Parking ticket for parking ticket for parking in disabled bay, urgent replies please

Kite2010

You've done nothing wrong, the landowner has suffered nil damages. You are disabled which entitles to park in disabled places.

Ignore everything bar the very unlikely chance you get proper court papers.

Coupon-mad

paul112 wrote: »

Thanks very much for all your replies, really appreciate it, fingers crossed we wont be harrassed too much.

You will just get standard letters, file them and laugh. Do not pay, this is a generic scam.

Pictures of the typical debt collector letters are shown in our sticky threads at the top of the forum board, along with a link to Watchdog's legal; advice on the subject of the fake fines. This is nothing to worry about and certainly do not contact the pathetic PPC in any way.

To see the whole forum board click on the blue link above (mentioned in my signature).

BUT I would be complaining in the strongest terms, in writing to the Store Manager of the retailer on site. It is illegal for them to discriminate against customers using their disabled facilities.

You have a right to use the reasonable adjustments that the service-providers have in place, without being harassed; you should not be living in fear of debt collector letters for using a bay you had a legal right to use! Get angry about this, make very strong written complaints, mention the Equality Act and DDA, tell them you believe the harassment of a KNOWN disability car puts them in breach. Tell them that the Blue Badge scheme does not apply on private land, it's just a red herring known to be used by private parking companies to make their life easier and to slap more fake PCNs on vehicles.

It would be interesting to see the retailers trying to defend this. Write to all the Store Managers at that retail park, same letter cc'd to each so they can all see they have an issue here. Make the letter very strongly worded with a printout of your rights under the Equality Act. Do not ask them to cancel the PCN nor word it like an appeal, do NOT feel you have to make excuses, it's a Motability Car, that tells them you are entitled to park there!

As long as they (or their agents the PPC) 'should/could have known' that you or a passenger were disabled (i.e. the Motability car is a BIG clue) then IMHO the retailer/PPC are in breach of the law:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DG_4019061


HTH

bobbentos

I have just (3 months after the alleged 'Contravention') received a demand from CMS Uk Ltd for apparently parking in a Disabled bay at Meadowbrook Retail Pk in Bolton (Next to Reebok Stadium) in October. Apparently, I didn't reply to their first demand???? Which I HONESTLY never received. The demand said it's now too late to pay the £50 fee and I must now pay £80. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. On the demand was 2 tiny images (40mm x 25mm) of a car similar to mine. I admit, the Registration number on the car in the images was the same as mine. However, the car in the tiny images is Black. My car is Blue! Even their demand says Car Colour Black. I have even sent them a copy of my V5 document showing my car as Blue. I can't explain why my number plate appears on this car. Maybe it was copied, which is more of a concern than this ridiculous demand. I just don't know. What I DO know is that I wasn't in the said place at the stated day/time. The images are not of my car, on the image there are no disabled markings on the space next (either left or right) to the one that allegedly shows my car. On the images there is no sign or indication that the car is bearing a ticket on the windscreen. I notice that when wardens give tickets they always take a photo WITH the demand stuck to the window to prove a ticket was issued to the car being penalised.

I have written a very strong letter to these idiots. Why do I say idiots?? Anybody who has received a ticket from these Cowboys should look carefully at the writing, grammar & spelling on the document. It is littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that a 7 year old learns at School (No full stops, Capital letters, missuse of certain words, ie. All over the document the word 'with' is used in place of 'within'...Eg.. 'We try and respond to appeals with 7 working days' ). They even spelt my Christian name wrong!!!

My letter makes it very clear:
I WILL NOT PAY THIS AMOUNT. I REFUSE TO PAY etc, etc
It also goes on to tell them that they should send no more letters or demands and if they feel they have a valid case then take me to court NOW. Let's see what a Judge says about it. I REALLY hope they take me up on the offer. I'm REALLY looking forward to showing these Buffons up in court for what they really are. I will then post the details on here. My letter also tells them that I am a busy man and by accepting my letter they have acknowledged that in future I will charge them for my time at a rate of £56 per hour. Luckilly, I am in the fortunate position where I can pay the Court Costs should they call my bluff but I'm guessing other people aren't.

Here's hoping I receive a Summons soon...

I'll let you all know

esmerobbo

As you undoubtedly know we normally advise ignoring these clowns, but I don't see any harm in what you have wrote basically saying put up or shut up!

Make sure you keep us informed of their response.;)

trisontana

I have just taken a look at the CMS website (they do like the word "solutions" don't they?).

This immediately springs out :-

Lodging an appeal is not a delay of payment. If the initial fine is not paid within 14 days the fee will rise. You should complete payment as soon as possible by post. If your appeal is successful you will be reimbursed in full.

Of course it's not a "fine", and it's against the BPA code of practice to demand payment up-front when lodging an "appeal".

Quentin

bobbentos wrote: »

Luckilly, I am in the fortunate position where I can pay the Court Costs should they call my bluff but I'm guessing other people aren't.

Here's hoping I receive a Summons soon...

They pay all the court costs, should it get that far.

Only if you lose would you end up having to pay, but in that scenario you would be paying for everything - the amount claimed plus the court costs plus all the other sides expenses.

But when they lose, then they have to pay your costs for attending court.

Though as you will have read, a court case is used as an empty threat.

Tilt

trisontana wrote: »

I have just taken a look at the CMS website (they do like the word "solutions" don't they?).

This immediately springs out :-

Lodging an appeal is not a delay of payment. If the initial fine is not paid within 14 days the fee will rise. You should complete payment as soon as possible by post. If your appeal is successful you will be reimbursed in full.

Of course it's not a "fine", and it's against the BPA code of practice to demand payment up-front when lodging an "appeal".

They cannot legally use the word 'fine' in any written form although i'm not sure if that would apply to a website.

NeverAgain_2

While I admire the "up and at 'em" stance of bobbentos, I do hope he doesn't extend his criticism of the parking scammer's use of English to the company itself.

His own post contains about a dozen ordinary nouns which are incorrectly capitalised, and a handful of spelling mistakes.

I mention this not to appear clever, but as a genuine attempt to save him any embarrassment.

Sirdan

Tilt wrote: »

They cannot legally use the word 'fine' in any written form although i'm not sure if that would apply to a website.

I've seen that assertion many many times but I've yet to see anyone post the actual law relating to it.

Although legally they can not impose a fine I don't think that choosing to misdescribe their charge as a fine is necessarily illegal..misleading ..yes..breach of meaningless BPA codes of practice ..yes ..but illegal ..I'm not so sure.

Personally I think PPC's should be actively encouraged to use the words "penalty" and "fine" in their signs and documents because it only strengths the argument in court that what they are doing is "imposing a penalty " which as we all know a private company can not do ..!

Tilt

Sirdan wrote: »

I've seen that assertion many many times but I've yet to see anyone post the actual law relating to it.

Although legally they can not impose a fine I don't think that choosing to misdescribe their charge as a fine is necessarily illegal..misleading ..yes..breach of meaningless BPA codes of practice ..yes ..but illegal ..I'm not so sure.

Personally I think PPC's should be actively encouraged to use the words "penalty" and "fine" in their signs and documents because it only strengths the argument in court that what they are doing is "imposing a penalty " which as we all know a private company can not do ..!

I didn't say it was 'illegal' thus resulting in a crime. What I meant was they cannot use the terms 'fine or penalty' legally in any documentation or on a 'ticket' because they cannot enforce such documentation in a court. So you last paragraph answers the argument quite well in fact. What I will add is that i'm not sure whether their using the term 'fine' on their web site could be used as evidence in such a case.