will i get sued?

[wum]

so a few weeks ago i parked over the time limit at this underground garage and got my tix and subsequently ignored them. today i finally got this fascimile of some kind of generic legal document that says i need to cough up 200 + bux or else they might engage lawyers.

how likely is it that a garage park would take me to small claims court?

[Hot Karl]

so this all happened within a few weeks? cause don't those 'tickets' usually give you a month to pay?

i'd call some serious bullshit if they were jumping to lawsuit mode within 2 weeks.

[e_BoY]

^^
what he said. to my understanding you do indeed have like a month or whatever it was for u to pay. a couple few weeks is way too fast.

[wum]

but i don't intend on paying... is that okay? :)

[tvmann]

$200 seems like way too much for a parking ticket.

Did they initally charge you a much smaller amount and then raise it? If so maybe you can just send the baztards the original amount.

[dre420]

If you don't pay it, it might have an effect on your credit rating, but I doubt they will sue you for it,

[thebobman]

No, they can't sue you for an amount so small. Any amount under $10,000 must go through BC Small Claims Court or passed to a collection agency which has to rely on canadian bailiff law to get the money back from you. If your car is parked in the parking lot again, be assured it's likely they'll impoud it (legally they can).

If the claim does go to a collection agency it will probably reflect on your credit rating if you don't pay it. If you have zero intention of paying it, and don't care about your credit rating just have a friend answer then phone when you receive a call from the collection agency (Use Caller ID or quickly pass the phone). By Law the collection agecny has to do a couple things:

1. Verify that the person they're speaking with is, in fact, the person linked to the amount they want to collect. They have to do this by asking your your full name along with either a Social Insurance Number or a Drivers Liscence Number (any gov't issue ID will do)
2. Only after they have verified your ID using the gov't issued ID number then, and only then, can they divulge such trivial information as How much you Owe, When you accumulated the Debt, credit raitings, etc.

If you can get them to give your friend the amount that you owe without them doing the ID check you can simply say that they have just given private information to a 3rd party without consent or verification of your ID, and under baliff law that's a sue-able offense. You can take them to court for defemation and a host of other charges. for $200 they'll probably just leave you alone and pass on the account.

If anybody is wondering where I got all this info I did tech support for a collection agency in Burnaby. Worst job I ever had. All my pay cheques took 3 months to get to me.