National parking control - manchester

lyndabill

Hi, havent been on the site for a good while, but now i have a bit of a problem. or rather my daughter does! Mum to the rescue [again]. Daughter had/has a moped which, after falling off, she lost confidence in using so parked [private car park?] it round the back of her block of flats. It has NPC posters, small and about 7 foot off the ground. Daugher tried to contact them to ask about a permit, not able to find phone number so asked local council about permit in that area. They said they didnt do permits for a moped. Hannah had the bike [locked and covered] there for a few weeks, then tucked it to the side of a wall, still in the 'private' area, as it got knocked over by car/wind and damaged. Think the fall got carbouretta dirt so engine wouldnt turn - couldnt move it. However she regularly checked it, most recent was 2 weeks ago. Now she has sold it to her dad and when he managed to get a mate to pick it up, found a NPC ticket under the cover, dated last week in may. This said there was a fine of 90, reduced to 60 if paid within 28 days. But we never saw the ticket prior to moving the bike and taking the cover off. It also says that they will access records via dvla if the money is not paid etc etc etc 'legal action will be taken for unpaid tickets'. Now I have seen several posts about this company, most say to ignore them. Is this right? Can they legally trace my daughter and force payment [which is now way over the time limit] HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vax2002

what is the ticket called ?
A parking charge notice ?
If so its an impersonation of authority scam ticket that can be ignored, they just send lots of silly letters full of empty threats, change characters and impersonate fake debt collectors and fake solicitors .
Then they give up and look for someone who does take the impersonation scam seriously.

Edited, yes they are a scam company.
dont fall for the bppa bluff, they are just a scammers club.
IGNORE, do not contact them, there is no appeal, thats a scam too.
On tracing DVLA sell your details for £2.50, the dirty ****

lyndabill

Hiya, yep it says its a parking charge notice and there is a cross by 'unauthorized parking'. And yes, they do say that if you want to appeal, then the full payment must be recieved with the appeal.........so just ignore it?

trisontana

Although the name "National Parking Control" sounds like an official body (i.e council or government agency) it's nothing of the kind. It's just a tin-pot private company.

vax2002

They sell kits, so some janitor/ caretaker who is fed up with washing away the pish of drunks can play authority traffic warden with his book of fake fines bought from "National Parking control" for £59
http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/order.asp
£59 buys you a pack of fake parking tickets !
This is not even a good scam company, they ring like a hollow tree.

lyndabill

you know, i was going to just pay it off, my daughter was so worried about it, she works full time in a low paid job and couldnt afford the fine - i am sooooo glad i looked through the interweb and remembered this site. many many thanks to you all. xx

Stephen_Leak

Full payment with the appeal? Let me check my birth certificate. No, I wasn't born yesterday.

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.

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.

Paully232000

http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/ethics.asp

I particularly like this section of their website:rotfl:

trisontana

Paully232000 wrote: »

http://www.nationalparkingcontrol.co.uk/ethics.asp

I particularly like this section of their website:rotfl:

If the land owner can prove the trespass, then he or she is entitled to recover nominal damages, even if he or she has not suffered any actual loss or damage.


Define "nominal", and note it says "land owner" and not PPC.

esmerobbo

trisontana wrote: »

If the land owner can prove the trespass, then he or she is entitled to recover nominal damages, even if he or she has not suffered any actual loss or damage.


Define "nominal", and note it says "land owner" and not PPC.

£1 pppppppppppp

fil_cad

They are just hopeing your stupid enough to pay them all that CASH! IGNORE the scumbags and get on with more important things .... your life, and they will just fizzzzel away forever