Cms parking fines at Blackburn Retail Park

coline68

My 75 year old mother has today received a £55 parking ticket left on her car at the VUE cinema car park in Blackburn. This car park is split into two sections - one for the train station and one for the retail park, she was parked in the retail section of the car park.

The ticket states she left the retail park. She did walk out of the retail park to visit the town centre. She was away less than 1 hour.

She asked an attendent on existing the car park and he said that they had recorded the time she left the retail park.

The signs are high on posts with small writing but do say that parking is free for 4 hours whilst within the retail park.

The parking is operated by CMS.

As she is worried about the threat of the fine increasing to £90 if not paid within 14 days she has today posted a cheque for £55.

Before I suggest that she cancels the cheque I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar experience with this company or car park and if the fine is valid/legal.

Any help or advice is appreciated.

notts_phil

Well she was a bit silly to write the check

She should immediately cancel the cheque.

Then send a covering letter to the company advising them of such

Stephen_Leak

Cancel the cheque ... quickly!

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.

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.

Then the so-called "fine" reduces to £0.00.

Half_way

EDIT: DIDNT SEE THE BIT ABOUT THE CHEQUE CANCEL IT NOW, CALL THE BANK IMEDIATLY

1; it is not a fine, just speculative invoice, show here the watchdog videos mentioned in the stickys as well as the letter chains - you could print them off so she can play snap as they come through here letter box.

On a more serious note private companies can not issue fines or penaltys to people, you/she will get lots of threatening letters from them, saying things like we may obtain a CCJ against you, we may send in ballifs to recover costs and so on, all of which should be ignored.
Depending on how she takes things it may go down the route of better pay as i dont want any trouble, if this looks likly then you need to show her the videos again.

the best advise is to ignore, but...
you can even go on the offensive to stop the letters and threats, to do this you need to write to both the car park owner and the private parking operator, do not use the word appeal, or apologise.
isntead tell them bluntly that you will not be paying their invoice as it is no more than a contractual penalty which is not permisable under UK law, only the landowner can sue for any damages caused by parking on that land, ( see HMRC vs VCS parking) as it was a free car park the damages are zero, this matter is now closed, any further letters demanding money, or threats will be seen as harrasment under the protection of harrasment act and treated accordingly.

Coupon-mad

Cancel the cheque.

caskale180

DO NOT PAY....or have any contact what-so-ever.....the same happened to us a mth ago....luckily we googled the company and this info site came up..thank-goodness....we have not made any contact with the said people at all.....cancel the cheque at once !!!.....Tuesdays seem to be the favourite day for these low-life to swoop on un-informed motorists....

AlexisV

Cancel the cheque, but make sure you inform them not to cash it.

notts_phil

Have you canceled it?

coline68

Thank you for everyones response. The cheque has been cancelled and I am drafting a letter to CMS to tell them that the cheque has been cancelled and that my mother will not be making any payment.

Stephen_Leak

Good news about the cheque.

However, this is going to seriously tick off CMS.

Therefore, I strongly recommend also writing, as above, to Vue Cinemas. The ideal solution is for them to tell CMS to cancel the ticket.

Very_Interesting

How fed up am I with all these people including phantom phone callers and e-mailers trying to get my money
This thread has been most informative and overwhelmingly of the opinion to ignore all correspondence.
On the other hand - has anyone any knowledge of the suchlikes of CMS carrying through their threatening line in the face of being ignored/refusal to pay up and winning payment by eventual court action?
Stephen Leak's post appears to make this unlikely.

Thanks