Parking "Charge" from TPS

w211

To put your mind at rest, here's what I got from CP Plus for overstaying at a motorway services.

Letter 1 - Charge Notice - £80.00, reduced to £50.00 it received within 14 days.
Letter 2 - Charge Notice Reminder Do Not Ignore - £80.00, an additional administration charge will be incurred if payment it not received within 14 days.
Letter 3 - Legal Action Pending Do Not Ignore - £120.00 required within 7 days, to avoid this being passed to our legal department for further action and possible further charges. Your ability to obtain credit in the future may be affected if we have to take this matter to our solicitors for futher action.

Letter 3 was sent almost two months ago, and I've yet to hear from their pending legal action from their legal department...

js843242

Thanks everyone, this has put my mind a bit more at ease

Kite2010

You owe them nothing, just keep ignoring.

The Oldham case was a set-up from Perky.

give_them_FA

turniphead wrote: »

these people are merciless. do some quick thinking in real time and decide what you want to do. personally i think you are lumbered with the £110 fine. sorry.

Which PPC do you work for, turniphead. This is absolutely disgraceful "advice" and I am glad to see the OP has discounted it. He is "lumbered" with the requirement to receive a bit of toilet paper before eventually having to pay..... nothing.

taffy056

give_them_FA wrote: »

Which PPC do you work for, turniphead. This is absolutely disgraceful "advice" and I am glad to see the OP has discounted it. He is "lumbered" with the requirement to receive a bit of toilet paper before eventually having to pay..... nothing.

Probably none of them, just misinformed on the subject, hopefully not for much longer.

give_them_FA

Perhaps you are right, I have read his other posts on other forums, it seems like he doesn't have much of a clue on this sort of issue. Sorry newbie, but you do need to read more before you post giving advice.

dazakkas

I looked into this a couple of years ago, when I got a ticket from a private company. If you read the notices in the car park, you are "in breach of contract" if you fail to park properly or overstay the limit. When you are in breach of contract, the company can merely sue you for their losses. I worked out it took the warden 5 minutes max to issue the ticket, at £12 an hour the cost of employing him. this made it £1 for the time he spent dealing with me. I offered the company £5 out of the goodness of my heart but they refused it. If they sued they would have to state to the court they refused this ammount, and the court would have ruled in my favour as they had been offered the compense for the breach. Simples.

give_them_FA

That's more like advice from a sensible newbie! Though I would never offer them anything as it amounts to an admission as to who the driver was.... without which information they cannot sue anyway.

All these companies could prevent breaches of their imagined "contracts" by erecting barriers so you needed a ticket (paid or free) to go out. They don't because that would mean they would not be able to try to impose their ridiculous, unenforceable, unlawful penalty charges.

Garyb4000

Well thankyou all for that!
I went to morrisons in Newark on 11th Feb (under store parking), saw a gap between 2 concrete pillars marked as 2 bays, no way was there enough space for 2 cars (maybe smart cars) so I advised my wife to park overhanging the next bay. When we returned, a PCN from euro car parks was on the windscreen for £40 rising to £60 if not paid before 3rd of march.
I was going to bite the bullet and pay - however now see the marking of these bays as possibly a deliberate ploy in order to relieve more innocent shoppers of the hard earned money.

dazakkas

Just dont pay up, they have to prove who the driver was first and foremost. But being Morrisons they prob have you on camera. Ignore all correspondence from them unless its a court summons. Then if you have to go to court you can offer them the amount they were out of pocket, ie a fiver being generous. But they are very highly unlikely to take it to court anyway. And lastly, you will need photographic evidence of your car parked, and you can argue that the space was unreasonable for an average car. Minimum recognised width for a car park bay is 2.4m wide and 4.8m long.