PPS parking charge

give_them_FA

vax2002 wrote: »

I disagree, having changed my mind on sending part payments, if someone sends you a bill for £75 and you pay a £1 they have a much stronger case on getting the other £74 as you have part admitted fault and liability to the contract as well as driving, why else would you pay ?
The Smith case was a error in law and would have been overturned in appeal as the judge should not have granted for which they never asked.

Disagree on this one vax. When you send the sum correctly due- the parking fee- you don't say it is on account, you state that it is in full and final settlement of all liability. It cannot be an invitation for a claim or an admission that you owe anything else.

I am not sure that the Smith case was incorrectly decided. One would have to see the pleading. If they claimed it under contract as a "parking charge" then I cannot see any reason why the Judge couldn't award what he thought they were actually entitled to whilst disallowing the part he considered to constitute a penalty.

Such claims are not all-or-nothing. A judge can always award part of a claim.

Alexis27 who ran that case, said the lesson to be learned was to pay admitted amounts soon, rather than after proceedings were issued. And I believe that is a valid lesson to learn.

I think this is a policy that will certainly be needed to fight against keeper liability.

ooops

UPDATE

I have now received a letter in reply to my £1 offer of a 5 minute overstay at the car park.

The letter is now addressed as CCSCollect Debt Collectors. Just a standard letter that they have received instruction from their client's to continue collection activity to recover the full amount you owe (£127.50). There is a giro slip attached for me to make the payment.

I guess I now ignore them until they take me to court, seeing as they have not accepted my £1 offer.

vax2002

I disagree, if you have been issued with an invoice, making any payment towards and it becomes a legal bill.
They only have to sue for the rest of the bill now.

The Smithy case was a serious error in Law and Alex 27 should have had an appeal in quick sharp:
Basis for appeal, The Plaintiffs were awarded sums for which they had never billed, never ask or attempted to collect.
The Initial judge made a serious error in Law by awarding them for which they had never asked.

give_them_FA

ooops wrote: »

UPDATE

I have now received a letter in reply to my £1 offer of a 5 minute overstay at the car park.

The letter is now addressed as CCSCollect Debt Collectors. Just a standard letter that they have received instruction from their client's to continue collection activity to recover the full amount you owe (£127.50). There is a giro slip attached for me to make the payment.

I guess I now ignore them until they take me to court, seeing as they have not accepted my £1 offer.

You don't owe them anything. Use the giro slip to light the fire with.

They are pretentious prats. Most people die of old age before any court papers arrive even if they are only 21 now.

ooops

Thank you for your replies and support. I guess its a waiting game now. It amazes me that this private parking business can be legitimate. I will not park in that car park again, and I'm advising everyone I know not to also. I've spoken to quite a few people about this car park, and quite a lot of them have also received parking charges from them. They say that the 'traffic warden' lady who charged them, was quite rude and would not negotiate at all, just as she was with me!

give_them_FA

At least you (and hopefully others) now know it is nothing but a con and that NO WAY should anyone part with any money. If only the authorities would do something about these crooks; but until they get up off their asses, the way to put them out of business is to make sure that people know they have no need to pay.

happysnapper1970

Hi please help, I parked my car without putting a ticket on it, when I realised I should have got one approx 5/6 mins later I returned with the FREE ticket to find that I had already been ticketed by PPS. I had returned to the car 3 mins after the ticket was issued and went in search of the enforcers (they had disappeared).
Having read this forum please can you inform me whether I should pay or just ignore them as just a little worried.
Thanks happysnapper

Stephen_Leak

happysnapper1970 wrote: »

Hi please help, I parked my car without putting a ticket on it, when I realised I should have got one approx 5/6 mins later I returned with the FREE ticket to find that I had already been ticketed by PPS. I had returned to the car 3 mins after the ticket was issued and went in search of the enforcers (they had disappeared).
Having read this forum please can you inform me whether I should pay or just ignore them as just a little worried.
Thanks happysnapper

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private parking company (PPC) or an individual can't. Even PPCs call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a driver in damages for any breach of contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If this is a free car park or they paid, this is £0.00. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

There are also now two recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In both cases, the judges found that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you do owe the CPO anything, then you ought to write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”.

In any event, you ought to advise the CPO that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. That ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with them.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with chasing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe who was driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA. With postal notices, they’ve done this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and told them who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of harassing the registered keeper, they can now harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

The PPC, then a debt collector and then a solicitor will send you a series of letters. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These letters will threaten you with every kind of financial and legal unpleasantness imaginable, to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a Nigerian e-mail scammer couldn't sue anyone who didn’t pay them.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. It does seem counter-intuitive to deal with something by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats, and stop throwing good money after bad.

Coupon-mad

happysnapper1970 wrote: »

Hi please help, I parked my car without putting a ticket on it, when I realised I should have got one approx 5/6 mins later I returned with the FREE ticket to find that I had already been ticketed by PPS. I had returned to the car 3 mins after the ticket was issued and went in search of the enforcers (they had disappeared).
Having read this forum please can you inform me whether I should pay or just ignore them as just a little worried.
Thanks happysnapper

The enforcers! LOL!!! :rotfl:

Stop worrying and ignore the whole scam including letters from debt collectors, as long as you are the registered keeper. It's easy.

It's only a matter of ignoring some junk mail. There is no court, no CCJ, no effect on your credit rating, NOTHING except letters (and sometimes the odd phone call that can be stopped easily).

The registered keeper will get the well-known template letters, that's all, so make sure your household knows there is NOTHING in it in spite of the debt collector and 'solicitor' letter headings and threats of court. It's all hot air and an impersonation of authority, much like a phishing email scam it relies on victims who are too uninformed or stupid to realise what it is.

Tick off the threatening letters Here.

Watchdog clip with expert Solicitor's opinion here.

Barrister's opinion here.

Show your family and friends. Spread the word like we do. Only take seriously a real ticket from the Police, TFL, Council or (rarely) a real penalty from a Train Operator.

Anything else is destined for 'shredding for hamster-bedding'.

HTH