My story comes from more than a year ago but still very relevant here it seems! Upon moving away from them, we tried to pay Scottish Power the remaining balance on our account, about £70, no less than three times. (I must add, we inherited Scottish Power from the previous owners of the house, it was not by choice!) Each time we were told that our payments by card had gone through with no trouble and that our account was up to date. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later on EACH occasion we were being sent red letters demanding payment for the amount we had already paid, each letter progressively more forcefully worded than the last. Naturally I called them up and went mad at them each time (politely, obviously! It's not the callcentre workers' fault) and when we made the payment again, although we were told everything was OK, we found out that our payment never actually went through, despite being told it had. When the third strongly-worded letter arrived, a threat of a visit from the bailiffs, I had to resort to publicly complaining to them on Twitter before anything 'real' seemed to happen. To cut a long story short, they responded to my Twitter message within 24 hours and a very polite and apologetic chap called me on my mobile to get it all sorted. It turned out that the problem was entirely at their end and although none of my final payments actually went through, they wrote off the final bill as a gesture of apology. Bless them. They do try ... If only the whole of the company was as good and professional as their people who deal with customer complaints. They really need to sort things out before sending out threats of bailiffs to people's houses. Some people are a lot more sensitive and more easily scared of threats than I am (having previously having dealt with parking companies before) !

I got a nice letter in the post this morning after UKPC decided to ignore my every letter to them re the McDonald's car park incident in Hull. Their chums at Debt Recovery Plus Ltd are trying to get me to believe that I now owe £153.75. (Just imagine all the dirty Big Macs I could have bought with that? Shame I'm not a fan of McDonald's food really.) The letter from Debt Recovery Plus states: "As a member of the British Parking Association, (BPA) and its Approved Operators Scheme (AOS) we adhere to its code of practice." ..... strange? I didn't realise Debt Recovery Plus Ltd were members of the British Parking Association. (I refer you to this post I found VERY interesting ... http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences/137721-why-british-parking-association.html ) Anyway. They're just going to get a letter back from me saying that the alledged 'debt' is still in dispute and therefore they have no right to force this kind of action upon me. In hindsight I wish I'd have seen this forum before and ignored every letter, but when people (read: bailiffs, theives, take your pick) are threatening to break into your home and take posessions out of your home, the line has been crossed.

Hi there. I'm still battling with mine! As it turns out the staff at UKPC cannot read. Either that or they haven't figured out how to open envelopes yet. Their standard template letter they sent me in reply to my original (and actually quite stern yet polite) letter didn't address ANY of the concerns that I had written in my previous mail to them, so I sent them a 'Hello, can you READ it next time?' letter. A month or so later I received another templated demand, this time with an inflated price tag on it of £140. Naturally, the next letter I am writing to them will pretty much quote their 'We aim to write back to you within 3 working days but certainly no more than 7 days after your representation is received' schpiel as they have not written anything, merely waited for an automated machine to print snotty inflated invoices out. If you're interested, I'll keep you posted!

Hi there all. Just a quick line to say thanks for such a sterling forum thread. I'm afraid that I've only been able to read the first 7 pages or so (there's so much!) but what I have read has helped me no end. As you'd expect, like everyone else here UKPC have hit me with an unreasonable 'parking charge notice'. This one's for parking for too long in the car park at a McDonald's on the outskirts of Hull, East Yorkshire. Apparently, the two of us took too long eating our lunch that day (shouldn't have stayed for those chocolate muffins) which meant that UKPC want £100 for the privilidge! We both arrived in different cars and arrived and left at exactly the same time. I have received my demand, my friend is yet to receive his. Anyway, to my point: With everyone's great input here I've got a polite, stern and factually correct letter written up to send back to UKPC regarding the extortionate parking demand. Let's hope they don't turn nasty like they have to some of you lot. Kudos to Notpayinapenny, natmax and bankbustermum for the majority of my input! If people want a copy of the letter, PM me and I'll send a copy to you. I don't want to put it up here in the public forum in case those thugs at UKPC end up reading it here. Thanks again for everyone's help, good luck to all those who are still in battle! FrenchieDuNord