G4s 'contractual parking charge notice'

fairycakequeen83

I have had a contractual parking charge notice come through and they want to charge me £70 for overstaying the maximum time by 16 mins!

they have anpr cameras and have provided photos.

can I refuse to pay this?
I dont know who drove the car on this day ( there are 3 of us who share the car and we cant remember who would have driven it this day ) and I think that £70 is a massive rip off.

Can I simply ignore this? What may be the repercussions?

It does say I can dispute it, but under what grounds - will 'i dont know who was driving' be enough? surely they cant charge the registered keeper unless they KNOW it was them who entered into the 'contractual parking agreement'?

Stephen_Leak

The repercussions could be serious. You could be £70, maybe more, better off.

Please read this ...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=16850789#post16850789

Now, 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, 1SE02759, the Peel Centre case.

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. Asking for 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.

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 should write to them, offering this in “full and final settlement”. Also advise them that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions have been judged to constitute 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 sometimes 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.

peter_the_piper

Can I simply ignore this? YES

What may be the repercussions? Lots of little bits of paper which have no lawful authority whatsoever.

pogofish

fairycakequeen83 wrote: »

they have anpr cameras and have provided photos.

can I refuse to pay this?

This has absolutely no meaning in the context of private parking.

You can but your best option is to ignore altogether - the less contact you have now, the sooner they will go away.

Edit - sorry, should have read the title better! If you look in the forum sticky, you may find the entire scam chain laid out for you.

Lone_Ranger_2

Also take some time to read some of the other posts, you will soon see that yes it's a massive rip off :mad: and the more people that know the better. Follow the advise then spread the word, tell the other drivers to look on here then they can tell everyone else they know about it.

give_them_FA

Communicating with them is the worst thing you can do at this time. It will encourage them to bully you because you will be sending them the message that you thought there was some validity to their fake charge.

From that they will think, that as you think that, it should be a doddle getting you to pay it by rejecting your representations.

It is a total fake so treat it with commensurate disdain. Completely ignore everything they send. When they realise they are not fooling you they will go away.

Now tell all your family and friends- never ever pay a private parking charge!

SodG24

Oh Oh Oh - one for me

Look at my user name and guess what my advice might be ?

G24 are one of the biggest scammers around. They don't even adhere to the contracts THEY sign up to so why should you stick to the ones you "supposedly" agreed with them ?

fairycakequeen83

im still getting increasingly desperate letters from them - they have now started to REDUCE the amount they want me to pay!

taffy056

fairycakequeen83 wrote: »

im still getting increasingly desperate letters from them - they have now started to REDUCE the amount they want me to pay!

You've said it yourself , desperate to get anything from you , continue to ignore.

Mindless_Clone

fairycakequeen83 wrote: »

im still getting increasingly desperate letters from them - they have now started to REDUCE the amount they want me to pay!

:rotfl:

What does that tell you OP? They're close to breaking and will soon give up!