Parking eye fine

svs3112

Hi, my son received a "fine" from PARKING EYE today for £80 - £50 if paid by 18th October - for Parking in a outdoor retail park car park. Apparently it allows 3hrs parking, he had 3hrs 42mins. There are 2 photos on the letter, one of the car entering the car park in which my sons face is clearly visible and one of him leaving the car park. He, his wife and son spent some time at most of the different stores in the retail park then went across the road to a pizza restaurant for their supper, which doesn't have it's own car park but as it is part of a large complex, including cinema and many other restaurants, there is another car park designated for patrons to all facilities in the complex. Rather than move the car across the road, he stayed in the car park he originally parked in. Long winded I know, sorry, but what are his rights as far as this ticket/letter from PARKING EYE goes? Does he have to pay. What makes it worse is, my son is a new driver, only been driving four weeks and he felt it would be easier staying where he was, rather than trying to park in another busy car park........HELP PLEASE!!!

EHBA

Your son, his family and yourself have absolutely nothing to worry about. It is a request for money, an unenforceable invoice, it is not a fine.

Parking Eye issue a million of these a year, about 60% of people who are easily 'frightened' or do not seek internet advice pay up. The rest keep their hard earned cash and nothing at all will happen if your son completely ignores this letter and the next two that turn up. Do not appeal, do not contact Parking Eye.

After three letters they will almost certainly give up. That is exactly what they did with me after an 11 minute 'overstay' in a supermarket car park.

Whether your son has been driving for four weeks or forty years it makes no difference, what he and his family did at the complex makes no difference.

For the three letters he will get there are five words of advice - ignore, ignore, ignore, stop worrying.

Coupon-mad

svs3112 wrote: »

Hi, my son received a "fine" from PARKING EYE today for £80 - £50 if paid by 18th October - for Parking in a outdoor retail park car park. Apparently it allows 3hrs parking, he had 3hrs 42mins. There are 2 photos on the letter, one of the car entering the car park in which my sons face is clearly visible and one of him leaving the car park. He, his wife and son spent some time at most of the different stores in the retail park then went across the road to a pizza restaurant for their supper, which doesn't have it's own car park but as it is part of a large complex, including cinema and many other restaurants, there is another car park designated for patrons to all facilities in the complex. Rather than move the car across the road, he stayed in the car park he originally parked in. Long winded I know, sorry, but what are his rights as far as this ticket/letter from PARKING EYE goes? Does he have to pay. What makes it worse is, my son is a new driver, only been driving four weeks and he felt it would be easier staying where he was, rather than trying to park in another busy car park........HELP PLEASE!!!

It's a well-known mail scam. Ignore the fake PCN and the debt collector letters that will be sent to the registered keeper of the car.

Only ever take seriously a parking ticket from a Council or Police.

Now do some reading on the forum, look first at the sticky threads at the top of the forum by Crabman:

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

Look at 'PPC letters, what to expect' which is self explanatory. And look at 'welcome, please read before posting' which has a useful youtube link to a Watchdog solicitor. Watching that will put your son's mind at rest.

Do not even think about paying, appealing or worrying about this matter at all. SCAM. :mad:

Kite2010

Ignore Parking Eye and ignore the Retail Park whom penalises customers

svs3112

Thank you to each of you who have replied to my letter so far offering advice.
It is worrying that this sort of thing goes on, I hate to think about how many people actually pay up before asking for advice!

I've read that some people have had letters threatening them with the 'heavy mob' or court action, is this something that could happen??

Coupon-mad

You just need to read some threads on the forum as I said. It's only debt collector letters, just pen-pushers, not bailiffs:

Coupon-mad wrote: »

It's a well-known mail scam. Ignore the fake PCN and the debt collector letters that will be sent to the registered keeper of the car.

Only ever take seriously a parking ticket from a Council or Police.

Now do some reading on the forum, look first at the sticky threads at the top of the forum by Crabman:

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

Look at 'PPC letters, what to expect' which is self explanatory. And look at 'welcome, please read before posting' which has a useful youtube link to a Watchdog solicitor. Watching that will put your son's mind at rest.

Do not even think about paying, appealing or worrying about this matter at all. SCAM. :mad:

EHBA

svs3112 wrote: »

It is worrying that this sort of thing goes on, I hate to think about how many people actually pay up before asking for advice!

In Parking Eye's case maybe 60% of 1,000,000 pay up every year which means 40% i.e 400,000 DON'T.

Make sure your son is one of the 40%. Nothing will happen to him in exactly the same way that nothing happens to the 400,000. In a couple of months time he will be glad he accepted the advice of people on this forum.

Have you read anything on an internet forum about 2,000 people per working day being taken to court by Parking Eye ? You will not find one person per working year being taken to court by Parking Eye.

Let's get realistic, why should a private company from Chorley , hiding behind a PO Box address, have any legal right to £60 of your son's money for 42 minutes worth of parking in a free car park, which they don't even own ?

trisontana

This is the sort of despicable behavior typical of Parking Eye when a motorist makes a genuine mistake - (from CAG) :-

Hi, I'm new to this. My mum received a Parking Charge Notice from Parking Eye for having parked in a pay and display car park for 1 hour and 32 minutes, with "time allowed" showing as 0 minutes. This was odd as she had paid for and displayed a one hour ticket, purchased about five minutes after arriving. She returned to the car before the 1 hour ticket expired, with me returning shortly afterwards. I however needed to go to the toilet fairly desperately, and as there was one on site, I went there while she remained in the car. The trip to the toilet ended up taking longer than anticipated, but as my mum didn't know that I was going to take some time and remained seated in the car at all times, she didn't purchase an additional pay and display ticket.

We received this letter stating that we hadn't paid for any time, and only because my mum had fortunately kept the original ticket were we able to prove to them that we had in fact paid for one hour. In that same letter to them we also described why there had been this unexpected stay beyond the validity of the ticket, and that my mum had stayed in the car at all times awaiting departure. This of course led to no change in their position, apart from them correcting their own mistake about "time allowed" from 0 minutes to 1 hour. She then phoned them and after a while got through to talk to someone. This person apparently shouted at my mum when she tried to discuss the case with her.

My mum is an incredibly decent person and this has distressed her no end. She is the kind of person who worries if she's momentarily exceeded the 20 mph speed limit on say a downhill stretch of road, who would never consider not leaving her details when she recently rolled into another parked and unoccupied car at 2mph, and she ALWAYS pays for her parking. However, as I said, this case was unusual and we ended up staying longer than we had paid for, for the reasons described, and now she is getting threatening letters which have led her to cry a lot and feel that she should just pay the charge to end the stress that she's felt, even though she feels that she shouldn't necessarily have to do so.



So PPCs and the BPA, you reckon that your activities are to "prevent trespass and unauthorized parking on private land"? As you can see from the above case, it's nothing of the sort. PPCs are there solely to con motorists into paying up when they have paid to park and then have made a simple mistake.