TPS parking ticket and Graham White Solicitors please help

Report this to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority - in writing.

The DVLA Code of Conduct is long dead.

Which opens up interesting issues regarding the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations; henceforth 'CPUTR'.

Claiming to be a signatory to a code of conduct when the trader is not.

(SCHEDULE 1) is an Unfair practice and amounts to a criminal offence.

Codes of conduct. In relation to codes of conduct as defined, there are two scheduled offences: falsely claiming to be a signatory to a code of conduct; or that the code has an endorsement from a public or other body.

‘“Code of conduct” means an agreement or set of rules (which is not imposed by legal or administrative requirements), which governs the behaviour of traders who undertake to be bound by it in relation to one or more commercial practices or business sectors’ (reg 2).

Public or other body: e.g .falsely claiming that a code has been approved by the DVLA

CPUTR is worthy of study as almost every set of paperwork i have seen from Private Parking Companies transgresses CPUTR multiple ways.

Much could be written; I point out that it covers services and products:-

The following classes of commercial practice are unfair (reg 3(5)(a)-(c)) and hence prima facie amount to strict liability offences:
(I) Misleading actions (reg 5);
(ii) Misleading omissions (reg 6);
(iii) Aggressive practices (reg 7).

Aggressive practices are common as regular readers here know all too well.

Aggressive commercial practices. CPUTR has a special regime for practices which intimidate or exploit consumers, what it terms ‘aggressive commercial practices’. Reg 7(1) defines a ‘commercial practice’ as ‘aggressive’ -
‘if, in its factual context, taking account of all of its features and circumstances—
(a) it significantly impairs or is likely significantly to impair the typical consumer’s freedom of choice or conduct in relation to the product concerned through the use of harassment, coercion or undue influence; and
(b) it thereby causes or is likely to cause the typical consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise

This requires a commercial practice which ‘in its factual context, taking account of all of its features and circumstances’ does all the following:-
(i) By the use of harassment, coercion or undue influence
(ii) Significantly impairs, or is likely significantly likely to impair, the typical consumer’s freedom of choice in relation to the ‘product’ concerned.
(iii) The typical consumer is therefore likely to take a different transactional decision
In deciding whether the foregoing factors are satisfied, reg 7 casts a wide net,
referring to any of the following matters in relation to the aggressive commercial practice (reg 7(2)):-
‘(a) its timing, location, nature or persistence;
(b) the use of threatening or abusive language or behaviour;
(c) the exploitation by the trader of any specific misfortune or circumstance of such gravity as to impair the consumer’s judgement, of which he is aware, to influence the consumer’s decision with regard to the product;
(d) any onerous or disproportionate non-contractual barrier imposed by the trader where a consumer wishes to exercise rights under the contract, including rights to terminate a contract or to switch
to another product or another trader; and
(e) any threat to take any action which cannot legally be taken’

Further, for our purposes the OFT provides two interesting examples in relation to debt collectors:
a threat to call in the bailiffs to recover an unenforceable debt,
e.g. time-expired and I submit that an alleged debt in the absence of a signed agreement and of a court decision that crystallises the alleged debt; or pressurising a borrower to pay his debts, as by calling at unreasonable times or to unreasonable places, e.g. the debtor’s place of work.
All such aggressive practices are ‘unfair’ (reg 3(5)(c)) and hence prohibited (reg 3(1)):
they may therefore amount to strict liability criminal offences (reg 11),

A general duty not to trade unfairly (reg 8), which only applies where
a trader intends or is reckless as to breach of the standards of professional diligence, so amounting to a mens rea offence in respect of the trader’s conduct. As usual, this conduct is only penalised where it leads to a material distortion in the behaviour of a typical consumer, which causes a transactional decision.
According to reg 8(1) -
‘A trader is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he knowingly or recklessly engages in a commercial practice which contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and
(b) the practice materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the typical consumer (within the meaning of regulation 3(4)) with regard to the product’.

Breach in any of the above ways, among others, is a prima facie criminal offence (reg 12).
Finally, it should be borne in mind that there is in respect of the above offences also a system of collective civil enforcement under Part 8 of the Enterprise Act.


I know for fact that the BPA has insulated themselves from the CPUTR by shifting responsibility to its members as much as it can but that in reality it does very little to uphold the CPUTR.



There is a lot more in these regulations which applies.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/draft/ukdsi_9780110811574_en_1

...and every so often pick up the receiver and say 'you are in a queue, we will get to you as soon as possible, please do not hang up' :rotfl::rotfl:

trisontana wrote: »

On a slightly different note, the use of "txt speak" makes your post more difficult to understand.

I h8 txt spk 2