I NEED HELP re a Central ticketing parking charge

darbsterj

Today whilst doing my Christmas food shop at Tesco (£200 worth) I got a parking ticket attached to my car. When we went into the car park it was very busy as you can imagine and it was also full of snow therefore disguising the white bay lines distinguishing the parking bays. As you can imagine, cars were parked all over the place and certainly not in straight lines. We parked next to a car and behind another car presuming we were in a "legal bay". We arrived back at the car and started to put our shopping in the boot and noticed the car parked in front of us had a ticket on as did the one on the same line but a lane behind us. Seeing this we looked at our windscreen to find a familiar yellow ticket stuck there saying we had parked illegally. How were we meant to know this if we couldn't even see the lines in the car park??
My question is do I pay? If not what do I do. Obviously I do not want the charge to go from £40 to £70 and then on further ingoring go up to £120 as it states on the back of the ticket but I do feel it is unfair. Do I write a letter of appeal?
I also worry a bit with it being Tesco that they will have cctv in the car park and be able to identify us as the drivers from that therefore I would not be able to say I did not know who the driver was!
I would really appreciate your help in this matter as it is starting to dampen my Christmas spirit!!
Thanks

adouglasmhor

Don't pay. Ignore everything they send you they will stop quicker if you just ignore them.

Letter of appeal is admission of guilt in their eyes.

bargepole

darbsterj wrote: »

... we looked at our windscreen to find a familiar yellow ticket stuck there saying we had parked illegally. ...

What law do they think you've broken? There are no legal or illegal bays in private car parks, their "tickets" are just unenforceable toilet paper. Ignore and don't pay.

McKneff

Be brave,ignore everything they send to you. They pretend they are legit,
they are not, they will try to intimidate, they will say we may take you to court, we may do this, we might do that, the general consensus is just ignore them and file everything they send to yu in the back of drwer, only for them all to fall down the back and never see them again.
Happy Christmas pet.

biscuitdunker

Listen to everyone above, and remember - do not contact them, they rely on you to do this. There is no appeals process, they will reject any appeal you submit. Ignore them totally!

Sir_Roger_deLodger

darbsterj wrote: »

I also worry a bit with it being Tesco that they will have cctv in the car park and be able to identify us as the drivers from that therefore I would not be able to say I did not know who the driver was!

If I took some photos of random people in a car park and gave them to you, would you be able to name them? Thought not.
All the advice in the above posts is correct. Ignore them and have a good Christmas!

Coupon-mad

To darbsterj, relax!

Tesco are not going to go back through their CCTV records in 2010 at the request of their PPC scammers, in the vain hope of spotting you go back to your car!

It just won't happen, they don't even bother to trawl their CCTV if someone reports a minor car bump in the car park, and they don't keep CCTV images more than a couple of weeks before wiping the tape. Even if they did have images the ticket would still be unenforceable, it doesn't change anything!

OP please ignore absolutely every rubbish letter they send you in 2010. You have committed no offence, you do not have a debt outstanding to them, you did not enter into nor break any contract and nor did you trespass nor cause any loss to the landowner or the PPC scammers.

There will be no repercussions, no effect on your credit rating. Nothing.

We speak from experience, I and most others on this board have ignored parking tickets like this. Mine was also in a Supermarket Car Park, it's a very common haunt for these chancers. It's just a matter of ignoring a series of letters and pretty-coloured final notices saying they 'may' take you to Court, then they give up.

If you get a spare moment after Christmas, have a read of other people's threads on here:

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

Look for and read any threads which refer to private car park tickets. You'll see hundreds of other people, all ignoring their scam 'fines' like you. A few letters are not scary when you KNOW that they are standard letters and not backed by law, just keep the letters safe (you could have a case for them harassing you, which IS an offence!).

muckybutt

Central are muppets as are the other muppets they employ like roxburgh and graham white / michael sobell.

Had letters from them all wanting MY hard earned cash.....are they gonna get it ? over my dead body !

BFG_2

Pay up or else they will send you some useless letters and then go away for ever.

bhoogenberg1

I have also been hit with a fine from these plonkers - I had parked motorbike between bays in a "free" car-park in a shopping centre whilst I literally went into the shop for 5 minutes to pick up a sandwich to take back to work for my lunch. Got a ticket for "obstructive parking" despite not being in anyones way....

..anyhow, got the standard £60 fine, followed by letter for £85, then £135, then £181 threatening debt recovery if it wasn't paid. I didn't answer any of them. Hey-ho got a letter from Roxburgh debt agents. I rang them and told them to pretty much !!!!!! off, not to contact me as I would consider it harassment as I had not comitted any offence or owed them any money. Suprise suprise, I have had a letter from Graham White solicitors saying I now owe the £181 and if I do not contact them in 7 days they will go to county court to seek judgement - if this happens it will be £181 plus up to £200 costs. I am assuming this is all part of the scam? It is unbelievable how companies can get away with this crap! To top it all, the stick wallet they attached to my bike fairing now won't come off as it has welded on there - maybe I ought to take them to small claims court to replace it!!!!

Sir_Roger_deLodger

bhoogenberg1 wrote: »

I have also been hit with a fine from these plonkers

No you haven't, you have been given an invoice.

bhoogenberg1 wrote: »

I have had a letter from Graham White solicitors saying I now owe the £181 and if I do not contact them in 7 days they will go to county court to seek judgement - if this happens it will be £181 plus up to £200 costs. I am assuming this is all part of the scam?

Yes it is.