Penalty fare advice

[Egg Centric]

We should always tailor our advice to what the OP is asking. They asked if they could not pay: the answer to that is, at least at this stage, absolutely yes.

There is no court order forcing them to pay and if I were a guessing man I'd say this is a fishing expedition on behalf of GA, where they're hoping that some people will pay up after receiving a threatening email. It costs barely anything to send emails like this en-masse; if even 10% of recipients pay up, they're quids in.

On the other hand, actually pursuing court claims en-masse doesn't make economic sense. They can only recover a tiny portion (£50 in most cases) of their legal costs even if successful, and they have no way of knowing whether they even have an up-to-date address for prospective defendants, so there is every chance a CCJ would go unpaid.

Of course you are quite correct that not paying entails the possibilities of having to pay or defend a court claim. But that is, in my view, a bridge to cross when it comes to it. The OP clearly would have already paid up if they were inclined to have an "easy life".

Quite. It depends whether OP is interested in minimising the worst case (in which case they should pay) or expected value (in which case it's hard to say for sure as civil actions are becoming more frequent and we've not fully adjusted to this but it still remains probably best to not pay, with the knowledge that if it goes wrong it might turn out about double the price, with a very small chance of seriously unlawful action by GA turning this into a significant hassle given the cross border issue)

FWIW in OP's position I would personally gamble and not pay but it's exactly that - a gamble. Don't gamble if you're not prepared to lose!