£70 Parking Fine in non P&D Car Park

taxiphil

For some reason, bluelagoon has dragged up a thread from September 2006 when there are numerous more recent threads on this subject.

taxiphil

bluelagoon wrote: »

you could have a go at fighting it - but the risk of losing could be alot more severe than a £60 charge.

How could it be more severe? Please enlighten us.

I can only assume that you mean the company is using coercion to get people to pay (for example - telling people the fine will double after 14 days, then double again, etc) then this is just as unenforceable as the original "fine" itself and would be laughed out of any court in the land.

Giblets

Think we should push the knowledge we hold on moneysaving expert, if Martin took it up, it would open a great many persons eyes

frank_potter

sarahg1969 wrote: »

I would be very interested to hear the details of the cases they have won. I'm assuming they have been defended properly, and the Judge has heard all the evidence and made his judgment from that evidence?

I'd also be interested to know how they manage to trace the driver to chase this debt.

Interesting indeed.

Perhaps you can enlighten us? Assuming you know about the procedures followed by your agents, of course.

ETA: I would be more than happy for you to contact me by PM with further information about some of your successful case. In particular a county court claim number would be useful, so that I could obtain details of the (publicly available) judgment.

Sounds very Interesting!!

I have NEVER heard of a private parking company winning a properly defended case.

Perhaps bluelagoon could also tell us the name of the private parking company that achieves such astonishing results in the County Court.

bluejake

Do not pay! Simply ignore the threatening letters. They will threaten to take you to court. Do not respond to them. Do not be fooled by pseudo 'legal' mumbo jumbo letters. Get on with your life and forget about. Don't waste any more time even thinking about.

Unfortunately, people post a lot of nonsense. My experience from another thread is repeated below. My car was photographed by the way. The DVLA do sell your address to anyone, however dodgy unfortunately, so the parking company will have the name and address of the owner but that does not give them any legal powers.

My experience:

I received a ticket from excel for parking too long on a Asda on a football match day.

I just did not respond to any correspondance from them nor did I take part in their appeals process. They sent me digital time stamped photos of my car. They said pay up within so many days or the cost goes up. I didn't. They then added legal fees. They then threatened to take me to court - 100 miles away from where I live and from where the 'offence' was committed.

Still no response from me. Surprise surprise the court summons did not appear.

About a year later I was then threatened again by another 'legal firm'. This time a discount(!) if I paid up and a threat to take me to court, again about 100 miles away from where I live in the opposite direction, if I didn't.

Surprise surprise the court summons didn't appear - again. Nearly two years have now passed since the 'offence'.

As far as I can see they send threatening letters to intimidate people into paying and pretend they have some kind of 'legal authority' to make you pay. They threaten court action and the court is always about 100 miles away :cool: so people think they will have to travel a long way so they just pay.

If they did go to court it is expensive for them and they would lose. The court would also take a dim view of the way their tickets and letters impersonate official legal tickets and letters. Their tickets quote some legal mumbo jumbo :cool: on the back to pretend they have legal authority to force you to pay.

My advice is ignore them. In the highly unlikely event you get a court summons, rather than a threat to take you to court(and again their letter impersonates a court summons but it isn't:cool:) then do something about it then.

AlexisV

I work for a company that has parking problems on its land. The parking company we employ to manage the issuing of tickets has taken more than 400 people to the Small Claims division of the County Court over the last two years (not from our land, but from all the sites they manage) and they have won every case.

When a ticket is issued a photograph is taken of the car parked on our land with the ticket visible stuck to the driver's side window. We also have enough signs displayed to ensure every photo includes at least one of them in the background.

Nearly every ticket issued on our land has been paid within 14 days, there are a couple that are now due to go to Court.

Many people who get tickets are angry at first but most just realise they are in the wrong and pay up. Knowing what I know now, if I ever got a ticket I'd just pay it straight away and put the whole thing behind me.

That said, if you are certain that they don't have a photograph and there isn't any CCTV you could have a go at fighting it - but the risk of losing could be alot more severe than a £60 charge.

To be honest, I don't believe you.

For a start, 400 cases in small claims court seems a fallacy - any evidence to support these claims?

I'm also confused how nearly every ticket has been paid within 14 days, yet you've apparently taken 400 to court. I'd be surprised if half the people would pay up. They may be 'angry' but people are not mindless automatons who 'know they're in the wrong' and pay up no questions. It's damn hard to get money out of people and your happy little scenario seems like make-believe.

And as for 'Knowing what I know now, if I ever got a ticket I'd just pay it straight away and put the whole thing behind me' - what a hilarious line.

