Tell your tales of problems with private parking providers

Former_MSE_Wendy

[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] What's this all about?[/title]
Consumer Focus is looking to gather evidence from consumers about their experiences with private car park operators to decide what steps may be needed to resolve some of the complaints it has come across.

Complaints received so far range from:

• Excessive/erroneous charges for overstaying
• Lack of clear signage in car parks
• Unclear contractual terms
• Driver/registered keeper issues
• Aggressive/misleading debt recovery practices for non payment of charges
• Misleading correspondence
• Lack of regulation
• Failures to respond to challenges to charges
• Unwillingness to accept evidence that refutes the parking charge
• Over-zealous charges eg for 1 – 5 minute overstay, a centimetre over the line, etc.
• Failure of the BPA to respond to complaints

[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] How to have your say[/title]
Please report your parking problems directly in the thread below or [EMAIL="investigations@consumerfocus.org.uk"]email[/EMAIL] the investigations team at Consumer Focus giving as much detail as you can about:

• What was your experience
• When did it take place
• Which operator was involved
• The location of the car park
• Whether you have been pursued for payment
• If you have been taken to court over non-payment
• Have you complained to anyone else so far eg Consumer Direct, Trading Standards, your local MP or the British Parking Association

If you email the team please confirm whether you are happy for Consumer Focus to pass on details of your complaint to any of the bodies mentioned above. This will help if they need to take their investigation further.

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alixandrea

This was quite a long time ago, but I once parked in a carpark in Harlow that claimed to be 'the safest' local carpark. It closed at something like 7pm. My friends and I went to see a film and got back to the carpark at 6.50 to find the attendants closing up and driving away fast as we approached (I'm not kidding, it looked like something out of an action movie!)

This was in the days when I had no mobile phone, so I had to find the nearest phone box and some change to call the number on the carpark's signs. There was a £50 call-out fee which they would not waive, even when I told them the way that the attendants had left and at what time.

When we got to my car, we found that two of my tyres had been let down. I had to drive the car out of the carpark to the nearest safe place to stop (which was quite a way away) then find another phone box to call a relative of one of my friends, who came out to us with a pump. The tyres re-inflated and were fine from then on, so they'd definitely been let down, in this so-called 'safest carpark in Harlow'.

I wrote a letter of complaint to the company and got my money back but they were so snide about it. They said they couldn't be expected to take responsibility for the "punctures" in my tyres and that the attendants had told them they'd left on time. Nevertheless they would refund my money as a 'goodwill gesture'. Oh it made me SO MAD!! :mad:

Anyway, I never parked in that carpark again.

Alixandrea

riono5

I had a parking problem and took them to court.

Article Lancashire evening Post - Wednesday 6 October 2010
Trainee solicitor wins parking ticket case for brother

They threatened to appeal but I didnt hear anything of it, contrary to comments posted by mindless people on the article. The dispute was not that there were no signs labelling whos car park it was, but rather no signs to signify that I would be charged a fine if did park my car there.

Hadeon

With all due respect to MSE Wendy, but I feel the PPC's are going to be glued to this thread!!!

I don't think this is a very good idea.

peter_the_piper

Might be best to PM them, at least its more secure.

trisontana

UKCPS have this very misleading (some would say "lie") on the paperwork they issue to motorists:-
"The owner of the vehicle must pay a charge of £100"


Of course the owner of the vehicle does not have to pay a penny. The only person they can go after is the driver.

AlexisV

I had a parking problem and took them to court.

Article Lancashire evening Post - Wednesday 6 October 2010
Trainee solicitor wins parking ticket case for brother

They threatened to appeal but I didnt hear anything of it, contrary to comments posted by mindless people on the article. The dispute was not that there were no signs labelling whos car park it was, but rather no signs to signify that I would be charged a fine if did park my car there.

I saw your picture in the article! Well done and good to see you here.

Parking Eye's one and only time they've ever been near a court I believe.

camngnp223

A friend borrowed my car to go shopping. She parked in the car park in front of a TK Maxx store. She returned the car to me a few hours later. About a week later, I got a "Parking Charge Notice" from Highview Parking Ltd for £75. I called TK Maxx and they tried to be helpful, explaining that the car park was now private but the parking company hadn't had the chance to put up all the appropriate signs. Apparently, although no signs were on display, Highview contested that there was a 3 hour free parking limit and my friend had stayed in the car park for 3 hours and 4 minutes. (I went on the Highview website and saw timestamped photos of my friend entering and leaving the car park!) I took the advice that Martin gave and wrote to Highview to explain that I wasn't driving and requesting that the demands for payment cease. They acknowledged receipt of my letter but ignored its content. I've since been receiving demands for rapidly increasing sums of money! They have also given my details to a sister company which purports to be a debt collection agency. From memory, they're now demanding that I pay £250. In a recent letter, they even invited me to stipulate whether I had been driving the car. (I'd already made this stipulation, and I have proof of postage and their written reply to proove it. Their photos also clearly show a woman driving: I am a man.) Their letters are actually quite threatening: for example, they make it sound as though an unfavourable county court judgement with many hundreds of pounds of associated costs is a sure thing. These guys really are villains! They really should be stopped from disregarding communication and from being so overtly and inappropriately threatening.
Cam

