Private Parking Tickets discussion

rob2360

bargepole wrote: »

Quite, which is why I keep a sturdy pair of boltcutters in my boot, in case I need to cut through the padlock of a wheel clamp.

Haven't needed them yet, but best to be prepared. I won't be paying a bean to any scumbag clamping companies this side of Armageddon.

So, as you say, you're not going to suffer. It's the countless others that don't carry bolt cutters that will. I think perhaps you've missed the main point though - parking charges are used by land owners to control parking. And indeed (as in my case) to prevent unwanted parking. In your "armageddon" why bother even paying to park in a car park? Bin any "fine" and your bolt cutters will do the rest. I'm not sure your position is particularly ethical mind. We don't use clamping to control our unwanted parking at the moment but if everyone feels they can park on private land with impunity...

guapagirl

Alexis27 wrote: »

Interesting guide.

A couple of concerns:

• Martin jumps straight in by calling them 'fines', which is strictly speaking incorrect and gives them more credence than they deserve.

• the BPA guidelines are fairly irrelevant. The body merely is merely a front to give the industry some credibility. If their 'recommendation' was to charge £50 instead of £150, it wouldn't change the unenforceability of 99% of these charges. No harm in featuring the info, but putting it in at the start again gives too much credibility to the charges.

• perhaps too much emphasis on contacting the company. It is always wise to avoid contacting the company at all. The only cases that have gone to court are from people making contact.

The general advice should be:

• do not pay
• do not contact them
• ignore any letters you receive from the parking company, or their debt collectors, no matter how threatening
• after 4 or 5 letters 99% will simply give up and go away

I'd support this.

having been issued with a 'fine' I took advice from here:
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/#consumer-forums-center-consumer
because it was pretty sure it was unenforceable and their advice was ignore, ignore, ignore.

So far I've ignored the invoices, threats of court action and threats from debt collecting agencies... the last one was two months ago, so I think they have given up.

Point is, you just need to keep your nerve because it's a con.

chands1981

Me and my girlfriend parked her car (with me driving) late one evening on a private car park to pick up some food from a takeaway. The car was ticketed with a £70 charge reduced to £40 if paid within 2 weeks. I sent off the ticket with card numbers to pay it (before I knew about challenging them), and went on holiday. I have returned home and found that the charging company has now invoiced my girlfriend for £100 (£70 for the ticket and £30 for contacting the DVLA).

What should my course of action be? Should I ignore it? Get my girlfriend to say it was not her driving and leave it at that? Challenge the fact that it cost the charging company £2.50 to receive DVLA data but charged me £30?

Help

Serendipity_phoenix

My OH and I met my mother in law half way on a day out, in a motorway services, we were very skint and tight on petrol, so she suggested taking her car into the city (5 minutes away) to find somewhere for lunch, while we left ours in the car park.

My OH noticed the sign saying free parking for 2 hours and we didn't think we would be longer than that, it was £8 for 24 hours by text, know other time choice or way to pay.:rolleyes:

Well after a very frustrating 4 hours:eek:....Yes i did say 4 hours! :mad:(m-i-l refused to eat anywhere her dog wasn't allowed, we didn't know the city...covered many many miles)

We returned to the services....after a McD's!:sad:
and moved the car,
a week or so later we got a letter demanding £50 within a week or £80 after that:shocked:

It was a particular hard month money wise, but in fear of £80 we paid it_pale_ and are still trying to compensate for the knock on effect months later (bank charges due to rejected DD's as we don't have a overdraft):wall:

Has anybody had any experience with these parking fines, I don't know if it would be private or council, it was a moto services in exeter.

lucy81_2

Hello could someone please help me?
-Recieved a car parking ticket one week ago, sent off appeal and have not heard back
-Did not move vehicle as would not start and had flat tyre
-Parked in a multi storey car park which is private and for the use of residents. I am a resident but have two vehicles and we are only allowed to park one vehicle there. But i had been unable to move vehicle and due to the fact that there are a few empty apartments there are empty spaces.
-Sunday i went out to repair tyre and a friend was coming to help fix it. I went out to discover vehicle being towed
-I asked why? Was told due to 2 unpaid parking tickets and he pointed to ticket on windscreen which was not there night before.
-I offered to pay fees then and there. They said no. Could only pay the next day (mon) after 10am because office was closed until then
-I asked how much he said £250
-Went to collect vehicle told to pay £550, for storage £100, £250 for tow, and the rest was according to them car parking tickets ?£250. They provided me with a reciept but not a breakdown of costs. The car parking ticket had also disappeared from windscreen and i have no evidence it was there.
-i wanted to appeal tickets but i had to pay them or i would not be able to have my vehicle back
-They had to pump up my tyre and jump start car for me to drive away.
-The nearest signage is outside the multistorey car park, i was parked on 1st floor.
can any one help me? What should i do now? I am writting a letter of appeal to new generation parking can anyone advise me of what to include. I am very upset by the whole experience
thank you

bargepole

r!!!360 wrote: »

So, as you say, you're not going to suffer. It's the countless others that don't carry bolt cutters that will. I think perhaps you've missed the main point though - parking charges are used by land owners to control parking. And indeed (as in my case) to prevent unwanted parking. In your "armageddon" why bother even paying to park in a car park? Bin any "fine" and your bolt cutters will do the rest. I'm not sure your position is particularly ethical mind. We don't use clamping to control our unwanted parking at the moment but if everyone feels they can park on private land with impunity...

