eFlow/Pierse Fitzgibbon - Anyone have any experience

Pauljmeh

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone has some experience with the following

I received a letter today from my old landlord for an unpaid toll. It was from Pierse Fitzgibbon Solicitors for the amount of €169.50. I called them immediately and was told that I actually have 4 unpaid tolls and the total amount is over €500.

I moved house last year and these were obviously going to my old home, I asked them was there any settlement and they told me €330 would be the best they could do.

Does anyone know if there is any other way around this? I'm happy to pay the initial fines but I can't afford the €330 right now.

Smee_Again

Try ringing eflow and see if they can do something better, they're usually very reasonable to deal with.

Pauljmeh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849246#Comment_121849246

I rang eflow also and they said they can't do anything around it because it's now gone to the solicitor

artanevilla

It's up to you to update your address. It's also up to you to pay the toll in the first place. But that ship has sailed unfortunatly.

Your only option other than paying the €330 is to not pay and go through the courts which could cost you a lot more.

If you can't afford the €330 straight off, you could work with the solicitor to come up with a payment plan where it all doesn't have to be paid up front.

Pauljmeh

I

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849288#Comment_121849288

I agree and I know it's my fault. It was actually my wife that passed through the tolls but in any case it's up to me to update the address

I was just wondering if anyone here had experienced the same and had found a more reasonable settlement

Smee_Again

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849274#Comment_121849274

Then you'll have to deal with the solicitor.

Write to the solicitor (don't phone) and make an offer to settle by paying €X amount over Y weeks. Explain that you want to pay the debt but cannot afford to pay it all in one go and then wait for a response.

HildaOgdenx

Mod - Moved to Motoring and Transport.

Local charter now applies.

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849550#Comment_121849550

This is the best advice. An expensive lesson unfortunately OP. Hopefully you can work something out with them. Lucky the landlord sent that on to you or you’d be in front of a judge.

I know this has echoes of shutting the stable door when the horse has bolted but register for a video account with them for the future.

User1998

If you negotiate with them I’d say they’ll bring the settlement figure down further.

Tell them you can only afford €200 and your willing to settle it over the phone and see what they say.

Genuine question tho, how could OP be prosecuted for this if the courts don’t have his current address?

kirving

They must make an utter fortune out of people who make genuine mistakes.

I understand that they need to cover their own legal fees if the need to bring someone to court, but €169.50 per journey is insane, especially as you never went to court and actually incur any more then the legal admin to issue you an automated letter.

There needs to be an entirely different fee structure for people who take the piss, and those who get caught out by forgetting one thing during a house move. The irony is, the person who always pays on time probably never got a letter from them at all, so wouldn't be able to gather their old post or bills up as most people do when moving housing and change them one by one.

I had to call them recently, as I wasn't sure if the tag in my rental car activated or not. I called them at about 8.15pm the following day, and they flat out refused to tell me whether I had to pay €3.50 for the single journey, or if I had to pay the late fee too, citing GDPR....

So of course I pay the late fee, because I didn't want some insane fine in the the post in a few months, only to be told by people later that there IS a grace period, but noone knows how long.

I don't know about your chances in court, but look at this poor guy who STILL got fined despite his ex-partner keeping his car and hitting him with a barring order (who knows why, but given that she never told him about the fines he was getting in the post, you can safely assume it's vexatious).

https://www.thejournal.ie/m50-toll-fines-court-2-6272788-Jan2024/

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849957#Comment_121849957

These seem to be the only court cases where they don't actually name the defendant, for some strange reason.

Iseedeadpixels

They bought that debt for feck all! Try get it down lower, I've heard going to court would cost them more so they'll try avoid that though I'm open for correction on that.

supue

Got the same last year as I'd a parent very ill in hospital and a new car I hadn't set up on eflow. Long story short, had a ridiculous bill (€900 iirc) come in from solicitors for a handful of journeys and they weren't for budging - thought it would be cleared originally when I setup my eflow account. I'd actually paid on eflow for a couple (some outside of 24 hrs, a few I missed) - it's the penalty charges that escalate like a pay day loan operator.

I emailed Minister Ryan, Junior Minister for transport, cc'd TII with my PPS number, and said I'd ask my local TD to raise the question of excessive penalty charges in the Dail... a day later it was reduced to €100, still ridiculous given how quickly it escalated.

Needless to say the first my wife heard of it was when I'd got a successful outcome 🤣

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121853633#Comment_121853633

Is that because they're technically civil cases?

There's no easy way to solve it, and the serial offenders piss me off no end when I see my monthly direct debit from eFlow

But their nonsense excuses about GDPR make it night on impossible to correct any confusion you might have in a timely manner, and on occasion when they were wrong, I didn't get a €169 refund!

