ParkingEye Charge, where do I stand?

Beav

Hi there, first post here and need some advice.

Had a quick look around and noticed the general theme of dealing with ParkingEye is to simply not deal with them, ignoring any letters or threats.

Last week I visited a bar I've never parked at before. Thought it was free parking so I parked up. Went out about half an hour later and noticed a sign that it was a pay and display car park.

I quickly paid up for 3 hours and stuck my ticket up. Today I get a letter through from ParkingEye saying I owe them £90 for the pleasure of being there.

They have pics of me coming in and leaving the car park, along with times and how long I was there for.

Unfortunately I don't have the parking ticket anymore so can't prove I paid. Where do I stand on this, am I in any position to ignore these letters or do I have to admit my mistake and pay the fine?

Thanks for any advice and help.

ManxRed

Its not actually a fine. Private parking companies do not have the power to 'fine' people, that's something only the courts can do. Penalties, related to parking, and backed by legislation, can only be issued by Councils, The Police, and Transport For London. What you have is technically a speculative invoice forming an 'invite to settle'. Its legally unenforceable without proving in court that the debt is real. Until such time the debt is 'alleged'.

Given that they have suffered no financial loss whatsoever as a result of you parking there, they are not legally entitled to pursue the driver for anything.

In fact they probably don't even know who the driver is, and you are under no legal obligation to tell them.

Also, they must hold a proprietary interest in the land (effectively they must be the landowner) to pursue ANYONE for ANYTHING.

Our advice is to ignore these letters, and all the scary letters that they will follow it up with. Eventually they will go away.

LincolnshireYokel

Where do you stand? Exactly where you stood before you drove into the car park, you didnt owe them a penny then and you still dont owe them a penny.

Ignore all the scary looking but toothless threatograms they send you in the next few weeks, its all unenforceable rubbish

esmerobbo

If its a P&D and they use ANPR then I assume you enter your Reg number into the machine?

If so they know you paid, but paid late, you owe them nothing. Ignore them and their following letters.

bondy_lad

its a scam,fake ticket, you hace a PARKING charge notice=loo paper/not legit,,only a PENALTY charge notice, which is issued by police/traffic warden is legit and must be paid,, parking spy/lie are well known on here, so IGNORE any threat o grams from them or others on their behalf(all part of the scam),, no matter what they threaten, simply ignore, do not contact,, so chill relax, feet up, jobs a real good un innit.

Beav

esmerobbo wrote: »

If its a P&D and they use ANPR then I assume you enter your Reg number into the machine?

If so they know you paid, but paid late, you owe them nothing. Ignore them and their following letters.

Yeah, i put in my reg number and paid for three hours, so they must know that I paid. I probably parked there about 20 minutes - half an hour before paying.

Thanks everyone, so theres no chance of this being acted upon further? I had a look at one of the stickied threads and the "Parking Charge Notice" letter i got was exactly the same as the one on there, so im expecting the following 5 or so letters to come through in the next month or so.

vax2002

Yes they will act on it further, with more impersonations of authority, if you ignore the impersonation of a parking ticket, they will use a company who impersonate debt collectors and use a impersonation of a solicitor to write to you with free legal advice and made up laws that dont apply to such things and make court threats, then if they can find a phone number they will get a spotty kid on a new apprenticeship to call you demanding money and issuing threats.
A small sentence of vulgar abuse stops that one.

Then they give up.
It is known as "the impersonation of authority scam"

Beav

vax2002 wrote: »

Yes they will act on it further, with more impersonations of authority, if you ignore the impersonation of a parking ticket, they will use a company who impersonate debt collectors and use a impersonation of a solicitor to write to you with free legal advice and made up laws that dont apply to such things and make court threats, then if they can find a phone number they will get a spotty kid on a new apprenticeship to call you demanding money and issuing threats.
A small sentence of vulgar abuse stops that one.

Then they give up.
It is known as "the impersonation of authority scam"

Cheers mate, I'll just ignore all their threats. I take it no one has actually ever been taken to court by these scammers?

LincolnshireYokel

Beav wrote: »

Cheers mate, I'll just ignore all their threats. I take it no one has actually ever been taken to court by these scammers?

not if you ignore it.

Sometimes they have managed to win buy subterfuge, sending court papers to the wrong address, and then the other side doesnt know about the case. But in those instances, you have the judgement set aside, reheard, and even a half cocked defence will spank them.

Beav

Cheers, thanks for all the advice everyone, I will ignore all the letters and threats and see how it goes.

vax2002

They will threaten court but the law is quite firmly on your side in that it would be a civil court for damages.
The Law says they can only claim losses you caused which is what they lost, not what they want to charge, which would be a pro-rata of the hourly fee minus what you over paid when leaving early, Probably nothing, anything else is a unlawful penalty, which the law says they can not claim.
Next they law now says if they don't own the land, they can not invite you to park in the first place, let alone charge you a penalty for Breaking a rule on a land they don't own, so that's them stumped.
then the law say only a driver could be responsible for any loss and they don't know who that was, it could be anyone of the 24 million drivers with third party cover on other vehicles, at present they are hassling the registered keeper.
now the best bit of the Law is your right to silence, you don't have to tell them who was driving, or anything else, the onus is on them to prove it.

So based on that, what would be their chances of mounting a court case and winning, well based on those odds alone above, about 16 million to one.
they would be better Playing the lottery instead !
So instead they will jump up and down, bang the table and make lots of threats.
You win by ignoring them.