Parking eye 'charge'

big_malc

Hi guys

I've been browsing this forum on and off since we got a 'charge' from Parking Eye back in January. Our car was parked in a Farm Foods car park which is a free car park at all times, limited to 2 hours. Our car was parked there after the store was shut - there is no barrier, it is still useable 24 hours a day.

We have had the first 3 letters with the increasing demands and ignored these as per previous advice. Today we have received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd who say they have been instructed to recover the money on PE's behalf.

Ordinarily I would just ignore this too and not bother you guys, but having read the sticky at the top of the page, the letter in that thread is from a different debt recovery agency. Added to that the thread re Smithy1212 having been taken to court I guess I have just got a little jittery and hope that you can reassure me that ignoring them is still the right way to go?

Should I make an outrageous offer to pay them 10 times their loss incurred (obviously 10 x 0 = 0 )

Thanks in advance

taffy056

Don't contact or appeal this, they will not take you to court , parking eye have been spanked in court when they go there, the chances of them taking you there are about the same as 6 numbers in the lottery tonight. Just ignore both these so called companies are well known on here and are just useless scammers.

big_malc

I hear what you're saying - the only niggle I have is that Smithy got stung for the costs because he didn't make the offer to pay what he should have (the two lots of £5 that his car park charged) before it got to court. If I offer £0 now, surely I can't be stung for the costs?

vax2002

by making any offer you admit to entering in to the contract.
Just do NOTHING.

big_malc

vax2002 wrote: »

by making any offer you admit to entering in to the contract.
Just do NOTHING.

...which is interesting as we made an effort to check the signs to see if there was any signage that told us about T&C's outside the stores opening hours. We found the signs - they're approximately 10 feet up a pole - but we couldn't see any reference to out of hours useage. I went back and took a photo of them, and once you use x7 zoom you can just about make out the writing that you are still limited to 2 hours 'out of hours'.

Had we been able to see them, our car would have been moved elsewhere before the 2 hours were up.

HO87

What would be the point of offering any amount because as this was a free car park their losses are precisely zero? The only reason for the two hour limit is to enable them to set a tripwire and make their demands for money.

Just think back. When you entered that car park you thought it was free. There were no P&D machines, no one at the gate, no tariff board, no barriers and although you've now discovered signs, did you see them at the time? No. Precisely. If you did not see the signs at the time and in any event the print could not have been read then you entered into no contract and there cannot then have been a breach of it. That means that you may safely ignore the demand and decline their invitation.

Remember. What you initially received, the first demand from PE, was described as an invoice. And that is exactly what it is although in strictly legal terms it would be better described as an "invitation to settle" the breach of contract PE will allege you committed when you failed to abide by the details contained on the signs. The fact that you did not see the signs is not your fault. What you need to keep in mind is that PE and the rest of their fellow travellers make the greatest part of their profits from the money they receive in reply to the demands like that you received. Plain and simple. They make their money by alleging breaches of contract. They are rarely put to proof in court because they so rarely go there. One must ask why they do not do so if, as they continually state, they are being wronged. If their cases were so cast iron why do they not do court?

One might also ask why the signs were not that visible to you? Could it be that private parking companies have a vested interest in motorists parking in breach of their terms and conditions? Their profits certainly seem to support that argument.

So firm in their beliefs were PE when they took smithy to court that they attempted to sting him for over £4,000 in costs. Fortunately, the judge saw straight through that just as judges all too often see through the claims of those few private parking companies' cases that actually get to court and are defended.

Based on the number of so-called tickets that PPC's issue each year the number of cases that they actually take to court is an extremely small percentage - in fact a fraction of a percent.

Just hope that helps you keep your feet on the ground.

taffy056

We are going on a proven strategy that works, there are tens of thousands of posts here that prove this works, we have thousands of people as success stories. You are concentrating on one time they went to court, do you realise these people have issued probably a million invoices over the years and gone to court maybe 10 times in total ? You do the maths on that. It's your decision at the end of the day, but what is the point of asking advice if you are not going to follow it ?

big_malc

taffy056 wrote: »

We are going on a proven strategy that works, there are tens of thousands of posts here that prove this works, we have thousands of people as success stories. You are concentrating on one time they went to court, do you realise these people have issued probably a million invoices over the years and gone to court maybe 10 times in total ? You do the maths on that. It's your decision at the end of the day, but what is the point of asking advice if you are not going to follow it ?

Steady on mate, I've not said I'm not going to follow the advice - I've followed it to the letter so far. I'm just giving background into my my situation in conjunction with what I thought was a new development (Smithy's court case).

I've no intention of giving them any money, and until there is a groundswell of opinion that says I should make an offer then I won't do so - but you must see where I am coming from with regards to Smithy's costs? Perhaps I am mis-reading it and I am not yet at the point where the judge said he should have made his offer, but it is certainly something that should be borne in mind, no?

For now, this new letter will be going with the previous ones and I won't be making contact.

Coupon-mad

Smithy case is not only as rare as hen's teeth but it's also fairly old in the scheme of things, seeing as PE issue new fake PCNs in their hundreds every day.

Just stand firm and keep on ignoring - it makes sense. I have done it, albeit with a different PPC and nothing happens, honestly. Threatograms are the modus operandi of a PPC.

HO87

The development - in terms of smithy's case is actually nothing of the sort - although I appreciate that this is all very new to you.

In many respects it's an old strategy revisited. In years gone by one of the advised strategies was to write to a PPC on receipt of their demand offering them either a sum that represented the unpaid for element of the time parked or a realistic estimate of their losses as opposed to their fixed sum approach. There is considerable legal merit in doing so but it had the undesired effect of flagging up cases at a very early stage indicating that they were ripe for proceedings and that is exactly what tended to happen. As a consequence the strategy changed to that of silence - ignoring all of the various threats and blandishments rather than sticking your head over the parapet.

By making an offer inevitably your case is going to attract attention whereas by simply keeping your head down you are far more likely to be part of the bulk of cases that, after a while, simply get filed in the "Too difficult" basket.

big_malc

HO87 wrote: »

The development - in terms of smithy's case is actually nothing of the sort - although I appreciate that this is all very new to you.

In many respects it's an old strategy revisited. In years gone by one of the advised strategies was to write to a PPC on receipt of their demand offering them either a sum that represented the unpaid for element of the time parked or a realistic estimate of their losses as opposed to their fixed sum approach. There is considerable legal merit in doing so but it had the undesired effect of flagging up cases at a very early stage indicating that they were ripe for proceedings and that is exactly what tended to happen. As a consequence the strategy changed to that of silence - ignoring all of the various threats and blandishments rather than sticking your head over the parapet.

By making an offer inevitably your case is going to attract attention whereas by simply keeping your head down you are far more likely to be part of the bulk of cases that, after a while, simply get filed in the "Too difficult" basket.

Fair enough mate, I see the logic in that