Motorway services, car broken down, parking ticket help

CarMar

Evening all,
I'm a long time reader but recently registered in order to try and get some help. I've read a lot of these topics with interest.

Our situation is a little bit different to some of the situations.

Last week we were on our way to Scotland. 10 miles south of Carlisle our car broke down. We managed to limp it to the nearest service station but it was too dangerous to carry on driving it. It was a terminal problem. The AA attended and agreed to transport the car home unattended.

We spent an hour trying to contact hire companies in order to find a hire car so we could continue on our journey. We eventually found the only available car in the area, agreed with the AA that our car would be collected.

The service station, it seems, operates a parking fine system. 2 hours of you'll be clamped. We asked advice about this from the AA while the collection was arranged and we were informed to put a note in the window saying 'car broken down, awaiting collection by the AA, please do not clamp' or words to that effect.

To cut a long story short. We had to leave the car unattended in the car park as the AA could not give us a definite time for collection, despite it supposed to have been booked for 5pm. We eventually left the car at approximately 5.30 to continue part of our journey. According to the parking ticket it was ot collected until almost 9pm!! (We had already missed the 6pm ferry from Oban that we were booked on and had to pay hotel costs. The hire itself cost us £400. Super start to our break).

On returning today we find we've been issued with a parking ticket, clearly giving the times the car was parked in the services, completely ignoring the fact that it was terminally broken and awaiting recovery by the AA.

The company is called CP Plus Ltd and apparently they want £50 by the 27th otherwise that will rise to £80 and could lead to other costs.

It was a very stressful time for us, we had somewhere to be and had a massive job trying to find a car to use on our journey, the last thing we were worrying about was these parking vultures. We took the advice of the AA people and left a note in the window explaining the situation and asking not to be clamped. If this firm were watching on cameras then they were obviously blind not to see 3 different AA vehicles in attendance in the time it was there and the fact it was towed away on the back of one of the AA vehicles obviously didn't register with them either. Currently our trip has cost us well over 3 times the amount the car is worth anyway and this ticket has just been the icing on the cake.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thank you.

peter_the_piper

Don't contact, appeal, reply to them. They will always reject an appeal as it would cost them money to allow it. They won't take you to court nor will they give you a ccj or send in the bailiffs. To sun up, ignore the ba****ds. Hope you enjoyed your holiday apart from this, area around Oban is one of our favourites.

peter_the_piper

Never admit who the driver was on any forums, the invoice(its not a fine) will go to the RK, any problem CP has is with the driver, not necessarily one and the same.

movingforward2010

Ignore ignore ignore !!!

trisontana

This is what I had to say on a similar thread :-

Charging people for overstaying in motorway service areas is reprehensible. On the one had we are told to take regular rests, not drive if we feel tired and that deaths are caused by drivers falling asleep. Then you get these parasites coming along and "fining" you if you do the right thing and take a rest for a few hours.

I know that in this case the car had broken down and the driver wasn't just taking a rest, but the principle is still the same.

CarMar

Thanks for the replies.

So has there ever been a case where these vermin have managed to follow through their threats and sue anybody successfully?

Coupon-mad

CarMar wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

So has there ever been a case where these vermin have managed to follow through their threats and sue anybody successfully?

There have been reports of the odd 'staged' County Court case and also the odd few where certain PPCs have chanced their arm and the defendant doesn't turn up (gives the victory to the PPC by default). If any posters on here were really facing a court case over a private parking charge then there are people on here and on pepipoo.com who can advise how to defend it successfully.

AFAIK most PPCs wouldn't chance Court at all. Don't give them any ammo, don't tell them who the driver was under any circumstances, just ignore their threatening letters over the months to come.

mcjordi

ignore it
youll get some more letters each increasing the threats
but nothing will happen

muquinhas

Hi, the same happened to me at a Mc Donalds close to Stansted Airport. I had to have a rest there because it was far too dangerous to drive back home. I fell asleep in the car and stayed there 1h49 minutes instead of the autorised 60 minutes. MET Parking Service is now charging me £50 if I pay by the 28th October, otherwise, it's going to be £100. Now comes my question, If I appeal and the appeal is rejected, I will only know that after the 28th, so will my charge be £50 or £100?

Thanks,
Sam

juliescot

muquinhas wrote: »

Hi, the same happened to me at a Mc Donalds close to Stansted Airport. I had to have a rest there because it was far too dangerous to drive back home. I fell asleep in the car and stayed there 1h49 minutes instead of the autorised 60 minutes. MET Parking Service is now charging me £50 if I pay by the 28th October, otherwise, it's going to be £100. Now comes my question, If I appeal and the appeal is rejected, I will only know that after the 28th, so will my charge be £50 or £100?

Thanks,
Sam

Do not appeal do not get in touch with them, just ignore their ever more threatening letters

Coupon-mad

muquinhas wrote: »

Hi, the same happened to me at a Mc Donalds close to Stansted Airport. I had to have a rest there because it was far too dangerous to drive back home. I fell asleep in the car and stayed there 1h49 minutes instead of the autorised 60 minutes. MET Parking Service is now charging me £50 if I pay by the 28th October, otherwise, it's going to be £100. Now comes my question, If I appeal and the appeal is rejected, I will only know that after the 28th, so will my charge be £50 or £100?

Thanks,
Sam

Please Sam, heed the advice above and don't even bother with any of their letters.

Don't even think of 'appealing', there IS NO APPEAL because PPCs send out a refusal to all 'appeals'! They only pretend you can appeal to give their ticket some semblance of normality and to remain members of the BPA (if they are) and keep the DVLA sweet. If you write back to 'appeal' they will hassle you even more as they know they have sent their letters to a real person who thinks it's a real fine.

You owe them nothing and they will NOT take you to Court because they would not win. The charge is not a real fine and is unenforceable in law (companies like this know it).

Don't reply. Don't under any circumstances mention who was driving (give them no ammo at all and they will go away in the end). In the meantime, you will receive a series of scam letters pretending to be from Solicitors and debt collectors, they will look 'official' but THEY ARE NOT.

They are all rubbish, don't waver, this is extortion. If you think your situation is unusual it isn't, spend an hour reading other threads like yours on this list (the PPC ones, not the Council or Police ticket ones) and believe the advice given to everyone, ignore the whole scam:

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

HTH