Euro Car Parks Ticket

Evie12

Hi,
i wondered if you could advise me on what action (if any) i should take. I recently started work in a new town and have a council parking permit, in the office someone told me of a closer car park to the one i had been using so last thursday i parked in the new car park and went to work - i did see a small sign asking if i had paid and displayed but as i was displaying my permit and clock i didn't think any more of it.

On returning to the car i had a parking charge notice. The payment requested is £50 if paid in 14 days or £70 otherwise.
I could kick myself and realise that i should have paid more attention to the owner of the car park but just (wrongly) assumed that my permit covered me to park there.

I have read a number of threads on this formum advising to just ignore the notice to pay but wondered if this was still the case as i hadn't actually paid and displayed (as i thought permit covered rather than because i ignored the need to) rather than being out of ticket time as other posters had been.

Thanks in advance,
Evie

taffy056

Technically you probably owe a few quid for parking, so if it went to court that is all they could claim, plus the costs for taking you there if you lost lets say circa £30 in total. But highly unlikely that they will do that as that is all the judge is likely to give them. What you have is an invoice that is effectively a penalty, it is illegal for a private company to issue them, if it went too court it will probably be thrown out.

Now the chances of this even getting to court is as about as frequent as a Nigerian scammer's millions going into your bank account as cosher , needless to say its minutely possible, would you give your bank account details to them ? Would you give money via western union to get millions from them ? Thought not ! Treat this scam as you would the nigerian ones.

Coupon-mad

Evie just ignore ECP, they never go to Court and wouldn't have a clue about the legalities, as their top banana admitted in a national paper last year!

Like many posters on here, I have personally ignored a fake PCN from ECP and nothing happens except the letters shown in the top thread 'PPC letters & threats' (although I think ECP now use the Graham White/Roxburghe letters shown under another PPC on that thread, not always 'Control Account' these days.). But the debt collectors letters are all much of a muchness and lead absolutely nowhere. Do NOT contact them at all.

It makes no difference at all about the circumstances - whether you omitted to pay & display or whether you parked sideways in a parent and child bay for 48 hours! It's not the most advisable parking - and I am sure you won't do it again - but nor does it attract any lawful 'penalty' that is in any way payable!

Also watch the Watchdog link on the top thread, to make you laugh.

give_them_FA

They have absolutely NO RIGHT to impose a "fine" on you because you made an understandable mistake, and therefore NO RIGHT to try and collect it by legal action.

Another point to remember is that even if they were to try to go to Court (they won't) they would have to prove who parked the car, NOT who owns it. There is NO OBLIGATION upon you to tell them, so DON'T.

Simply ignore everything that is sent to you. Don't contact, don't appeal, don't try to reason with them or excuse yourself... stand firm, and the stream of bullsh*t letters WILL dry up when they realise they are not fooling you and you aren't going to pay them anything. It is a scam, pure and simple.

P.S. my personal score is Give them FA 6, Euro Car Parks 0. And they were lucky to get 0.

Kite2010

Ignore Euro and don't park in that car-park again unless you pay the P&D amount.

give_them_FA

Second that, Kite; it isn't for us to suggest that people evade paying the due payment for parking; merely that they do not get suckered into paying the unlawful and vastly disproportionate sums demanded for the least mistake on their part.

Evie12

Thanks for all your replies, i feel much better now and will just ignore whatever they send to me.
I am normally a very law abiding citizen and wouldn't dream of parking and not paying deliberately but to be charged £70 for an honest mistake was a bit much. I have to say that i was trying to pay on their website today and it wouldn't load the page when i did a googe search and found all the threads about Euro Car parks, which i'm really glad i did or would be £70 lighter now.

thanks again,
Evie

give_them_FA

Glad to have been of service Ma'am. Now what you can do for us is to tell all your friends..... and tell them to tell all their friends... and so on, like a chain letter, so as these scammers will run out of victims and go out of business.

PTR

I have appealed about my £70 PCN (stupid me, as I had not been to the forum before!) I admitted that i parked in the ECP car park although I had a valid ticket for the road outside (council owned) I have been unsuccesful (no suprise there, as they said it was not valid for the ECP car park, i was there 25 minutes waiting to pick my daughter up).
EURO CAR PARKS RESPONSE:
They have CAREFULLY considered what I have stated in my appeal but have decided not to cancel the parking charge notice. This car park is operated by cameras (automated number plate recognition ANPR). An image is taken of your vehicle registration on entry and exit of the car park.

They are stating Contravention D, Failure to adhere to signage.
Shall I just ignore all the letters or, re-state, I didn't see the signage so I had no contract with them, It has cost me 2.50 in recorded delivery letters (more than the 25 mins parking time) or just ignore everything from now on till they go away??

taffy056

As you can see the appeals process they have is designed for you to contact them, thereby giving your name address and tel number and admission that you parked there, so that saved them £2.50 from the DVLA. The thing to do next is basically nothing, just ignore, don't contact them further and don't pay them anything! They will get third party debt collectors and solicitors to contact you, all they do is make outlandish threats a few times in various letters and that is it, they give up because they realise you are not a mug.

If you read the sticky threads and watch all the watchdog videos you will educate yourself on this scam.

give_them_FA

So they refused to cancel your charge? No surprise there, the only template letter their Appeal Department possesses is the one you received, there isn't a "charge is cancelled" one as it's never been needed.

However, the good news is,

YOU CAN CANCEL THE CHARGE YOURSELF!

All you need to do is follow Taffy's advice: DO NOT reply to any of the further letters they will be sending you- you will be threatened with all sorts by a variety of scary (not) people, including, court action, meeting new friends (bailiffs) having your dog kidnapped, and being shot at dawn.

IGNORE all of those and your prize will be- the charge will go down to £0 because they will realise that, despite the fact that you appeared to think their ticket was real as you appealed it, you actually have awakened to the fact that it is an unenforceable FAKE.

I am sure you will miss those nice friendly letters when they stop coming and you have to start buying toilet paper again.