Parking Ticket Appeals successes and failures

Sir_Roger_deLodger

partenope wrote: »

That's not nice. I found this site after the debt collectors started writing, from what I read I was not expecting things to be so easily dealt with. I'm telling you what my experience was, that's all, don't try and insinuate I'm a liar.

PPC employees often come on here as a new poster posing as a satisfied customer, it's a well known tactic, so you'll have to excuse me for being cynical.

You would have got the same result by ignoring, as advised on here.

partenope_2

Sir_Roger_deLodger wrote: »

PPC employees often come on here as a new poster posing as a satisfied customer, it's a well known tactic, so you'll have to excuse me for being cynical.

You would have got the same result by ignoring, as advised on here.

I understand that now. I'd already written to them before I found the site. I will ignore if it happens again, and save my postage.

DeePea

I thought my experience might help others when dealing with supermarket parking charges.
I recieved a PCN on 14 July 2010 from Town & Country Parking. This related to an alleged "infringment" on 8 June 2010 at a Sainsbury's store. The ticket indicated that a PCN was affixed to my car at the time. It was not. There was no indication in the ticket as to the nature of the "infringment", just send £50 or we will pass this to a debt recovery agent. I felt threatened. After calming down I thought the best action might be to write to the supermarket manager as they are ultimately responsible for what goes on in there car park. I explained in my letter to him that no PCN had been left on my car and that the ticket did not specify the nature of the infringement. I got an email back from the manager indicating that I should appeal to TCP. I responded with another email indicating that he was responsible for TCP's actions and that he should contact them indicating the ticket was incorrectly issued. He did and the ticket was cancelled. Good feeling.

trisontana

It's a good job you did not "appeal". The whole process is just a sham. The appeals process is not independent, it's done by the next desk along in the office. So it's in the interest of the PPC to turn down all "appeals".

bromsgrovebarry

I think your experience was more due to putting pressure on Sainsburys rather than TCP following a code of ethics. I still believe the best advice is to ignore these scams but if someone wishes to make a reply, contact the store manager or store head office rather than the PCC.

partenope_2

i'd just like to ask, are these attendants who hand out the tickets on an incentive? Do they get bonuses the more tickets they hand out? Maybe this is dealt with elsewhere on the site, but I don't have time to read everything.

What with the circumstances of my ticket, which shouldn't have been issued, and DeePeas, where it sounds like someone was really trying it on, I just thought there must be some incentive for these attendants to behave like pr@ts.

Coblcris

Minimum wage is usual.

screddajames

My wife got a PCN from Euro Car Parks in Wokingham in June last year. The car park in question is one half council operated, and one half private. There are signs pointing out the different areas but she bought a ticket from the council machine by mistake. It happens.
She was driving a someone else's car at the time (not mine).

We ignored the PCN. A few days later a charge notice was posted to the car's owner; we said we'd deal with it.

I wrote to Euro saying that I was neither the owner nor the driver of the car, that the owner had nothing to do with any alleged breach of contract, and I was offering on behalf of the driver to pay slightly more than the cost of the ticket that was inadvertently not bought in order to close the matter (I think that if it had gone to court this might have helped our defence as it's a proportionate remedy for the breach of contract). I also wrote that neither I nor the owner could be compelled to reveal who was driving.

Euro say their appeal can take up to 28 days - just over 28 days later I got a semi-literate letter back saying the signs were "abundant and informative", quoting the one successful civil PCN case I've ever found on google (some idiot who was a persistent offender and lied in court; in any case it did NOT set a precedent despite their implication that it does), and threatening ME with court action - they were holding me liable because I wasn't going to name the driver. Remember I was neither the driver nor owner of the car.

I didn't reply.

A few weeks later I had a letter from a debt collection agency - again addressed to me, demanding an increased amount. I rang them to say that I was not the driver and would regard any further contact from them as harrassment. They put the 'phone down on me.

A few weeks after that I had a "final letter before action" basically saying that the next step for the debt collection agency was to take me to court. I ignored it. That was nearly a year ago and I have heard nothing since.

Lessons learned - even large, "professional" outfits like Euro are quite happy to harass anyone who contacts them with letters that sound very threatening (court action, credit ratings etc etc) but if you read them carefully are all bluster, and a big THANK YOU to previous posters to this forum (and to Martin) without whom we would have probably paid the exhorbitant charge.

IanRud

Hi, Does anyone know how legal it is for a local council CEO to issue a ticket on a car saying the parking disc was set at the wrong time?

No photographic evidence was taken, so I don't see how they can prove it.

My daughter returned to the car just after he'd put it on the windscreen, she didn't challenge him at the time, as she was in a rush..

I'm at the representation stage.

Thanks:j

Coupon-mad

Ian you need to post your own thread with a copy of the front & back of the PCN. Questions on this generic discussion thread will be missed/overlooked.

Post it here on the main forum with all the other threads on parking issues:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

Also register and post the same query on pepipoo forums with the PCN pics (front and back, all small print and dates but blank out your daughter's car ID and PCN number). pepipoo get almost every poster off their Council PCNs but you need to show pics, see the FAQs and sticky threads at the top here including 'how to post pictures' then post your own thread accordingly:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

They can help you word that appeal and add more to it than you can imagine!