PPC Letter Chains & Court Papers (discussion & comments)

give_them_FA

I agree of course, their demands are no more justified or legal than anyone else's; but then they don't chance their arm in court. I seem to remember they pirated the car from one of their own car parks, the gist of their "justification" being that the owner had placed the vehicle on their property and they were therefore keeping it.

robbo462003

Hi I have just received an invoice for £65.00,rising to £85.00 if not paid withing 7days from FlashPark The PCN says "Contravention: Unauthorized Parking" The alleged parking contavention was in a private residential ( electronically gated car park for which I have an entrance code as a regular business visitor to residential clients)I did not see a warning notice when i parked on business to visit the client.On my return to my car,15 minutes later,I was approached by a resident who advised me I had parked in his space and would be receiving a parking ticket in due course.I assumed this person was either a joker or someone suffering from some mental disability,I thanked him and drove to the exit gates entered the code to open the gates and left.dismissing the encounter as some lonely crack-pot.But on receipt of the invoice I looked at FlashPark web site which says it gives £10.00 commission to participating residents who are successful in obtaining payment from each PCN issued.Should I seek advice from a solicitor?

AltheHibby

No, you should just ignore it. It is no different from the other PPC bogroll discussed on the forum.

Stephen_Leak

robbo462003 wrote: »

Hi I have just received an invoice for £65.00,rising to £85.00 if not paid withing 7days from FlashPark The PCN says "Contravention: Unauthorized Parking" The alleged parking contavention was in a private residential ( electronically gated car park for which I have an entrance code as a regular business visitor to residential clients)I did not see a warning notice when i parked on business to visit the client.On my return to my car,15 minutes later,I was approached by a resident who advised me I had parked in his space and would be receiving a parking ticket in due course.I assumed this person was either a joker or someone suffering from some mental disability,I thanked him and drove to the exit gates entered the code to open the gates and left.dismissing the encounter as some lonely crack-pot.But on receipt of the invoice I looked at FlashPark web site which says it gives £10.00 commission to participating residents who are successful in obtaining payment from each PCN issued.Should I seek advice from a solicitor?

You're lucky that I spotted this on the end of such a long thread.

Anyway, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private parking company (PPC) or an individual can't. Even PPCs call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011, 1SE02759, the Peel Centre case.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a driver in damages for any breach of contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If this is a free car park or they paid, this is £0.00. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you do owe the CPO anything, then you should write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”.

In any event, advise the CPO that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions have been judged to constitute harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. That ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with them.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with chasing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe who was driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA. With postal notices, they’ve done this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and told them who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of harassing the registered keeper, they can now harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

The PPC, then a debt collector and then a solicitor will send you a series of letters. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These letters will threaten you with every kind of financial and legal unpleasantness imaginable, to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a Nigerian e-mail scammer couldn't sue anyone who didn’t pay them.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. It does seem counter-intuitive to deal with something by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats, and stop throwing good money after bad.

So, save yourself a solicitor's fee and £85. And also save FlashPark £10 commission.

robbo462003

Thank you for the information Stephen I will no doubt be getting more correspondence from FlashPark in the next few days.I omitted to mention that whilest the residential development is only 5-6 years old the parking bays are very poorly marked with faded white paint and must present many opportunities for the PCN residential agent to boost his income from unsuspecting legal visitors.

ManxRed

robbo462003 wrote: »

Thank you for the information Stephen I will no doubt be getting more correspondence from FlashPark in the next few days.I omitted to mention that whilest the residential development is only 5-6 years old the parking bays are very poorly marked with faded white paint and must present many opportunities for the PCN residential agent to boost his income from unsuspecting legal visitors.

You catch on fast!

Coupon-mad

robbo462003 wrote: »

Thank you for the information Stephen I will no doubt be getting more correspondence from FlashPark in the next few days.I omitted to mention that whilest the residential development is only 5-6 years old the parking bays are very poorly marked with faded white paint and must present many opportunities for the PCN residential agent to boost his income from unsuspecting legal visitors.

I think Flashpark use the same letter series as G24 and Parking Eye, which involves some colourful ink from CCS Collect.

Then it all fizzles out if you just ignore the whole scam. I would be tempted to go back and put a copy of this thread through the residents letterbox - if you do then my message to the resident is you are a sad, deluded idiot mate!

Robbo, have a look at what to ignore here on this thread showing pics of the letters:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2214803

And have you watched the Watchdog clip? See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIcdi9niHA

You'll need to watch it to learn important info - namely how to make paper aeroplanes out of all those letters!

Kite2010

I have no idea where to put this, but didn't want to start a new thread about it.

Today when in town I spotted a CP Plus Van parked in the council run car-park with a penalty charge notice on it for the ticket being expired by a good hour...

...poor CP Plus, unlike your fake invoices, this is a real parking charge which won't go away as the local council don't beat around the bush with regards to non-payers. *evil laugh*

robbo462003

Thanks Coupon-mad I had not seen the watchdog clip before your link today. I am very grateful for you guys replying so quickly with excellent detail.I`m now thinking how I could help others to put these scam merchants out of business.

Coupon-mad

robbo462003 wrote: »

Thanks Coupon-mad I had not seen the watchdog clip before your link today. I am very grateful for you guys replying so quickly with excellent detail.I`m now thinking how I could help others to put these scam merchants out of business.

That's what brought us all here - we are normal, law-abiding and busy people but we keep coming back here to get this scam known and to stop people falling for it. I come here every day and so do several regulars; you would be most welcome to join in with passing on the 'ignore' advice to newbies with links & info, the more the merrier!