I wouldn't worry too much, the majority of people will still believe that private parking "fines" have some legal validity, and will be deterred by them. The size of that majority will fall a bit now that Martin's on the case.

As for the "ethics" of this, I'd always advise making every effort to comply with the restrictions signposted in private car parks, and paying to park if applicable.

However, there are countless cases of PPCs issuing tickets where someone's parking ticket has fallen off the dashboard, or where they left the retail park for a couple of minutes to go to a cash machine, or spent more than a couple of hours shopping, and so on and so on.

Giving out official looking tickets in such cases is completely unethical, even more so when you see the threatening letters they send out in an attempt to collect these ill-founded gains. This is just extortion, and the scammers who do this need to be exposed - hence Martin's article.

peter_the_piper

lucy81 wrote: »

Hello could someone please help me?
-Recieved a car parking ticket one week ago, sent off appeal and have not heard back
-Did not move vehicle as would not start and had flat tyre
-Parked in a multi storey car park which is private and for the use of residents. I am a resident but have two vehicles and we are only allowed to park one vehicle there. But i had been unable to move vehicle and due to the fact that there are a few empty apartments there are empty spaces.
-Sunday i went out to repair tyre and a friend was coming to help fix it. I went out to discover vehicle being towed
-I asked why? Was told due to 2 unpaid parking tickets and he pointed to ticket on windscreen which was not there night before.
-I offered to pay fees then and there. They said no. Could only pay the next day (mon) after 10am because office was closed until then
-I asked how much he said £250
-Went to collect vehicle told to pay £550, for storage £100, £250 for tow, and the rest was according to them car parking tickets ?£250. They provided me with a reciept but not a breakdown of costs. The car parking ticket had also disappeared from windscreen and i have no evidence it was there.
-i wanted to appeal tickets but i had to pay them or i would not be able to have my vehicle back
-They had to pump up my tyre and jump start car for me to drive away.
-The nearest signage is outside the multistorey car park, i was parked on 1st floor.
can any one help me? What should i do now? I am writting a letter of appeal to new generation parking can anyone advise me of what to include. I am very upset by the whole experience
thank you

Keep all paperwork that they provided, the experts will help you soon I'm sure. I would suggest that you ask the mods to make this a separate thread as there will be a lot of advice coming which could get lost in all the other posts for different cases.
Its quite likely you will have to take out a moneyclaim against both the landowner and the clampers/towers.

p.ilchard_2

I visited Aldi supermarket in Stowmarket recently where parking had always been free for all, like every other Aldi I have been to. I didn't notice the new signs instructing me to take a ticket to display, without any charge, for one hour's parking. Sure enough I emerged 30 minutes later to find the £40 penalty on my car from those nice people at ParkingEye. I had driven there from a nearby Lidl store and free car park half a mile away with a till receipt timed at 10:42. My penalty charge is timed at 10:50. So it is highly likely that the attendant saw me arrive and nicked me as I was going into the shop.
I wrote to ParkingEye with an appeal to their good nature, and received the expected response - nil. OK I'm guilty! More to the point as I see it, I wrote to Aldi with the same evidence opining that it did not seem good for business to treat their customers in this way. I have received NO RESPONSE from Aldi so I lump them in the same category as ParkingEye for their Customer Services skills, which I might have needed on other occasions if I were to continue to shop there. As a result, I shall never visit any of their stores again, there are plenty of competitors. Aldi seem to have cropped up a lot in forums with ParkingEye, I respectfully request that you follow my example and shop elsewhere.

peter_the_piper

digitalsgirl wrote: »

My OH and I met my mother in law half way on a day out, in a motorway services, we were very skint and tight on petrol, so she suggested taking her car into the city (5 minutes away) to find somewhere for lunch, while we left ours in the car park.

My OH noticed the sign saying free parking for 2 hours and we didn't think we would be longer than that, it was £8 for 24 hours by text, know other time choice or way to pay.:rolleyes:

Well after a very frustrating 4 hours:eek:....Yes i did say 4 hours! :mad:(m-i-l refused to eat anywhere her dog wasn't allowed, we didn't know the city...covered many many miles)

We returned to the services....after a McD's!:sad:
and moved the car,
a week or so later we got a letter demanding £50 within a week or £80 after that:shocked:

It was a particular hard month money wise, but in fear of £80 we paid it_pale_ and are still trying to compensate for the knock on effect months later (bank charges due to rejected DD's as we don't have a overdraft):wall:

Has anybody had any experience with these parking fines, I don't know if it would be private or council, it was a moto services in exeter.

If as I believe its a private parking concern then just ignore them, there are lots of instances of this sort of thing. Do not contact them or reply to their letters etc. After a while they will move on to easier targets.

Serendipity_phoenix

peter_the_piper wrote: »

If as I believe its a private parking concern then just ignore them, there are lots of instances of this sort of thing. Do not contact them or reply to their letters etc. After a while they will move on to easier targets.

The thing is as I said in my post, we have paid, as this was about a months ago...but we are still suffering the consequence of losing the £50.
Is there anything we could do????