Hi paul,

I'm so glad you won - well done! My case was a long time ago and I gave up in the end! I did get the original £108 back from Leeds City Council but only after a lot of wrangling with them.

Equita were worse than awful, I still remember my dealings with them very well. We were technically in the wrong as my partner had refused to pay the fines on principal - but the bailiffs co were scary, bullies at best!

The one good thing that came out of it all was that the person to whom we had 'sold' our car to (even though he managed to keep the paperwork in my partners name for 6+ months) was eventually prosecuted!! Yay & yippee! One less rogue trader in Leeds, although I imagine he's now 'paid' for his crime and is probably doing it again to other unsuspecting people.

I learnt a lot of lessons from it all, no.1 being that you should always pay any parking fines in full - and then set about arguing your case; that way equita would never even have been involved. It was leeds City Council that prosecuted the dodgy dealer in the end and both myself and my partnre gave full statements to the police, who sympathised, but admitted that the actions of bailiffs are often igored by police etc as 'too difficult to deal with'!!

What hope is there for anyone else eh?!

sarah

hi sarah,

i have been dealing with equita bailiffs for about 5 days now (paul)

and i can tell you that i have just won my case as he was over charging me by 160 pounds!

no one would talk to me and give me a break down of what i owed he is rude and he was always threatning me!

never ever ever let a bailiff into your home! never give in.... and always grag it on!

there is no point talking to the bailiff or the head office or even write a letter to caron because they never reply and will always make up an excuse! never set a meeting with them because they will charge you 160 for that meeting and they will tell you it is free!

give consumers direct a call on 08001381111 and they will be able to help you i called them yesterday and they told me what to do and i won my case today!

always speak to the council and tell the bailiff that you have spoken to them and you know your rights make it clear that he will not be entering your home under any cercumstances so they can forget it! never say you wont meet up with them just dont show up!

you can also give citizen advice burearu and ask them for help!

NEVER GIVE IN FIGHT TILL THE END !

thats what i did and i am soooooooo pround i beat the so called system!

Gutted, are you seriously saying that the first time you knew about these parking tickets was when the bailiffs contacted you? And please - this is NOT a working class issue!

Having been involved with Magistrates and County Courts with regard to bailiffs some years ago I have a few comments to make. Bailiff companies have to explain their cost breakdowns to the Courts in order to get the contract to act for said Courts. To act outside their cost remit is likely to lose them the contract. Of course there are bailiff firms out there who don't operate within the confines of what they are allowed to do.

The Courts do not involve bailiffs until they have exhausted all other legal avenues. Nobody will get a visit without firstly receiving lots of correspondence. To ignore these letters is foolhardy. If you seriously believe that you are not in the wrong, then you can go to the local magistrates court and swear an oath to this effect - however, to lie on oath is perjury and look what happened to Lord Archer, he ended up serving time at HM's pleasure.

Why not take them to small claims. Add charges of £12 per letter on as costs

Hello

I have some dealing with EQUITA as well got 2 parking tickets in london 1st when i lived there 2nd one when i visited there had no knowlege of the 1st ticket because i lent the car to a friend. EQUITA sent me a letter for the 2nd one for £183.with a reference number 107......etc. When i rang them up quote reference 107......etc they told me my outstanding bill is £183. which i paid then. Then 2 weeks later another (RED) letter dropped through the door saying i fail to respond to letters please call to discuss the matter. I call i was furious because i paid the bill. still quoting reference 107....etc now they let me know that there was 2 tickets. All this time if so when i quote reference number 107....etc why didnt they tell me. They deliberately

led me on so the first ticket could run out of time. i now have to pay £485 and stuggling. is there any channels that can stop them doing this 2 working class people . if there is anyone out there to help or advise on how to stop these people who are abusing the law and ripping poor off

Equita are horrible - you feel like emigrating after trying to deal with them.  01604 250116 will save you phoning their 0870 number for a start.  They truely have mastered the art of hanging up.  I think you will struggle to get any of that money back, should it happen again tell them you didn't receive letters and just pay the actual fine.  I have done this with parking tickets and it worked.  Of course, while we're all decent people from time to time stuff like this happens. I think someone should start a victims of equita support group!  Of course, debt collection is neccessary it's just the manner in which you  are treated by equita, horrible horrible people.  I hate them. 

Hi, First time posting on this site.  Exactly the same thing has happened to me today.  Had to pay 3x£354 by credit card

to bailiff from Equita over the phone.  Three parking fines all incurred by my son (who doesn't live here any more) but didn't want to pass on his new address.  I am furious though.  Have had no paperwork from Equita who are so abusive and unhelpful.  Bailiff reckons someone already had visited these premises before, no letter or card was left (although he had a description on file of my house).  He reckons he is going to come here tomorrow to drop the receipts through and so far I have seen no paperwork.  The original parking fines had reached £95 each.  I really want to withdraw payment but don't want these fees escalating any more.  Unlike me to just give in - but this rubbish company seem to be a law unto themselves.  Anyone got any advice please. 

