Does New Law (May 2012) Make Registered Keeper Liable to Parking Charges?

Coupon-mad

t.j wrote: »

on easter sunday we attempted to pay for car park at this site and it took our money but did not issue a receipt so assuming that it did not read the registration correctly dumbly got someone to drive the vehicle out and drive in again still did not accept even though took another 2.00.

appeale to parking eye and just keep sending threatening reminders so appealed to the car park owners one month went by and heard nothing then to my horror just received 2 letters from debt collector plus stating will issue court summonds if not paid amount the amount is now140.00 even though original was 60.00 owners finally got back to me to say could pay 60.00 not the 140.00 we did nothing wrong length overall apparently was 47 minutes car park eye state that nothing was wrong with the machines

help please as i do not know what to do the vehicle is registered to my son and he cannot risk a ccj against him!!!

'To your horror' you got the usual letters? You are new to all this then?!

You are just getting standard template letters - same as we all get when we get another one of these fake PCNs - they really are very easy to ignore. Some people here collect loads of these for fun!

All the letters can be seen as picture previews, in an info 'sticky' thread near the top of the parking forum. You could have been expecting their letters by now and it would have saved you a lot of worry to see it's the same as one of our example letter pictures.

There will be no legal action. There will be no Court. There will be no bailiff, no CCJ and no effect on your son's credit rating. NOTHING AT ALL.

Did you not read any other threads or the info on the forum, surely not only this old rambling thread? We have so much info on here to help you understand and be ready for the letters.

See my signature for the words to click on, in order to take a step back and see the whole current thread list (did you think this old thread was the only one about the fake PCN scam? Oh no it isn't!!).

One click & you see all current threads here, most of which are about the 'fake PCN' scam. Third from the top, click on 'PPC letters & threats'.

1. Watch the Watchdog clip on there, and then

2. scroll down to the pics of Parking Eye's threatograms, then

3. Play a nice game of snap with each matching templated threatogram, then

4. Tell your friends & family about the fake PCN scam so they never pay one. Make sure your son knows this is just a con including the scary letters!



HTH

LincolnshireYokel

ManxRed wrote: »

rather than any advice from the anarchists on here.

lol @ somone called 'ManxRed' calling others 'anarchists

ManxRed

I was including myself!!

(the Red refers to a certain bunch of wasters who like to pretend they are a Premier League football team).

mikey72

ManxRed wrote: »

...........Or are you saying that people park there WITHOUT paying and displaying, in the knowledge that the tickets are unenforceable? This is slightly different. Legally the 'transgressors' would owe the car park owner the pay and display fees, which would represent their losses in parking fees, and I certainly would never advocate dodging or ignoring those. If the car park owner pursued those drivers for the P&D fee losses then I would support and agree with that action. However, they invariably don't, they choose to pursue the drivers for legally unenforceable charges which they randomly make up (they are certainly not based on any actual losses suffered..............

An interesting view point. It's always been accepted that there is a cost to writing letters, the cost of having the business to support, and all the ancilliary charges that go with it. Take insurers, normal charge is about £50 if you attempt to ammend anything. Credit card and bank charges, usually a minimum of £10 for even writing to you, normally more. So, when the law comes in, and there is a legal contact point with ownership of the outstanding charge established, what's to stop asking for the fair charge of a pound or two, the fair cost associated with having to collect it, then the fair cost of the solicitors letter. (Provided the company do own the land) Do you think we'll see a lot of court cases coming up soon?

ManxRed

There has already been cases (although not binding as were in County Court) where PPCs have argued that normal operating costs were contributory to the charges, however these were dismissed by the judge. The only costs you can add on are those directly relating to pursuit of the ticket (so, a couple of stamps and a few envelopes basically). Legal costs would not be recoverable in a Small Claims track at the County Court - small claims being aimed at a DIY approach to settling civil disputes.

So, realistically, the additional costs of chasing a PPC ticket would be the £2.50 to the DVLA, and a couple of quid for stamps and stationery.

Still nowhere near £60.

You then have the issue of how a PPC would justify that their costs mysteriously change from one thing to another in between days 14 and 15. Clearly this would indicate that their charges are not in fact related to their costs at all, but are simply mimicking council tickets, and are an attempt to persuade the recipient to pay up in order to mitigate their losses. In other words, they are punitive.

Personally, I do not think the new Freedoms Bill will provide sufficient grounds to cover the two main hurdles that PPCs face, namely that they need sufficient proprietary interest in the land in order to be able to form a contract with the driver (or RK, if the Freedoms Bill is applied), and that their charges are punitive (penalties) and do not represent actual losses suffered.

mikey72

Interesting times to come then, as the banks won against pretty much the same arguement, and the FOS support insurers costs for the same reason. Maybe they'll drop the early payment option, and take it up a notch.

ManxRed

Well, the early payment option is a bit of a giveaway, but regardless of what they charged, they do need to be able to demonstrate that it is based on costs, otherwise it does fall foul of contract law.

There was a thread a few weeks back (can't remember if it was here or PepiPoo, I think it was Pepipoo) where someone got a PPC ticket for £10 or something, and they were advised to pay it, as it was the first time we'd seen something that actually didn't look like it was designed to generate revenue, and was probably a reasonable attempt to simply recover costs.

I've only seen this once though!! That's probably something like 0.00000001% of PPC tickets!!

esmerobbo

The main difference between Bank and insurance charges is that we have accounts or contracts with them! When we sign up we agree to their charges.
With regard to the banks the OFT decided the charges were too much even though they were agreed.

The difference with a PPC charge is nobody ever agree's to their terms and conditions mostly because the way they are offered.

Try downloading summit off Microsoft without ticking the I agree to the terms and conditions box.

mikey72

esmerobbo wrote: »

The main difference between Bank and insurance charges is that we have accounts or contracts with them! When we sign up we agree to their charges.
With regard to the banks the OFT decided the charges were too much even though they were agreed.

The difference with a PPC charge is nobody ever agree's to their terms and conditions mostly because the way they are offered.

Try downloading summit off Microsoft without ticking the I agree to the terms and conditions box.

Things change. You always had to sign on the dotted line. Nowadays a simple click is enough. I don't think anyone on here disputes that a fair charge is due, so what if the t&c's reflect that? Laws change as well, as this one is a case in point.

ManxRed

Although the change in law in this case is only with respect to liability, not to the legitimacy (or otherwise) of the charges themselves.

Even then, it throws up anomalies with respect to laws relating to privity, so its not what you could describe as a well thought out piece of legislation. It will certainly muddy the waters a bit, but certainly not where it comes to the charges themselves, as I say, only where the liability lies.