pixwix

Apart from the operators of plainly private parking facilities, there are also a lot of towns now who use a contracted private firm to operate their parking control schemes. Many of these firms are little better than thieves and vagabonds, using people on minimum wage whose income depends on achieving ticketing quotas. I've know people ticketed in hotel carparks and a disabled neighbour was ticketed because his blue badge had tilted to 45% !!

The problem with this whole area isn't just individual firms - people like that will always occupy any vacuum that isn't regulated properly. The problem is with Rip-Off Britain, where thoroughly dishonest people, from parking facilities to clampers to loan sharks, can operate with almost total impunity (in practice if not in theory), while local councils and central govt wring their hands and promise - some day - to do something about it. Strangely, today is never the day.

I'm amazed frankly that muggers and thieves still bother to operate on our streets, when there are so many much easier and dubiously legal ways to fleece the public.

bargepole

MSE_Wendy wrote: »

Consumer Focus is looking to gather evidence from consumers about their experiences with private car park operators to decide what steps may be needed to resolve some of the complaints it has come across....

All of the complaints about PPCs can be resolved in one simple step - just IGNORE any correspondence from PPCs - they'll soon get fed up and try to con some other mug.

Coupon-mad

bargepole wrote: »

All of the complaints about PPCs can be resolved in one simple step - just IGNORE any correspondence from PPCs - they'll soon get fed up and try to con some other mug.

Seconded.

We certainly DO NOT want to see some sort of regulation and legitimising of PPCs and their protection rackets. Four main points I want to make to Consumer Focus:

1. No so-called 'independent appeals process' in the world is going to work if it's run by the BPA or the SIA. So let's kick that (PPC propaganda) idea into touch right now.

2. Consumer Direct and CAB staff need informing of the correct position on these tickets. All too often we see posts where people have asked them and they've been daft enough to suggest people should pay or that they may well get taken to Court, etc. RUBBISH - that's just like telling people to pay when they've received a phishing email!

3. The relationship between Mobilise and UKCPS needs investigating as the former (a disability charity) are gaining memberships from the actions of the latter (a PPC). UKCPS are issuing bogus tickets for completely legally unfounded reasons - to disabled people! And Mobilise are supporting their friends the PPC instead of the wronged disabled person if cases are put to them! There's a thread on this board all about it, maybe MSEWendy could forward it for investigation by Consumer Focus?

4. The debt collector/solicitor (e.g. Roxburghe & Graham White among others) threatogram chain needs stamping out, especially when they phone people up claiming to be a Solicitor when they are NOT, they are just a Roxburghe call centre/debt chaser employee. It's harassment, there is no debt to chase.

I HOPE CONSUMER FOCUS TAKE THAT ON BOARD!

PPCs already have the Small Claims Court if they want to use it and allege a breach of contract. To give them any other powers or introduce an expensive quango to support their 'industry' would be nothing short of scandalous.

I am happy to state here that I had a PPC ticket from Euro Car Parks as I am the registered keeper of a car which had apparently overstayed in a car park. But of course they didn't care who was driving, couldn't allege a contract in a million years.

But that didn't stop them sending debt collector letters pretending they were about to take the matter to Court and trying to claim a ridiculous amount in a FREE car park that they do not even own nor maintain, where the driver had spent over £100 in the retail shop.

I just ignored them completely of course.

Oh, and it's great to see the famous Tasneem Patel posting on here about taking Parking Eye to Court - great stuff! Clicky link

Oh, and in case anyone has missed it, apparently Watchdog are going to cover the issue of PPC scam tickets again next week. Following on nicely from their programme in May where the motoring issues expert Solicitor Tim Cary showed that you can just make PPC bogus parking tickets into paper aeroplanes.

Finally, a question for MSE Wendy:

Are you saying that if people email their details to Consumer Focus that they might pass the details on to the BPA? (Quote 'please confirm whether you are happy for Consumer Focus to pass on details of your complaint to any of the bodies mentioned above' Quote).

The same BPA which is the toothless old-boy-network PPC 'members club' which never deals with individual complaints and has a Code of Practice that means diddly squat?

The same BPA who told MSE Martin last year they would 'answer their critics' then apparently told lies and then crawled back under their stone after just one page of questions?

The same BPA whose board members include owners of the very firms that our posters might now be emailing about, including when/where details?

Isn't that just telling the scammer who was driving? Not to be recommended.

Who are Consumer Focus doing this survey for, please?