Your company is adept at placing invoices on cars and I expect half pay up no messing. Maybe another 15% pay up after you've harrassed them with fake threatening letters, but the rest get written off and consigned to the bin, as you well know.

Private parking fines revolve around the basis that you have somehow entered into a contract due to a magical sign on the wall. By that basis I could place a sign on my driveway forbidding anyone from placing a foot on it and charge the paperboy a penalty for walking on it.

These implied contracts are a joke. Unless you have a contract in writing, or proof of a verbal agreement, all the tickets private firms put on cars are completely and utterly unenforceable.

bluelagoon_3

sarahg1969 wrote: »

I would be very interested to hear the details of the cases they have won. I'm assuming they have been defended properly, and the Judge has heard all the evidence and made his judgment from that evidence?

I'd also be interested to know how they manage to trace the driver to chase this debt.

Interesting indeed.

Perhaps you can enlighten us? Assuming you know about the procedures followed by your agents, of course.

ETA: I would be more than happy for you to contact me by PM with further information about some of your successful case. In particular a county court claim number would be useful, so that I could obtain details of the (publicly available) judgment.

The drivers are contacted by obtaining the registered keeper information from the DVLA. If the driver is not the registered keeper then the charge still applies to the registered keeper as the wording on our signage covers this possibility.

Just to clarify a point, I don't work for a car park management company, but the company I work for employs one to manage its car park. When selecting a company to manage it we asked for their record on pursuing non-payers and that's what they told us. Just do a search on Google for "car park management" and call any of the operators who offer this service and ask them for yourself.

However, the company we use is due to issue two or three County Court summonses this month to non-payers in our car park and I'd be happy to provide you with all the Court information once they've been issued so you can see the progress/outcome.

bluelagoon_3

taxiphil wrote: »

How could it be more severe? Please enlighten us.

I can only assume that you mean the company is using coercion to get people to pay (for example - telling people the fine will double after 14 days, then double again, etc) then this is just as unenforceable as the original "fine" itself and would be laughed out of any court in the land.

With the system we use here, the charge is £85 but reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. I'd say about 95% of people pay up immediately. If they don't pay their details are obtained from the DVLA and they are sent a letter asking for the £85 and just about all the rest pay at this point.

If they still don't pay then a County Court summons is issued which I think costs about £30. If they lose, they not only have to pay the newly increased fee of £130 but also the Court fee on top. Personally I'd say that is more severe than just paying the £60 charge.

bluelagoon_3

AlexisV wrote: »

To be honest, I don't believe you.

For a start, 400 cases in small claims court seems a fallacy - any evidence to support these claims?

I'm also confused how nearly every ticket has been paid within 14 days, yet you've apparently taken 400 to court. I'd be surprised if half the people would pay up. They may be 'angry' but people are not mindless automatons who 'know they're in the wrong' and pay up no questions. It's damn hard to get money out of people and your happy little scenario seems like make-believe.

And as for 'Knowing what I know now, if I ever got a ticket I'd just pay it straight away and put the whole thing behind me' - what a hilarious line.

Your company is adept at placing invoices on cars and I expect half pay up no messing. Maybe another 15% pay up after you've harrassed them with fake threatening letters, but the rest get written off and consigned to the bin, as you well know.

Private parking fines revolve around the basis that you have somehow entered into a contract due to a magical sign on the wall. By that basis I could place a sign on my driveway forbidding anyone from placing a foot on it and charge the paperboy a penalty for walking on it.

These implied contracts are a joke. Unless you have a contract in writing, or proof of a verbal agreement, all the tickets private firms put on cars are completely and utterly unenforceable.

You need to re-read my post as you have made some incorrect assumptions.

Firstly, we have issued about 140 parking charges on our land in the last 10 weeks and about 95% have paid up within 14 days.

The figure of 400 Court cases I mentioned refers to the company we use to manage the collection process. They manage hundreds of car parks and presumably thousands of tickets so 400 Court cases over the last few years sounds about right to me.

If you have managed to misunderstand my simple posting then I very much doubt that you have understood anything else you have read on the subject so forgive for not explaining why your clumsy example involving your paperboy is flawed.

bluelagoon_3

frank_potter wrote: »

Sounds very Interesting!!

I have NEVER heard of a private parking company winning a properly defended case.

Perhaps bluelagoon could also tell us the name of the private parking company that achieves such astonishing results in the County Court.

Just do a Google search for 'car park management' and make a few telephone calls posing as a potential customer.

I doubt you'll like what you hear though.