In September 2019 I was driving a hire car in Florence. Apparently I went down a road that was restricted to buses. There were no signposts to warn of this and when I came to check on Google maps later the only indication was a rather faded painted word on the road surface - at one end of quite a long street - saying Autobus.
Anyway I got the offence notification via the care hire company and followed the appeal procedure as set out, pointing out a) the lack of any warning signage and b) the fact that on the "PCN" it just had a close-up of the car number plate, nothing to show it actually in the street where the offence was supposedly committed. This was simply ignored and I got another letter telling me they had considered my representations and now the fine had gone up for late payment. All in Italian BTW. By then Covid had hit and I banked on the inefficient Italian bureaucracy grinding to a halt so I ignored it. A week or so ago I got a letter from "Safety 21" (in English this time) saying that payment had not been received. The original fine of €70.85 had now risen to €217.45 and "in case of non-payment within the due term we are entitled to initiate debt collection proceedings according to international agreements with your country regarding the notification of administrative sanctions abroad and you will be charged with additional costs". The letter also says on the back that I can see photographic proof of the violation by logging into a website - but when I log in there's no photos there. In any case I have already seen them and to my mind they prove nothing but the Italian authorities clearly operate to a different standard to the UK. This is also now some 33 months after the original "offence".
I am not coming on here to seek arguments to challenge the fine or process. I am simply trying to assess the likelihood of these Safety 21 people actually putting the matter in the hands of English bailiffs. Does anyone have any experience?
Scans of documents attached - for some reason the back of the original letter from 2019 would not scan/upload to tinypic but the only relevant bit says "fine €70.85, if paid within 5 days (ha ha), uplift if paid within 6-60 days €95.75, some other admin charge of €12.75 all adding to €179.25 (they are out by 10c)" Then the Safety 21 letter picks it up as €185.95 (huh?) and adds on admin fees of a further €31.50.
https://tinypic.host/i/tyL6p
https://tinypic.host/i/tyDq2
https://tinypic.host/i/tysga