TPS parking charge

ali-g_2 · 10 July 2012 at 11:22AM

Hi I just wondered if anybody recently had got a parking charge from TPS ? I'm a bit worried about the letter I got and the £50 fine I got for being 15 mins late in a park for 2 1/2 free carpark in dunelm mill , Stockport . They show a pic of my car entering but not leaving do I contact them or if I ignore them will they go away ?? Please help a scared mummy of 3

trisontana · 10 July 2012 at 11:28AM

Just ignore, it's not a "fine", it's an invoice which you don't have to pay. Please read the other threads on here that deal with private parking tickets.

notts_phil · 10 July 2012 at 11:34AM

As Above......

vax2002 · 10 July 2012 at 11:57AM

Ignore them, they wont go away, they will send lots of silly letters.
It is an impersonation of authority scam and little more than an invoice
They will make lots of empty threats about taking you to court and selling your kids to gypsies, change characters to impersonate to fake debt collectors and fake solicitors offering you free legal advice " to pay up"
Then Go away.
dont appeal, its a trick to get you to name the driver, as they dont know who that was their claim of "having a contract" kind of falls down, nor do you have to tell them, so dont.
IGNORE 100%
Come back as many times as required for reassurance or questions when the letters scare you...

Stephen_Leak · 10 July 2012 at 12:27PM

ali-g wrote: »

Hi I just wondered if anybody recently had got a parking charge from TPS ? I'm a bit worried about the letter I got and the £50 fine I got for being 15 mins late in a park for 2 1/2 free carpark in dunelm mill , Stockport . They show a pic of my car entering but not leaving do I contact them or if I ignore them will they go away ?? Please help a scared mummy of 3

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private parking company (PPC) or an individual can't. Even PPCs call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a driver in damages for any breach of contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If this is a free car park or they paid, this is £0.00. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

There are also now two recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In both cases, the judges found that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you do owe the CPO anything, then you ought to write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”.

In any event, you ought to advise the CPO that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. That ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with them.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with chasing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe who was driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA. With postal notices, they’ve done this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and told them who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of harassing the registered keeper, they can now harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

The PPC, then a debt collector and then a solicitor will send you a series of letters. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These letters will threaten you with every kind of financial and legal unpleasantness imaginable, to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a Nigerian e-mail scammer couldn't sue anyone who didn’t pay them.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. It does seem counter-intuitive to deal with something by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats, and stop throwing good money after bad.

Coupon-mad · 10 July 2012 at 12:31PM

ali-g wrote: »

Hi I just wondered if anybody recently had got a parking charge from TPS ? I'm a bit worried about the letter I got and the £50 fine I got for being 15 mins late in a park for 2 1/2 free carpark in dunelm mill , Stockport . They show a pic of my car entering but not leaving do I contact them or if I ignore them will they go away ?? Please help a scared mummy of 3

I am a mummy of 4 and I got another fake PCN like this last week in a cinema complex car park. I laughed at it! :rotfl:

They can't fine you! You did not get a fine!

For peace of mind you could try complaining to the Store Manager at Dunelm Mill, bringing your receipt with you. I say this because we have had other Dunelm Mill threads and they seem up for 'cancelling' these fake fines if a customer is unhappy (and so you should be, how dare they allow an agent to harass their customers and drive them away!). Get angry about this scam, not scared!

But it's only a matter of ignoring some junk mail - I am looking forward to getting some daft letters again trying to make me pay some PPC scammer! There is no court, no CCJ, no effect on your credit rating, NOTHING except letters (and sometimes the odd phone call that can be stopped easily).

Relax, it's just a fake PCN, ignore it (as long as it's not a company, hire or leased car). The registered keeper will get some letters, that's all, so make sure your household knows there is NOTHING in it in spite of the debt collector and 'solicitor' letter headings and threats of court. It's all hot air and an impersonation of authority, much like a phishing email scam it relies on victims who are too uninformed or stupid to realise what it is.

Tick off the threatening letters Here.

Watchdog clip with expert Solicitor's opinion here.

Barrister's opinion here.

Show your family and friends. Spread the word like we do. Only take seriously a real ticket from the Police, TFL, Council or (rarely) a real penalty from a Train Operator.

Anything else is destined for 'shredding for hamster-bedding'.

HTH

Nozone · 11 July 2012 at 3:19PM

Ignore!

I had a 'parking fine' or whatever guff they call it from TPS @ Dunelm Mill in another town.

That was in December, they sent a few bogus letters (they regularly got details wrong, backdated their letters to make it look like I'd not responded etc.).

Just ignore them, they go away after a while!

TPS parking charge

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