Private Parking Tickets discussion

trisontana

AlexisV wrote: »

They lost another one last year? Those clowns are suckers for punishment.

But way down the league compared to OPC, who sort of lost another case today (see post #1920 above)

Tillee

(Hi! I am new on here so not sure how to start a new thread or even if I should have).

My son was driving my husband's car and left it for an evening in a motorway services car park whilst he went off with friends for a while. He did see the warning signs but didn't believe them for some reason. We have now received a Parking Charge Notice for £80 reduced to £50 if paid within 28 days. They say they have photographic evidence and as they have a time of arriving and leaving may be CTV. The parking charge notice was sent on behalf of the company's clients.

Should we ignore the letter or write to tell them my husband was not responsible - our son does not live at the same address either.

Thanks for any help.

trisontana

You just ignore, simple as that. They can only claim for nay actual material loss suffered by the land-owner. As this was a free car-park then that loss is nothing.

I should like to know what that "photographic evidence" is. As they can only go after the driver, then, unless they have a data-base showing the image of every driver in this country, then they are stuffed.

Oopsadaisy

Send the money to me and I will deal with the issue.

Coupon-mad

Tillee wrote: »

My son was driving my husband's car and left it for an evening in a motorway services car park whilst he went off with friends for a while. He did see the warning signs but didn't believe them for some reason. We have now received a Parking Charge Notice for £80 reduced to £50 if paid within 28 days. They say they have photographic evidence and as they have a time of arriving and leaving may be CTV. The parking charge notice was sent on behalf of the company's clients.

Should we ignore the letter or write to tell them my husband was not responsible - our son does not live at the same address either.

Thanks for any help.

It's fine to post on this thread, a lot of newbies seem to find it first but did you know there's a whole forum board of similar individual queries? It may help you to read a few so you can see you are certainly not alone.

Here's a link to the whole board (below), almost every case is talking about private parking charges, there's even a link to a radio show from today which talked about PPC tickets and had a caller from here telling people they are unenforceable:

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

There are over 100 pages of posts there, almost all telling people like you that they can safely ignore companies like CP Plus (bet that's who issued your Services ticket as that's where those particular parasites frequent). They just send out debt collector threatening letters, nothing more, no Court, no Bailiffs, no effect on your credit rating by ignoring this scam.

Nothing at all to worry about. Most of us on here have ignored PPC tickets - honestly they must NOT be paid, it would be like sending money in response to a Nigerian Lottery winning email!

See this info on PPC tickets and make sure you view the Watchdog youtube link linked under the 'Private Parking Companies' title:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=1363571

Watch and laugh as the Watchdog legal chap makes his ticket into a paper aeroplane and then read as many posts as you can to on our forum - from that first link above - until your eyes glaze over with boredom at seeing the word 'IGNORE' yet again.

And tell your OH and son about this scam, make sure they see the Watchdog video and the threads that show you what to expect in terms of debt collectors' letters (completely safe to file away once you've had a laugh and matched the threatogram against our pics of the letter-chains PPCs use).

It may take about 6 months to fizzle out but it will. Don't write, don't appeal, or they'll think they've got a 'bite' from someone who actually believes their ticket is a real fine.

HTH

Mr_Moonbeam

Hello all, I'm currently a member of staff working at a hospital. For the past year I have always parked in the hospital grounds for working the odd weekend/ bank holiday. However, I got issued with a PCN as I did not pay for parking. This was because a colleague told me that staff are allowed to use the hospital car park for free at wkends. However, only now I have realised that I needed to use the staff car park. So really I had misunderstood them. After I got the ticket I did try the staff parking to see if the barrier would open using my ID and it didn't. I have appealed to the Private Car Parking company saying I was unable to use the staff car park so had no choice but to park in the main car park. But they refused it saying I should have paid and staff are not permitted to park there...

Now I am asked to pay a charge of £60 and it will increase in 2 weeks time then I will get taken to court and if I loose they may use bailiffs to cover the costs for everything. My question is should I still stick to the advice given on this page, even though my case doesn't really seem that strong, what advice would you give me? Also can they successfully use bailiffs on me and take my belongings? Any help would be very much appreciated

Coupon-mad

Mr_Moonbeam wrote: »

Now I am asked to pay a charge of £60 and it will increase in 2 weeks time then I will get taken to court and if I loose they may use bailiffs to cover the costs for everything. My question is should I still stick to the advice given on this page, even though my case doesn't really seem that strong, what advice would you give me? Also can they successfully use bailiffs on me and take my belongings? Any help would be very much appreciated

Read their letter again. It doesn't say that (none of them say that).