Chris2326

Thanks CMK, I thought I had read something like this somewhere before. It seems I really have been massively overcharged:-

1st case - Parking Fine @ £90 + Court costs £18.16 = £108.16. I never had a bailiff call to the house - just a coule of letters and a phone call (from me to bailiff). He told me that as I was paying there was no need to come round.

2ndCase - costs as above - this time I phoned EQUITA cheating scumbags on the day of receiving letter and paid in full over the phone.

I paid them £353.74 x 2

Seems really excessive to me, but my problems have been in getting a detailed receipt off them, have been chasing for over 4 months now. I thought that they legally have to provide me one within 5 working days (bailiff on the phone told me this. He said his office would send one out - he was at home on a mobile phone taking my payment of over £350, and said he couldn't do receipts...)

Also, I have actually paid the £108.16 to Leeds City Council - and am still waiting for my refund - 4 1/2 months later....  It all sounds like a total rip-off scam to me (but then EQUITA is owned by CRAPITA - oops, sorry CAPITA, which has all sorts of government contracts, there really is no bigger company of con artists in the UK than the government, but thats another debate!)

I am really sure that I should be able to claim at least some of these charges back, but my problems is who to deal with. LCC say its not their problem, and equita have perfected the art of hanging up the phone if a person wishes to complain, they also claim not to receive letters....mmmm, on top of making ficticious bailiffs visits, and sending out ficticious warning letters. How on earth do you deal with a company who has the backing of top politicians when they have had the money and are simply not willing to do anything? I don't want to be a martyr,or go to the press, or in fact, spend anymore time on it at all - I just want some justice!!!!!

 

Anyone had dealings with EQUITA/CRAPITA before?? I could do with a break, I'm no legal mind and I need some help!

 

Sarah

Hi --- I enclose an article below which details what bailiffs are reasonably allowed to charge you, it also details parking fines and council tax etc, if you have been charged more then go see your local CAB who can take action to get your excessive overcharges returned to you.

http://www.advicenow.org.uk/go/feature/feature_621.html?pkgid=83

 

Road Traffic fines
Bailiffs collecting money owed for parking fines can charge you £10 for sending you a letter telling you that the bailiffs will come round, only if the date it is sent is before the bailiffs visit.
 
If they take 'walking possession', or actually take your goods away, they can charge for 'levying distress' - this is £25 if you owe less than £100. If you owe more than that the fee goes up. The rules are complicated - as a rough guide, if you owe £200 its £50, if you owe £500 its £65, if you owe £1000 its £90. You can check the rate of charges at the Department of Constitutional Affairs website (follow the link below).

http://www.dca.gov.uk/enforcement/enfrev01/repac.htm
 
If they come round but can't do anything - for example, because you don't let them in - they can charge you reasonable costs of the visit. These cannot be more than the amounts they could charge if you had let them in, and they can only charge you for the first three visits. However, they can charge you for the cost of bringing a van on each visit, even if you haven't made a 'walking possession agreement'. Most firms make multiple attendance charges, increasing the amount you owe, often by hundreds of pounds. These can be challenged on the basis that they are disproportionate to the original debt and also because, if there has been no entry to the premises, it is not known if you have anything which could justify the addition of such large extra expenses. If these charges are high, get advice from your local advice centre.
 
If they take 'walking possession' they can also charge you 50p a day for the first 2 weeks, and 5p a day after that. And if they actually take your stuff they can charge you expenses for taking them, storing them, and valuing them. As well as covering their expenses, if they sell your stuff at an auction they can charge 15% of the total amount your stuff was sold for or 7.5% if it was auctioned from your home.
 
If they do charge you more, get help from an advice centre.

Hello,

For several months I have been having a wrangle with 'EQUITA' Certificated bailiffs. (Address 42-44 Hennry Street, Northampton.) It all stemmed from 2 unpaid parking fines, on a vehicle we had sold. My partner refused to pay them, as we had sold the car, and eventually the case ended up with this shower of s**t in Northampton. The courts in N/hampton deal with parking fines for lots of councils including mine.(Leeds Cuty Council).

It turns out that my partner was well and truly scammed by a dodgy second hand car dealer, and although we believed the paperwork was all in order it turned out not to be... It is a long and complicated story, so I won't bother with the details of that. My problem is with this bailiffs company and how they have acted.

I ended up paying 2 lots of £353.74 to them - even though both tickets, including court fees only came to £108.16 each. So the bailiffs have made a nice £245.58 profit - twice!! This seems a bit steep to me, so I looked into it on the net, and found some info stating that bailiffs are only allowed to charge costs reasonable to the fine, and even then that there are limits. Also, that they must provide me with a detailed receipt showing the breakdown of all costs.

I requested the receipts on 24th April and 28th May respectively, and have been calling & writing regularly ever since - to no avail.

Please can someone out there with any experience of this company help me? I don't really know where to turn next. They have no proper channels for compaint, or so it seems from my dealings, and right now I've had enough of the lying, cheating scammers that they are!!! I've had the phone hung up on me, calls are never returned, the staff are polite - but do nothing!!!!

Please  help - I'm living an EQUITA NIGHTMARE!!!!!

Sarah