PCN and photo evidence

EliotNess

Greetings all,

A while back my old man gave my pregnant other half and her kids a lift to a retail park, apparently under the surveillance of Parking Eye. It's a free carpark, limited to 3 hours stay. As there a number of stores and the intention was to get the best deals for stuff for the baby, there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing from stores to save as much money as possible. Obviously it takes time and with kids being a nuisance as they tend to, some lunch was bought at one of the shops to keep them happy, before finishing shopping in another store. This took the shopping trip over the 3 hour limit, but with no way of extending the stay like in a Pay and Display park, it is very easy to go over the limit if you're a family or intend to do a fair bit of shopping - which is surely the entire point of retail parks.

Out of the blue a PCN arrives in the post, showing the car being driven in and leaving later. It has the usual pay now for x amount, or pay Y later, or pay Y+Z if you ignore us and cause such stress that extra admin fees need to be added. My old man was going to pay up straight away until I did a search about these kind of charges and ended up here. People seem to think you can ignore these 'charges' and cite all kinds of things. I'd agree, the charges seem a con, especially the way they increase in value for no discernable reason. The only thing is the photo 'evidence' actually shows the driver fairly clearly instead of just the car number plate, so that makes it more difficult to cite the usual 'prove the registered keeper of the car was the driver' thing that seems an easy excuse if you choose to ignore the letters.

I'm now at the point where I wonder if it would be easier to just say to my dad to pay the charge and hope it all goes away, learning the lesson that shopping for more than 3 hours just isn't worth it and never to go to the retail park again! It's a shame really that so many customers there must get parking charges, which if they pay takes money away from the very shops they go there for in the first place! Madness. Should the PCN be paid as lesson learnt, or ignored? Any advice would be appreciated.

Sirdan

Ignore them ..the "not the driver" defence is one of many and often is not an option...nonetheless...these companies know they are on very shaky legal ground even then which is why they 99.999999999% do not do court.

Think about it, the alleged overstay has not cost the landowner or anyone else anything so what actual damages for the alleged breach of contract or trespass are these cowboys going to claim for in court ?

Driver8

I would have thought with your user name you would have figured out it is a total CON. So what they have photo "evidence". They are not cops with warrant badges but just ordinary scumbag citizens with no morals and even less power to "fine" you.

Just totally ignore their idle threats and get on with your life.

Read all other threads regarding Parking Eye scammers.

EliotNess

Good spot on the user name! Sadly I don't have a special badge and powers to take these clowns down! It's a strange world we live in where these companies can exist and collect millions in fines if apparently they have little or no legal right to. It's that tiny percentage of threat that scares law abiding drivers into paying. You'd think in all the years these types of companies have been operating, some kind of legislation would have come in that either validates their methods, or simply bans them outright.

Sirdan

EliotNess wrote: »

Good spot on the user name! Sadly I don't have a special badge and powers to take these clowns down! It's a strange world we live in where these companies can exist and collect millions in fines if apparently they have little or no legal right to. It's that tiny percentage of threat that scares law abiding drivers into paying. You'd think in all the years these types of companies have been operating, some kind of legislation would have come in that either validates their methods, or simply bans them outright.

What they are doing is exploiting a loophole because as it is anyone can invoice anyone for any "service" that they allege to have provided or invoice for a speculative amount of "damages" for breach of an alleged contract and ultimately they can also spend time and money making a claim at the County Court.

Where these wholly unethical companies cross the line is in trying to enforce a penalty regime which they have no legal right to...they do this by dressing up the penalties as either"contractual charges" or "damages".

There is little doubt that if you park for 1 hour in a clearly signed Pay and Display car park without getting a ticket and the charge is £1, then these companies could in all probability sue you for £1 plus reasonable costs and win ...but there's not much profit
in that is there ?

The whole private parking company business model relies on the general law abiding nature of the vast majority who will pay because they believe "it must be legal if they can threaten court otherwise they would be breaking the law by demanding this money".

CONTRACTUAL NOTICE : By reading this post you accept the following terms :
1) On conclusion of reading the reader must PM me in order that they may pay me a reader fee of £100.

2) Failure to comply with 1) may result in issue of court proceedings.


Kerching !!! Counting the money now ...NOT !!!

EliotNess

Sirdan wrote: »

What they are doing is exploiting a loophole because as it is anyone can invoice anyone for any "service" that they allege to have provided or invoice for a speculative amount of "damages" for breach of an alleged contract and ultimately they can also spend time and money making a claim at the County Court.

CONTRACTUAL NOTICE : By reading this post you accept the following terms :
1) On conclusion of reading the reader must PM me in order that they may pay me a reader fee of £100.

2) Failure to comply with 1) may result in issue of court proceedings.


Kerching !!! Counting the money now ...NOT !!!

Cheque is in the post!

pogofish

Photo "evidence" is the bottom of the evidential food chain even in legit parking enforcement. It would only be admitted after all other factors had been considered and most usually only to resolve a minor technical issue.

However, in private enforcement, photo evidence has absolutely no meaning whatsoever, beyond being yet another tool that scammers like Parking Eye use to try and scare their victims into paying.

Ignore, Ignore, Ignore. I think it was four letters before they gave-up on me and I've heard no more of their threats in nearly a year.

HO87

+1

The "photo evidence" as they describe it is simply a by-product of the way in which some parking companies enforce their arbitrary regulations using fairly cheap and cheerful VNPR CCTV systems. The cameras are connected to a small PC at the location with internet access that is polled periodically for data and these systems allow just one man sitting many miles away managing umpteen installations (of usually two cameras) and have the in-built logging do all the timing calculations for him.

Used in this context these systems are extremely profitable and this needs to be kept in mind when considering what the overall intention of them is. They are installed solely to capture number plate data in order to keep the revenue raising machinery churning out tickets. If an image of the driver is also captured then that is simply a bonus but not one that the systemn is actually designed to exploit. Private parking companies want money. They do not want to go to court as they lose money as result - even if they win the case.

Besides, these systems rarely, in my experience, provide images that get anywhere near the quality that would meet the identification standards required in a criminal court. The fact that you believe that the driver in the pictures may be identifiable is almost certainly because you might know the person concerned. Would a stranger be so well placed?

The_Slithy_Tove

EliotNess wrote: »

I'm now at the point where I wonder if it would be easier to just say to my dad to pay the charge and hope it all goes away.

No, no, no!
OK, it won't go away, at least not immediately. Aquaint yourself and your father with the chain of letters that will arrive, but do not feel worried of threatened by them. Eventually they will give up, and you will still have your money if you just keep the faith.

scheming_gypsy

As they sent you a photo of the car to prove who the driver was, send them a photo of the cheque as payment. Then ignore them.

meanmrmustard

Follow this useful advice and DO NOT pay. ParkingEye use scare tactics to try and get you to cough up - ie pay £40 by 22 Nov otherwise the charge will rise to £70+admin blah blah blah.
I also nearly fell for this (anything for a quiet life) I would have paid had I not come on this site. I owe a big thank you to the MSE forum!