Parking ticket

Faye76

Hi I have received a ticket on my car today from "Euro Car parks" asking for a minimum of £50 because I went over their 90min free stay! Does anyone know is this enforceable???

vax2002

Short Answer ?
NO
Its an impersonation of authority fake.

Faye76

I've read things about "you entered into a contract by parking there" ??? I can say that I didn't read the "rules of parking" and I did over stay but not sure wether I should pay up or not!

vax2002

If you do they come back for more money in "mysterious late payment charges"
They have absolutely no legal or lawful right to charge you a penalty or fine.
what you have is an invitation to pay an invoice.
You can refuse it and keep your money.
All that will happen is they will buy your details from DVLA and mount a campaign of sending silly letters full of stupid empty threats and try to scare you by pretending they can take you to court, no they can not as they are not the landowners just a silly two bit private parking company.
In relation to any contract, it would only be a driver who could have read any silly signs and they dont know who that was, nor do you have to tell them
so IGNORE them.
They will fake other types of authority such as fake debt collectors and fake solicitors then give up and look for another mug.
Hold your nerve, file silly letters in a bin and dont fall for the appeal part of the scam.
Just do absolutely nothing and you will be ok !

Half_way

Faye76 wrote: »

I've read things about "you entered into a contract by parking there" ??? I can say that I didn't read the "rules of parking" and I did over stay but not sure wether I should pay up or not!

The so called contract is legaly un enforcable, and most probably if its like all the other PPC signs) falls foul of the unfair terms in consumer contracts act. as well as the equalities act if they state blue badge parking only - where are those who have a genuine disability but no blue badge supposed to park? wheres the legaly required reasonable adjustment for them?
also private companies can not issue fines or penaltys, does your invoice sudenly change in price after so many days? such as amount due £50, going up to £75 if not paid within 14 days ( or the other way and a discount if paid early) if so this is clearly a penalty and form a private company it is un enforcable.

The land owner can only sue you for any genuine losses caused by your visit to their car park, is this car park owned by Euro car parks? if no then they have no authority to sue you, see HM revenue and customs vs VCS ( parking company)
Even if its is Euro car parks own car park, and they own the land ( have property interst in that land) then they can only sue you for genuine losses, you state this is a free car park, even if it was a pay and display use this little formula to work out how much you owe in parking charges;

length of overstay, and cost to use this car park for that amount of time = amount owed
so if you overstayed by 15 minutes and it costs 80p to park for
up to an hour, £1.50 for two hours (and so on) you owe them £0.80 as 15 minutes of parking would cost 80p.
if you overstayed in that car park for 15 minutes and it costs £.0.00 for 15 m minutes you owe them £0.00 as the landowner will have suffered no loss.

by the way the signs are nothing more than polite requests, and posibly a few advisories, any hint of a penalty claues is un enforcable

One more thing, usualy its best to ignore their silly letters however it/they are a form of harrasment, and the land owner/car park owner is responsable for the actions of their agents, should you wish to fight back you can send a letter off to both the parking company and the car park owner telling them to stop sending letters, as the car park owner is fully responsable for the actions of their agents, by allowing euro car parks to intimidate and harrass people on their behalf they, the car park owners are liable, for the actions of euro car parks.

Stephen_Leak

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, 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. 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 very recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and HM Revenue & Customs vs. VCS Parking Control, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012, where both 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 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 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.

Faye76

Thanks people!:): so the way ahead is to ignore!?!

pogofish

Absolutely!

Don't contact them and ignore everything they and their pet (fake!) solicitors/collectors send you. It will be fine.

ECP's letter chain is in the forum sticky, go check that out so you know what to expect next and can count them off till the end of the scam.

Coupon-mad

Faye76 wrote: »

Thanks people!:): so the way ahead is to ignore!?!

100% YES!!

How do we know it's a scam and not as real PCN, you may ask? Well it's not a Penalty Charge Notice is it, it's a Parking Charge Notice (fake one, yep?).

A 'Parking Charge Notice' is NOT a real PCN but a fake one.

Just ignore it.

The most that will happen is even more junk mail letters that you can ignore; you are just in the middle of a mail scam at the moment.

No private parking company (PPC) can actually issue a real fine or penalty. Nor can they affect your credit rating nor send a bailiff round without the small matter of winning a Small Claim in Court first! Won't happen. And in any case, Euro Car Parks have never done Court and won't start now.

Please read on...

We have so much info on here to help newbies understand and be ready for the letters. One click & you see all current threads here, most of which are about the 'fake PCN' scam and the series of letters these scammers use to try to trick/scare people into paying them.

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 ECP's threatograms, then

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

4. Tell your friends & family, colleagues, strangers, everyone! about the fake PCN scam so they never pay one.



Oh and I ignored a Euro Car Parks fake PCN from a Supermarket car park about 4 years ago...difference was I already knew about the scam and so I laughed at it and kept all the threatograms. They are still in my handbag now, ready to show people sometimes when they are worried about any fake PCN. I show them it's all a scam and that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.

Bottom line is if you pay you have been conned and will also have funded the next fake ticket, and the next...

Pinkyf

Hi on 26th may I parked outside a hardware store, we used todo it all the time, and went into town. I came back and found a parking ticket on my car for £80. I took the advice of money saving expert and ignored it. Today I received a letter demanding £120 or they will take me to court or worse call bailiffs I'm pretty worried cuz it was in the news on 26th may that the Same company took a guy to court and he had to pay something like £45 in damages although he appealed it and won. Private message me for link as Ian not allowed to post it on here.
.should I pay the £120??? I have not contacted them at all. The letter came in someone else's name who owns the car. Pleaseeeee help!!!!

Sorry I posted on here I'm new and don't know how to start a new thread!!!

LincolnshireYokel

Who issued the alleged ticket? Council or a private parking company ? Was you parked on public land/steet or a private car park?

If its private then read post #9 above.