have been frightening at the time.

I've never had to pay any VAT on delivery, but the issue I have with this after reading the above is that the recipient has not entered a contract with Parcelforce, and therefore has not had any opportunity to accept/reject the terms.

I would suggest cross posting to forums.pepipoo.com as well. It sounds like quite an unusual situation so it would be good to get more opinions.

Is it possible to use a card without giving the number?

Is this a private or council ticket?

Absolutely ridiculous. A company is a single legal entity, and each branch is a part of that company, and the company as a whole is responsible for its goods and its transactions. If the individual branch was not the legal owner of the goods, they wouldn't be allowed to sell them. Or are you saying head office has to authorize every sale individually as well?

Sounds like a standard [problem] ticket, and your case is strengthened very much more by the absence of any signs. Don't pay, and follow the advice in the other threads.

Depends if it's on a driving wheel. On a free rotating wheel it should be ok for a short distance.

I think as a group we need to work out a strategy to stop this. This seems to be such a standard response from the police that it is obvious they are working to some kind of guideline: parking = civil matter. The logic there is clearly faulty: just because some elements of the dispute are civil obviously doesn't mean that it is not possible that a crime was committed too. Blackmail, deception, and administration of justice offences are undoubtetly crimes and not a civil matter. So what can we do? I've never had a private ticket so I've not been in this position. But if I did have a ticket and considered their behaviour to be, say, fraud, I would probably report it something like this. "I have received a document purporting to be an official PCN, yet on investigation I believe it is fraudulent. Therefore I would like to report this company for breach of the Administration of Justice Act and the Fraud Act" "Sorry parking is a civil matter." "I'm not reporting the parking. I am reporting the fraud. Fraud is a crime, surely? If I report a crime you have a duty to log and investigate it." "It's to do with parking so we can't investigate" "Then please provide me with written confirmation that I have reported an alleged fraud, and that you consider fraud not to be a crime."

Do the laws detailing the correct procedures for enforcement no longer apply?

This doesn't make any difference to almost all speeding defences. Whether the person is speeding or not, the court will not allow the camera to be challenged and accepts the evidence as fact. Therefore the vast majority of defences to speeding involve errors with paperwork or procedure.

Hunter Forrest is UKPC. There's a couple of threads mentioning this. It's a trick to make you think the issue is escalating when in reality they can do nothing.

It's not really political correctness. More a state of irrational fear and prejudice.

Did they tell you about this possible charge before accepting the phone to look at? Any agreements in writing or anything? It sounds like outright edit, frankly, of the phone and the money, which almost suggests there might be something we're missing from the story.

Hunter Forrest are a front for UKPC. See here. This is a breach of point 2.1 of the OFT guidelines.