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121858375#Comment_121858375

Not sure if it's down to them being civil cases, but any other case held in Court, other than family law, or sexual abuse, would have names publicised for both sides.

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849897#Comment_121849897

by attempting service as their last registered address and then following up by prosecuting them for failing to update the address! In the latter case, the failure to update is a pretty automatic fine in U.K. (think it’s £1,000) when it comes to light.

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121858539#Comment_121858539

Nothing civil about any of these cases; failure to pay an M50 toll is an offence under s64 Roads Act 1993 as laid out in M50 Toll Road bylaws promulgated by National Roads Authority (as was) under powers granted to them under Roads Act 1993.

whippet

the reason for the massive progression of penalties on the toll is to punish those who just won't pay.

If there are genuine reasons for making a mistake and you engage with them (before it goes to the solicitor) I've always found them to be really accommodating.

However - as has been stated before; when you change address it is up to you to update it and for very good reason.

I assume once it goes to a solicitor / debt collector you have to deal with them and you'd be best placed dealing with them as if you search you can see plenty of court reports where it has gone the whole hog and people have had cars seized to clear the debt

kindalen

If they have your email and/or phone number I think it is a bit unreasonable to just post a letter in this day and age. Perhaps a cynical effort to generate fines?

ELM327

In my own personal experience, we had bought a car and called eflow to add it to our toll tag account. We couldnt add it online as the previous owner didnt remove their tag. The agent wouldnt let me add it, so we just kept using the toll as normal. M50 2X per day for work. About 6 months later we received a bunch of letters with bills over 100 per trip as the old owner must have copped on that their account was being debited for our trips. We simply ignored the letters from pierce etc, sold the car on subsequently about a year or two later, and coincidentally then moved house. Haven't heard anything further since.

This is now 10 years ago, and I don't condone what we did, but just an outline that while there may be court cases etc, they buy these debts for cents on the euro and don't take everyone to court.

Who manually pays these??

you just set up an online account and it does it automatically off your reg, wouldn't matter if you changed address 50 times

standardg60

I've about 6 separate letters from them at home from various occasions. I've a tolltag that was debiting fine but wasn't registering with Eflow. The first time I sent them proof of payment, after that I just ignored them, never heard anything else.

Very much doubt they'll take it any further over four missed payments.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122482235#Comment_122482235

Thanks. Any idea why the names of those convicted aren't mentioned?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122482576#Comment_122482576

Perhaps the people who leave their vehicles registered at their 'home' address and make no effort to stay up to date with correspondence are the ones making the cynical effort to avoid the authorities?

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122482705#Comment_122482705

I had a call 3 weeks after trading my car asking me to agree to release it from my eflownaccount so I suspect you could have sorted this out.

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485519#Comment_122485519

To be honest that's not @ELM327's problem to solve. If E-Flow can't implement a usable system due to their inability to navigate GDPR properly, that's on them. It's self serving for the paper pushers and solicitors too - adding hundreds of euro to each journey is an easy way to keep yourself employed.

I did my level best to pay a rental car journey, but they can't even tell me how much I owe, if a fine is outstanding, or anything, even when I knew the time I passed the toll to withing a few minutes. so I ended up paying extra, to credit the account. Bullshit tbh.

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485715#Comment_122485715

It is or was 3 euro, then if unpaid 6 euro and a letter sent to registered address of owner of car, then goes up to 46 euro then 146 euro, probably slightly more now, per trip.

If the tag does not beep they can automatically read the registration and link that to the tag, however in many cases the registration may not be easy to read or not with 100% confidence. The photo is passed to a human and it may take days for it to be checked and after the fact entered into the system. I was on non tag for years with video registration only. It can take days before the daya shows up on the eflow system. So if you ring they may genuinely not know as the photo has not been checked yet by a human.

I recommend video accounts for even very occasional users. Cheaper again is some rags have no monthly fee, but a higher per trip fee, these are cheaper than video accounts per trip and you do not need to fit to car as video is used as a backup on M50 only.

Beware unpaid fines may follow you as bad credit history in later life being refused loans or given worse rates. You could even end up with a warrant for your arrest for not attending court which you knew nothing about.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122485519#Comment_122485519

I probably could have, but I called eflow multiple times who would not help me at all. It shouldn't be on me, I provided proof of ownership and everything and they still wouldnt transfer the tag.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122488378#Comment_122488378

This is not true, the only effect on your credit history would be a court judgment. Eflow are not a lender and thus do not have access to update the central credit register.