First private parking ticket

baileycakes

Great!!! Got my first private parking ticket last Sat and after reading up on here get the idea i should just be ignoring it and sit tight when the scary letters start arriving!
Am a bit worried about the whole thing to be honest as i believe maybe we were in the wrong and maybe best to pay up! We parked up in a retail park which did have sufficient signs up but we stupidly walked out of the car park for a short while! We came back into the car park and went into PC World to purchase something. When we got back to the car we saw the ticket so someone saw us leave the car park...so my question is are we wise to ignore this as they have a good case against us??

bromsgrovebarry

'Fines' imposed by Private Parking Contractors have NO legal validity. Which PPC has tried to scam you? Anyway ignore and put the money to better use.

baileycakes

Its UKPC....so we should ignore even though we left the car park?

Coupon-mad

YES!!! This is a scam.

Ignore them, they are con-merchants and have no case against you even if you'd parked there overnight across three mother and baby bays. They have no legal case against you!

It's not a fine, not a valid PCN, just a mickey mouse ticket. Some people here collect these for fun and especially to cost these scumbags some money in sending these threatograms.

You have done nothing wrong, you have not got a fine, stop thinking you are bang to rights and realise that they are asking for money that you have no obligation to pay at all.

Have you seen all the threads like yours? Every original new poster on here is ignoring a PPC ticket except the odd Council PCN case. Click here to see the whole sub-board, every thread:

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

There are hundreds and hundreds of threads, read some now, look at your letter-chain preview on the top thread 'PPC letter/threats, what to expect' (play snap when the matching standard computer-generated tosh arrives). Our pics on that thread show the exact letters!

Google 'UKPC private parking scam' and read any forum advice results you get - you'll soon see a pattern! Read some info on pepipoo forums as well, such as the Watchdog programme from May this year where they tell you what to do with these bogus tickets:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=51193

Did I say, keep ignoring?! Paper aeroplane time! Then go back and park there again.

taffy056

baileycakes wrote: »

Its UKPC....so we should ignore even though we left the car park?

Those scammers are beneath comtempt, complete scum who discrminate against disabled people, they are also the scum who have tried to legitimise their operations by blinding a charity with their scam, out of all the scammers these are the worst !

Coupon-mad

No, that's UKCPS but they are all much of a muchness...:)

baileycakes

Thank you so much for some great info....i can relax a bit more now and hope i can get my blood pressure down :j

AlexisV

They have no legal right to the money.

Not that it makes any difference - they just send letters out. It's a mail scam.

baileycakes

I'm so glad i found this site before coughing up any money to these theiving b******s!!!! And a big thank you to everyone here that takes the trouble to help out us newbies to these scammers...keep up the good work!

PaulJM

baileycakes wrote: »

I'm so glad i found this site before coughing up any money to these theiving b******s!!!! And a big thank you to everyone here that takes the trouble to help out us newbies to these scammers...keep up the good work!

Going through the same thing, and was consoled by the guys on here, and a really good interview on Watchdog on BBC earlier in the year.
As well as everything else - ie they've taken a handful of people to court and never won, I took consulation in the following (incase like me, you were still concerned!)
- They could only take you to a small claims court, and ask for their losses at the initial point of you not buying the ticket (50p or whatever) = small claims courts are cheap by their nature, so even if you had groundbreakingly bad luck, and they took you to court, and you lost (never happens) you'd be out of pocket by a just a few quid. Many on here will say that's not worth discussing as it won't happen, but the thought helped me.

- Don't worry about the Bailiff and CCJ thing - it's a load of crap. That could only happen if the court said you had to pay up and you didn't. (this concerned me!)
- Debt collectors have no power. They don't even use them anyway.
- The letters are literally sent by a computer, on different letter-headed paper. I mention this because they will scare you!

I'm 6 months in, and every time they've said they'll take me to court, and never have. Not heard anything for ages now.

Good luck.

Mark_Hewitt

baileycakes wrote: »

Great!!! Got my first private parking ticket last Sat and after reading up on here get the idea i should just be ignoring it and sit tight when the scary letters start arriving!
Am a bit worried about the whole thing to be honest as i believe maybe we were in the wrong and maybe best to pay up! We parked up in a retail park which did have sufficient signs up but we stupidly walked out of the car park for a short while! We came back into the car park and went into PC World to purchase something. When we got back to the car we saw the ticket so someone saw us leave the car park...so my question is are we wise to ignore this as they have a good case against us??

Even if these were enforceable, which they aren't of course. Then you were still using the car park in the correct manner as you visited a business there.