bit of advice, from another forum needed quickly

vintagegirl

bit of advice needed quickly
have just got home from holiday and have a parking fine from a shopping centre.
apparently i was there for longer than the 3 hours specified, i was, but i moved the car to a different parking spot, and naively thought this was ok.
now the want £40 immediately or it goes up to £70.

the letter is worded as follows
PARKING ENFORCEMENT NOTICE

Just looking for an opinion before i pay the £40.

Orford

Ignore. Don't bother to communicate with them at all and more importantly don't pay them.

Who is the parking company?

vintagegirl

really?? what can they do if i dont pay?
Ill write out the full letter here just to be sure, cos i only have 2 weeks now before it becomes £70.

it says,
we therefore require payment of this parking charge notice , in accordance with the parking t&cs clearly stated on the signage.

the amound of £70 must be paid within 28 days of the issue date above, if your remittance is received within 14 days of the issue date, a reduced amount of £40 will be accepted.

FAILURE TO PAY AMOUNT DUE WITHIN 28 DAYS OF THE ISSUE DATE WILL RESULT IN CIVIL ENFORCEMENT LTD FORWARDING YOUR ACCOUNT TO A DEBT RECOVERY AGENCY AND MAY INCUR ADDITIONAL COSTS.

THEY say you can pay online or with a cheque,
its to civil enforcement ltd, horton house
exchange flags, liverpool

im pretty scared of doing nothing, they'll write again surely. what can they do, what should i do

Stephen_Leak

Civil Enforcement is a private parking company. Therefore ...

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private company or individual can't. A private parking company (PPC) 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 it’s in a free car park or the driver 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 landmark 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 ruled 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 owe the CPO the original charge, then you ought to write to the CPO, offering this in “full and final settlement”. In any event, you should write to the CPO, advising them that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by either of them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with a PPC.

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 harassing 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 had to do 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 an 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.

vax2002

It is an IMPERSONATION OF AUTHORITY fake ticket.

See you fell for it ? it is not a genuine real council police fine, they can not do anything if you ignore it other than send lots of silly letters impersonating other types of authority such as fake solicitors and fake debt collectors all who have fake websites to match and issue threats to scare you half to death.
It is in a legal point of view a "invoice" which they are "inviting" you to pay.
Decline the kind invitation, just as most on here have dozens of times .

However be warned ! If you pay up "to make it go away" you will find your payment mysteriously arrived late and you get another "fine" for paying late, like all scammers, they come back for more.

Keep Ignoring it and By Christmas you will be able to bail out Spanish banks it will have risen that much.
Then it falls to what you actually owe, nothing as the vanish and look for another mug.

vintagegirl

well i think youve answered it for me, im not paying them the 40.
i have actually paid them before a couple of years ago and just came home from holiday to this.

Coupon-mad

vintagegirl wrote: »

well i think youve answered it for me, im not paying them the 40.
i have actually paid them before a couple of years ago and just came home from holiday to this.

Oh what a shame you paid them once before. It was a scam then and it's a scam now. IT'S NOT A FINE!

You are not liable to pay and you must not 'appeal' either. This is a private company with an unsolicited invoice, dressed up to impersonate a parking ticket.

Tick off the threatening letters Here.

Watchdog clip with expert Solicitor's opinion here.

Barrister's opinion here.



HTH

notts_phil

Just Await the fake letters. They also have a habbit of sending fake court paprrs. come back here if you get any