Civil Enforcement Blackwood Fake Fine or NOT?

JaS13

Hi - I got a "fine" mailed to me today from Civil Enforcement - 0115 822 5020 - It also has a pic of my car but not in the place that it said it committed the "offence" (outside Halfords, North Court, High Street, Blackwood Gwent - apparently I can obtain further evidence for a £10 payment them via cheque!
If I pay the "fine" in 14 days it is £75 - £150 if in 28 days. I have viewed previous threads related to this and the advice seems to be ignore them! I cannot afford to have a bad credit history so I seek confirmation that I am right to ignore this and any subsequent mail relating to it. Please put my mind at rest and advise me of action I should take. Cheers:beer:

James_N

Your post does not make it clear if you were parked in street or car park or if this is a Parking Company working for a council or themselves.

From what you post it LOOKS like the typical scam operation, and therefore should receive the IGNORE treatment.

Can you clarify these points and / or scan the papers here (remove personal details).

Stephen_Leak

Yes, it's a fake "fine" ...

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. This case actually involved The Peel Centre.

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 recent court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs, Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In both cases, the 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 by them would be regarded as 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.

The more unpleasant threats usually include mentioning that a CCJ might be issued, that bailiffs might be appointed, and that bad things might happen to your credit rating. For things to actually get to this stage, they would have to take you to court, win the case and then you’d have to refuse to pay. After 28 days a CCJ would be issued. If you still didn’t pay, then bailiffs could be appointed. This is a theoretically possible, but you would have the ability to stop it at any time.

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.

halibut2209

notts_phil

They cant affect your credit file and why that number is nottingham based i do not know..........

Kite2010

Asking for £10 for "evidence" (most likely a picture taken on a camera phone) seems to be private rather than then acting on behalf of a council, plus the amounts wanted seem to be private company

Ignore them, and they will soon go away to harass another customer of halfords

JaS13

James_N wrote: »

Your post does not make it clear if you were parked in street or car park or if this is a Parking Company working for a council or themselves.

From what you post it LOOKS like the typical scam operation, and therefore should receive the IGNORE treatment.

Can you clarify these points and / or scan the papers here (remove personal details).

Hi - It was a private car park - on the block are KFC, Halfords, Domino Pizza - there is signage but ambiguous and unclear.

THanks for your help

JaS13

Hi - It was a private car park - on the block are KFC, Halfords, Domino Pizza - there is signage but ambiguous and unclear.

THanks for your help

James_N

JaS13 wrote: »

Hi - It was a private car park - on the block are KFC, Halfords, Domino Pizza - there is signage but ambiguous and unclear.

THanks for your help

Then it's a scam - pure and simple. The remedy is to ignore everything.

HO87

Civil Enforcement Ltd (CEL) are a private parking company that rely on the law of contract to issue what amount to speculative invoices or more strictly, at law, "invitations to settle" what CEL will claim are breaches of their parking "regulations".

CEL don't do court so they can be ignored. By the way, they are not based in Liverpool, nor even Nottingham - which is where the telephone number comes down to - but in a small business centre in north-east London. The company is one of several operated, ultimately, by a chap called Gary Wayne. Have a read of this article to see what and for how long he has been up to this type of thing.

Hadeon

notts_phil wrote: »

They cant affect your credit file and why that number is nottingham based i do not know..........

I do.......it's a throwback retained from the days when CEL used a Nottingham address as their so called 'Registered Office' (sic) for their scam (DBH House, Carlton Square, Nottingham)
This was no more than a 'mail-drop' as is the current Liverpool address they have been using for quite some time now.
They just can't be ars*d to change the number & obviously believe that 'Joe Public' is too thick to notice the subtle difference between the two city codes - 0115 for Nottingham & 0151 for Liverpool.


A reminder that the real cente of operations is:-

Unit 3
Colindale Business Centre
126 Colindale Avenue
London
NW9 5HD

The 'main man', the elusive Mr Gary Wayne (Shalom Gary if you happen to be reading this - I bet your mamma is really proud of you) wouldn't want you to know that.
　
@ Jas13 -as already advised, completely ignore this shower, they are absolutely no threat to you & you can sleep soundly in your bed.

Any developments that may concern you, then please post back for further reassurance & support.