CMS UK Ltd parking charge notice to pay?

rosemary88

Hope someone can help, i have read all i can find on this company and the general idea is to ignore a parking charge notice that I received yesterday. The reason for receiving this notice is that i "left premises" which i did do for 20 mins (the sign in the car park has recently changed which i hadnt noticed). I was in my company car and my husband is saying just pay it, i want to ignore it and hope it goes away he says he does not want the hastle of receiving letters from debt collectors and so-called solicitors and even Courts. He does not want our company to be associated with any of this. Any advice?

adouglasmhor

Ignore it and tell your hubby to grow a pair. How does he imagine the company will be associated with it?

adouglasmhor

And never in a million years will you hear from a court.

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. 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.

However, is your car owned by your company or leased?

Coupon-mad

rosemary88 wrote: »

Hope someone can help, i have read all i can find on this company and the general idea is to ignore a parking charge notice that I received yesterday. The reason for receiving this notice is that i "left premises" which i did do for 20 mins (the sign in the car park has recently changed which i hadnt noticed).

I was in my company car and my husband is saying just pay it, i want to ignore it and hope it goes away he says he does not want the hastle of receiving letters from debt collectors and so-called solicitors and even Courts. He does not want our company to be associated with any of this. Any advice?

:eek: He wants to PAY it?? Does he pay phishing emailers as well?!

It is a scam. Ignore it. NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, no CCJ, nothing! It's not a real PCN.

Anyone who pays one after coming here needs their head examining!

The letters the registered keeper will now receive are no biggie, just file them. They really are like phishing emails and you can see right through them when you know it's all hot air.

My husband was the same when I got a fake PCN and I came home grinning about it (as I knew it was a scam). He's pretty traditional - was brought up to be a bit too respectful of authority in my book, a bit too unquestioning! - and he honestly thought because they have signs up in the car park and the piece of paper looked like a parking ticket that it must be one.

In the end I gave up trying to explain why you don't pay these except to just tell him it's a scam and that I would laugh at all the letters. Which I did, that was 4 years ago now.

Oh and for goodness' sake show your husband the Watchdog clip linked on another top sticky thread 'PPC letters & threats' which is currently 3rd from the top of the forum list, only one click away - see my signature. The same thread also has preview pictures of each letter so you can just play snap with them rather than actually read their debt collector baloney.

How difficult can it be to play 'snap' with some junk mail you can predict?

HTH

bondy_lad

total 100% scam, fake ticket, simply ignore, full stop, the end, finito.does your hubby usually pay fake tickets,/scamsters????

rosemary88

It is a company owned car.

muckybutt

rosemary88 wrote: »

It is a company owned car.

Company owned car - Private car ...... make no difference.

Now ive given you that advice you now owe me £50 to be paid within 14 days, if payment is not recieved within 14 days the ammount owed will be £1500. If you dont pay that then i'll try another sucker !!! :wall:

ManxRed

Sorry, I've had a brainstorm there.

Company OWNED. Definitely not leased? Good.

Coupon-mad

rosemary88 wrote: »

It is a company owned car.

Yes but you said it was YOUR company didn't you? So the letters just go to YOUR company and you ignore them. Please read the forum where I suggested and show your husband the Watchdog clip so that it finally clicks that he would be paying a scammer.

It's only some letters, some junk mail for Gawd's sake with NO liability for the company whatsoever and no effect on yours, his, or the company's credit rating. Nada.

After he has watched that Watchdog clip featuring an expert Solicitor, and seen the letter chains in pictures, show him this as well:

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2009/5/28/question-private-parking-fines-fleets-urged/30698/

And this Q&A where the answer at the bottom comes from a barrister:

http://www.justanswer.com/uk-law/5isk3-hi-overstayed-berkley-precinct-car-park-ecclesall-rd.html

HTH

rosemary88

thanks for everyone replying,