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Harassment from UKPC

You've doubtless heard the background of this sort of things many, many times... However...

Someone parked a car at a carpark in my town - went to a shop nearby and then found one of the little gifts from this company on the windscreen.

On challenging the nerk giving them out he claimed to be "managing the carpark" and was ticketing people leaving the site. Note at this point that:

a) The signs do not state the actual boundary of the "site"

b) We have a receipt for a purchase that was made at a shop that was most certainly on the "site"

c) There doesn't appear to be any evidence whatsoever of this someone leaving the site

The original someone has now been getting the usual letters from these parasites. As this someone is now heavily pregnant this is stress we could do without.

They clearly don't have a leg to stand on and would get laughed out of court should it get that far - but I'd rather not have the last two months of my first child's gestation punctuated by the missives from these chancers.

Has anyone tried contacting them and putting the frighteners on them with reference to the harassment act and the police? Has anyone actually taken them to court over this sort of harassment?

Has anyone for that matter contacted their MP or the press about this lot?

Comments

  • notts_phil
    notts_phil Posts: 1,087 Forumite
    Treat the letters you would as any other junk mail

    Dont let it worry you, i have had more tickets then fish dinners (and i eat a lot of fish!)

    I wouldnt waste your time, am sure you have more important things to worry about
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  • ManxRed
    ManxRed Posts: 3,530 Forumite
    A few people have made claims of this kind, and to my knowledge they were all settled out of court, so they never made it that far.

    If you were to send a notification that any further correspondence would be treated as harassment and a claim would be made under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 then it would be a good idea to include the car park owner who hired the muppets, as 'jointly and severally liable'.

    Do you know who this might be in this case?
    Je Suis Cecil.
  • Kite2010
    Kite2010 Posts: 4,308 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Home Insurance Hacker! Car Insurance Carver!
    You can either ignore them or sue the landowner for harassment from a contractor acting on their behalf.
  • Half_way
    Half_way Posts: 7,441 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    ManxRed wrote: »
    A few people have made claims of this kind, and to my knowledge they were all settled out of court, so they never made it that far.

    If you were to send a notification that any further correspondence would be treated as harassment and a claim would be made under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 then it would be a good idea to include the car park owner who hired the muppets, as 'jointly and severally liable'.

    Do you know who this might be in this case?


    goign for the car park owner as your main target, as well as the PPC is the way to go, without the authority of the Car park owner the PPC can not opperate.
    From the Plain Language Commission:

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  • Looks like the car park in question is owned by the company that holds my pension. I'm going to threaten to sue myself :)

    I've got a contact and will request the full details.

    I've also written some emails to the companies at the park concerned. And my MP.

    I'm fairly cross.
  • Thanks for all your input...
  • Update

    Sooooo.

    I sent out a few emails to the shops serviced by the carpark. Along the lines of "someone claiming to be acting on your behalf is harassing my family. Stop it please"

    A couple replied along the lines of "Sorry, nothing we can do - we don't have any say over the carpark as we just lease the shops". Which I think is true.

    One however wrote back saying that UKPC were entitled to behave this way to manage the car-park and ensure that shoppers could get to their shops. They also said they could issue fines and clamp cars...

    This annoyed me somewhat, so I wrote back pointing out that private companies cannot issue fines, that clamping on private land has recently been made illegal, that they were not managing the car park but driving legitimate customers away, that I would not be shopping at their store in future, that I would be requiring the CEO's details to complain at the highest level possible and that I would be taking legal action against UKPC and anyone whose agency they were operating under using the Protection From Harrassment Act 1997 that carries criminal and civil penalties.

    I have in my inbox today two of the most abject emails I've ever seen. They've chased up the car-park owner and UKPC have apparently agreed to cancel the ticket. The reek of brown trousers is so strong I nearly gagged.

    I've also written to my MP who's raised this with the transport minister.

    After a cruddy week it's been a good day. And I didn't even have to use my MK.

    If everyone who gets chased by these shysters did this they'd be out of business within a month.

    Woo. Yay. Go me.

    Thanks all.
  • muckybutt
    muckybutt Posts: 3,761 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    that clamping on private land has recently been made illegal

    Not yet it hasn't !

    Good on the result btw :T
    You may click thanks if you found my advice useful
  • muckybutt wrote: »
    Not yet it hasn't !

    I realised that after I sent the email...

    It's on it's way in though, and that in itself is hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice!
  • Stephen_Leak
    Stephen_Leak Posts: 8,762 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I realised that after I sent the email...

    It's on it's way in though, and that in itself is hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice!

    It's the same kind of legal obfuscation that PPCs employ. I don't doubt that at least one is already intimating that the Protection [STRIKE]from[/STRIKE] of Freedoms Act and RK liability have been enacted.
    The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in my life. :)
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