UK Parking Patrol Office, Manchester

wolfman210

PS I bet the uk parking patrol office are not registered for VAT or are paying business rates on the "car park" known as Old Medlock Street. They require both.

HO87

djdave wrote: »

IN my case part of the reason for writing to them is that I believe they may acted unlawfully, and in another thread someone tells of receiving a letter with "DEBTOR" on the envelope which could be potentially illegal. So I fully intend to report their behaviour but wish to give them a chance to explain themselves first. If their reply doesn't satisfy me, I will have no hesitation to report them to everybody from Trading Standards to the police.

You need to understand that you are dealing with those who have long since developed the hide of a rhino when it comes to fending off probing letters. And the reason? These operations are hugely profitable. Your letter will have no effect other than to encourage them write more often because they will know they have hooked a live fish. They know they sail close to the wind and will care less that someone else has sussed that.

Just report them as it stands.

EDIT: UK Parking Patrol Office Limited has been registered as a dormant company at Companies House since December of last year. You might want to check the paperwork to confirm the trading title of the company concerned. IIRC the outfit traded for some considerable time simply as UK Parking Patrol Office.

djdave

HO87 wrote: »

Just report them as it stands.

In my experience, Trading Standards are reluctant to get involved until all avenues are exhausted, which includes following a company's complaints procedure. I knew that these cowboys wouldn't be able to defend themselves, and indeed a year from the original "ticket" I've not heard a dicky-bird, but I also wanted to be bulletproof when I raised my complaints.

My advice to anybody else "ticketed" by this bunch would be the same as for all the other PPCs: ignore, ignore, ignore.

wolfman210

Re the above and previous post regarding Old Medlock st. off Liverpool Road Manchester. The stopping up order was applied for and granted to the company The shopkeepers agency, which owned the building on which the "notice" is displayed on the 24th of May 1995. However this company has been liquidated.(after some rather nasty incidents about being sued) I assume the PPO are issuing tickets on behalf of The shopkeepers agency.I bet the liquidators would be interested in any monies that might be taken on their behalf.If it is correct that they only own half of Old Medlock St. I wonder if the owners of the flats on the other side of the road are aware that this company is issuing tickets on their property. Also the PPO is an "approved operator" of the British parking association as is the company who PPO use to try and get your money Roxburghe. Which seems a bit funny for a debt collection agency to be registered with a parking association. As members of the Association they are supposed to comply with their regulations Ie use liveried vehicles whilst doing obs & issuing tickets.

RUGGLES_3

Received letter from this company (with photograph) claiming £60/90 otherwise Court. Having read the previous posts is this company or correspondence legal? Quite worried by this threat.
Any advice would be appreciated.
:mad:

Stephen_Leak

RUGGLES wrote: »

Received letter from this company (with photograph) claiming £60/90 otherwise Court. Having read the previous posts is this company or correspondence legal? Quite worried by this threat.
Any advice would be appreciated.
:mad:

Please read this ...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/16850789#Comment_16850789

Firstly, 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. This case actually involved The Peel Centre.

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.

There are also now two recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In both cases, the judges found that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

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 ought to write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”.

In any event, you ought to advise the CPO that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by them would be regarded as 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.

marleyboy

I dont think we need discuss how to wipe.

RUGGLES_3

Thank you to Stephen Leak for the comprehensive reply to my query. I had already put one or two of the suggestions into place and can now look further into this. I will post any outcome for further users of the Forum.

underwater_gardener

Hi.

Re: UK Parking Patrol Office

My wife just attended the Bonfire at Heaton Park, Manchester, with the grandkids and came home with a PCN from these people.

She parked on a nearby housing estate, yellow lines on one side of the road, so she parked on the other side of the road opposite some spare land causing no obstruction. She didn't notice any signs when she parked at 6:30pm, but when she came back at 8:30 and every car had a ticket she noticed that somebody had put a sandwich board at the end of the street saying 'permit parking only' and on closer inspection she saw a sign about 1ft square stuck to a wall about 3ft off the ground saying the same.

I don't pretend to know the legality of this, but I thought any road on a housing estate with a yellow line down one side would be regarded as a public road, and therefore would not be policed by any private company. But even if I'm wrong on this, then surely the signage is breaking all the known rules.

Obviously, after reading the posts here ( a big thank you to every one of you ) I'm going to ignore them. But I won't tell my very guilty wife until I've milked it for a few weeks. HeHeHe!

underwater_gardener

Sorry .. I didn't mean I was going to ignore the posts .. just the bandits at UK PPO