Parking Fine - A Puzzling situation

timeismoney_01

Hello.

I find myself in a strange situation....

-I parked my car, to avoid a long story, I didn't purchase a ticket
-I return to my car, 10 mins later, thinking it's my lucky day because there is no ticket to be seen
-I get in my car and someone gets out the car in the next space and says she witnessed a 'dodgy' looking character pull up and take my ticket from my windscreen, she says they were in a Mercedes.

Clearly I can find out whether I was issued a ticket by the Manchester council (it was on street parking) but my question is, why would anyone take my ticket? What could they use it for?

The lady was enthusiastic to tell me these characters looked dodgy in their 'blacked out Mercedes'. Even more stangely I looked up the reg and it's attached to a Toyota Corolla. I know some people are hopeless with cars but I would expect she would recognise the Toyota brand given she was driving one herself.../

Can anyone think of anything I need to worry about regarding this situation?

It just seems rather odd on the face of it...

Thanks
Tom

give_them_FA

This one's got me stumped. I would suggest that you report the matter to the Council to find out if, in fact any ticket was issued (you can leave out the bit about not buying the ticket if you want). Maybe they will have some light to shed on it? At the very least if you did get a PCN you might want the option of paying reduced rate; and technically, if this happened, the guys were breaking the law.

Maybe it was the wrapper they were after for some reason?

timeismoney_01

Yeah, I know it's a strange one.

I suppose my main concern is whether there is anything fraudulant or malicious that could be done with my ticket? I strongly suspect not.

The only reasons I can think of for why it would be taken (in an area where I would be 99.9% sure my car would not be familiar to anyone) is for novelty use, for example, applying the pcn to someone elses vehicle or so on..

Tom

TrickyWicky

It's often done by people who want to be malicious and cost you a lot of money.

If you don't know you have a PCN then your 14 days expires, you loose the opportunity to appeal, the law naturally thinks you're a blatant liar when you say "But I never had a ticket" and you suffer the consequences.

People have cottoned on to this and know if they nick your ticket you'll suffer. Likewise it's not unheard of for CEO's to have tickets they've issued nicked.

There is also another reason for PCN theft - Free parking whereever you like. In some towns CEOs will see a car with a PCN on it and not bother looking at it / leave it. That means if you've got someone elses PCN then you can potentially park anywhere you like for as long as you like. This depends on the town because some will have two or three CEOs per beat and they'll not bother opening up another CEOs ticket to check the date as they could be accused of officially taking back the ticket on behalf of the council. If it's a council like my last employer then they will only have one CEO per beat who will naturally know what they have and haven't PCN'd that day rendering this idea useless.

Parking is a cruel and sick world and thats why I'm glad I'm out of it.

fivegoldstars

TrickyWicky wrote: »

There is also another reason for PCN theft - Free parking whereever you like. In some towns CEOs will see a car with a PCN on it and not bother looking at it / leave it. That means if you've got someone elses PCN then you can potentially park anywhere you like for as long as you like.

waitetom wrote: »

The lady was enthusiastic to tell me these characters looked dodgy in their 'blacked out Mercedes'.

Bingo bongo.

LincolnshireYokel

Lincoln has 2 CEO to cover 15 square miles of city. You have less chance of getting a parking ticket than getting Richard Bransons job.

timeismoney_01

Thanks to everyone that's taken an interest. The main reason why I posted was for peace of mind - to make sure nothing malicious could be done with my ticket.

Anyway. I actually found the answer to this little mystery...

I drove back to the locaton last night and to my surprise about 500 yards down the street (from where I had parked) was a silver S class Mercedes with plates matching the ones I had been given. And guess what!? On the windscreen, a scrumpled up looking ticket. I didn't touch it because I assumed that the less than classy man who had stolen it may be overlooking the car from nearby establishments.. Besides, I had nothing to gain by re-claiming the ticket that was very much likely to be mine..

But there we have it, IMO it seems beyond reasonable doubt to be the case that it was stolen to avoid purchasing a ticket for the final 15-20 minutes of chargeable time!

Curiously the plates on that Mercedes accross various plate checking websites consistantly return a silver Toyota- the plate does not look like a private reg so I doubt its due to a delay in DVLA reg transfer updates... Anyway, there we go. - Potentially a very 'dodgy' man.

Trickywicky - you hit the nail on the head!

A Scooby-Doo mystery solved :rotfl:

muddyl

I'd be letting the local authority know about this, and where the car was parked.
If it's running false plates, it is no doubt being used for other illegal activities.

AlexisV

Report it to the police.

LincolnshireYokel

I would STRONGLY advise you photograph the car and report it to the police, before its involved in bank job or connected to a drug dealer and gets a marker!!

timeismoney_01

I took a photo of the vehicle with it's plates visible.

I would however be slightly concerned about consequences of reporting it given that person has, through the theft of my PCN, details of my vehicle... Especially given this is an area I frequent.

Hmmm, any suggestions?