Bet it says 'we MAY take you to Court' blah blah and if you lose then bailiffs blah blah'. To involve bailiffs they'd have to win (almost impossible if you defend it properly and advice is available on pepeipoo.com forums) AND then after losing the case you'd refuse to pay the judgment amount (why would you?) AND only then could they get bailiffs involved!

It's just not going to happen.

They are extremely unlikely to take you to Court, the only hospital parking ticket case I know of this year (and I am on here and pepipoo daily) was lost by the hospital/Trethowans. Have a look at the forum to see how common the PPC scam is, everyone is ignoring their ticket on this board unless it's from a Council or the Police:

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

And here's a specific MSE search of those threads for NHS hospital parking ticket cases:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.php?searchid=87788607

Do be aware that they will no doubt send more letters, from debt collectors - big wow (not!). Debt collectors have no more powers than I do and are not bailiffs, cannot come & remove goods. If you look on that first link to the whole board you'll see a sticky thread showing you picture previews of the known debt collector letter-chains, and you'll also find a sticky 'read this first' which includes a link to the Watchdog programme which covered this scam.

Now ignore them, you need never have appealed, we could have told you what the answer would be. They are a private company, guess how many appeals these private companies allow?? Answer = zero, unless trying to impress the BPA or placate the retailer/service they leech off.

So just collect the letters and ignore it in the absence of real, sealed Court papers with a genuine case number. They can hardly have made a loss by you parking there as you are staff and HAD to take up a space. They can't clamp you either.

Rest easy and come back for support if the letters still bother you even after seeing the preview pictures and knowing what will come next..

AlexisV

Why is your case not strong? If you didn't pay for parking they may be entitled to a pound or two (if they offer paid parking). THEY are the ones without a legal leg to stand on.

Sit and wait for an accurate invoice to arrive. Until that happens (when hell freezes over), just ignore them.

Mr_Moonbeam

Thank you for your reply. In the late section of the parking notice it states:

"Failure to pay the parking charge within 14 days from the date of issue will result in your vehicle licensing details being obtained from DVLA and payment becomes £75. Failure to pay the sum of £85 within 14 days from the date you recieve a polite reminder notice will result in a further increase to £135 and court action being taken against you. court costs and bailiff costs may also be added. In the final stages the Court may instruct a baliff to remove and sell your goods in satisfaction of the sum owed."

also on the back there is a section called "Administration/Lawful Issue" which states: "This parking charge has been lawfully issued and the collection procedure will be processed in accordance with The Administration of Justice Act 1970. A number of Government organisations operate a working code of practice of which Private Car Parking Enforcement Agency adheres. To ensure constant lawful and ethical business practice, such organisations are granted access to assess and review operational procedures."

I didn't think my case was that strong as I had done some things wrong such as parked in an area where staff are not permitted to park (unless they hold an emergency permit) and I also didn't pay. Do you still think that it's unlikely that I will have to go to court if I don't pay up?

Coupon-mad

Sorry to ask, but your continued belief in the legality of their letter frustrates me. Look how they use the word MAY when pretending they are going to follow this through to Court.

Did you not look at any other threads or stickies suggested? If you had you'd know the answer and wouldn't have wasted so much of your time reading their letter so closely. Look at OUR words more closely, please, to stop you from worrying so much.

When I replied to you last night I also replied to mummyraver but there's a difference in her today. She read the links and spent a couple of hours looking at other threads (not re-reading her bogus parking ticket & letters). Just look at her enlightened response today (post no 55):

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2547011

The links I gave you earlier tell you everything you need to know, follow the links, read the threads, look at the (not scary) debt collector letters they will send, watch the Watchdog clip. It's an extremely, almost infinitessimally small chance that any hospital PPC will go near a Court and if it happened you could get a robust defence on pepipoo.com forums - but you'd need to trust their advice and stop believing the PPC's rubbish.

Pepipoo link for extra peace of mind:

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

....why not post over there as well but pleeeease follow any links they give you and read up on what I've pointed you to already, you'll soon know the score and laugh at their letters.