Meteor parking - Southern railway

abytibbie

Hi all, this is my first post.

I parked yesterday morning in the station car park, run by a company called Meteor on behalf of Southern Railway.

Bought my ticket as usual at the machine and stuck it on the inside of the windscreen; on my return the ticket had fallen off the window and was face down on the dashboard. I found a plastic sticky envelope on the car which I think said 'penalty notice' - the paperwork inside is headed 'notice of breach of terms and conditions of parking at any car park owned or managed by meteor parking limited on behalf of southern'.
They are asking for £50 within 15 days or £90 within 30 days.

Contact details are given as
email: appeals.sr@meteor-uk.com
post: Meteor Parking Limited, PO Box 475, Sevenoaks TN13 9JS

Last night I sent an email explaining the situation and saying that I was appealing against the charge. I gave my name but not my address.

Having read some of the stuff on this website today, I am thinking I probably made a mistake in responding at all. Can they take legal action or not?

Can someone please enlighten me/advise what I should do?
thanks

peter_the_piper

Just ignore, they are not likely to be running this for Southern Railway under the rail bylaws. The easy way to check is to look on the back. If it says "if you dont pay we send the ticket to debt collectors then it is safe to ignore. If it says pay up or go to magistrates court then come back for advice. I don't think its a real one as they don't normally offer discounts for paying.
The only problem is that having contacted them they will send a few extra threat-o-grams.

abytibbie

Thanks...
It doesn't mention magistrates court but 'collection procedures'. There isn't anything on the back, I know I called it 'paperwork' but it's like a piece of till-roll really.

Although I've got the ticket I bought and which fell down, I'm 99% sure they will say my 'appeal' has failed and that I have to pay for 'failing to display'.

Don't feel I have done anything wrong though.

Looking at the small print in their T&C's it says something about clamping your vehicle if you don't pay - as I am a regular user of the car park in question, I don't want that to happen.

This is a large company that runs the parking system at many a station - does anyone know for sure whether the railway byelaws apply (don't understand this bit but it seems to be relevant in other threads I have looked at).

Not sure why you say 'real ones' don't offer discounts - the councils round my way do and the consensus seems to be that their tickets are genuine.

thanks again

esmerobbo

If its a parking charge it can be ignored, A normal section 15 ticket is £50 reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days!

Clamping for unpaid private parking tickets is illegal!

By threatening to clamp points to the fact its a private ticket.

abytibbie

On another website I found a saga of someone who did not pay Meteor...then eventually got clamped in the same car park because of the 'unpaid charges'. Legal or not, they clamped the car, the poor punter had then to pay to release the car and take Meteor/their agents to court to reclaim the £1000 costs.

Is this what they do, if you refuse to pay?

Will the proposed clamping ban (and timing of any likely action by Meteor vs when the ban comes in) avoid that happening to me?

I'm worried that I have emailed them and given my name (really wish I hadn't) - does this amount to admitting who the driver was and does this strengthen their hand?

I'm wondering if it will make things better/worse for me if I offer them £5 for their 'loss' (cost of a day's parking) rather than the extortionate £50/£90 they are talking about - if they accepted a cheque for such a sum, would that imply they were accepting a settlement?

AlexisV

Meteor are well known. Ignore them.

peter_the_piper

Why offfer them more money when you have obviously paid already. As Alex and others have said/will say ignore. Can you link to this website where you found this £1000.oo fee?

esmerobbo

Link would be good! However you say the person took them to court and got their money back! I would assume they would not try it again for that very reason!

If you have been looking around you must have seen hundreds who have ignored them? Have you found any who have been taken to court?

abytibbie

As a new user I'm not allowed to post links, but if you google
'meteor parking dad overseas £1000'
it's a pepipoo forum, third link on screen when i searched.

Having spent too much of my day searching for information, I am beginning to wonder whether what is legal/illegal is the main issue. I suspect that, whilst these private parking charges are outrageous, and the company might not bother to take me to court - if they are prepared to clamp me at some point in the future(seeing that I regularly park at this station), then on a pragmatic level it might be better to pay something. Or pay up and be done with it.

Would like to hear from someone who has ignored a charge and continued to park regularly at the same station, and not suffered any consequences.

thanks for the responses so far.

Coupon-mad

Can't find that link, and pepipoo forums are crashed for me tonight anyway.

You say you would like to hear from someone who has ignored a charge and continued to park regularly at the same station, and not suffered any consequences. Well I have had a PPC charge over 2 years ago, ignored it of course, laughed at each letter and continue to park in the same car park every week (and overstay deliberately too).

In my case it was in a Supermarket car park but same difference. Meteor are just a PPC with fake PCNs, please don't line their pockets. Ignore them.

AlexisV

All that link says is "Meteor Parking is in charge of handing out permits to drivers to allow them to wait at the station and in August last year announced the number of permits was capped at 110, with a view to decreasing this to 90."?