Dockside Outlet centre Chatham

JulietteM

I got a ticket from UKCPS because I left the site and did not immediately make use of the centre. I was away for one hour and then went into the Centre to wait fro my grandmother before lunching with her at one of the restaurants.
If I had gone into the Centre and then left for an hour, I would not have had a ticket. This is bonkers. They are saying I have to conduct my business in a way that suits them, not me.
I have lodged an appeal and they should not expect much further action from me!!

BASFORDLAD

Your appeal was a waste of time i am sorry, it just gives them your address for free

Just expect the usual letters and gruff from them

HardWorker2010_2

JulietteM,

You are the victim of an attempted scam. The PPCs' (private parking company) ridiculous made up rules are there for one reason and one reason only - to give them an 'excuse' to extort money from you.

PPCs have no other revenue stream other than the money they con from motorists that fall for their Impersonation Of Authority Scam. Obviously there is no prospect of them granting your appeal, all they want is your money. By contacting them you will have saved them the £2.50 fee the DVLA charges them to hand over the name and address of the registered keeper of the car (itself a scandal, the PPCs lie to the DVLA about their intentions).

You will start to receive a series of obnoxious letters from them, formatted to look like official legal paperwork - its not, their threats are not worth the paper they are printed on.

You can do one of three things.

1. Send them what they want - your money - if you do, don't expect a thankyou note but do expect another demand for even more for late fees etc. If you decide on this action can you please let me have your name and address and I'll send some fake legal looking paperwork to you as well demanding lots of money from you too

2. Ignore them. This has been the shown to be the easiest way of dealing with these parasites. I've done it a number of times. They will spend time and money sending more and more nasty letters with ever increasing levels of fines and charges and threats of bailiffs etc. They may even get some fellow scammers from a Debt Collection company to try it on as well - all can be safely ignored unless they take the 1 in 1,000,000 chance to issue genuine court papers (I say genuine because sometimes these scumbags send out fake court papers to try and ramp up the pressure). If they did they would loose and you would be awarded costs against them.

3. Take the fight to them. They started this, you have the opportunity to give them a bloody nose, and a smaller bank balance. Other posters on here will be able to help with the actual details (beware of personal message from anyone who doesn't have a huge back history of posts - you could always ask the rest of us if a message is from a genuine person on here or a PPC stooge trying to trap you). As I understand it the basic process is you write the the PPC and the Car Park Owner telling them that there is no debt and to stop trying to get money from you. You then wait for more letters to arrive and then sue them for harrasment and get them to pay for your next holiday

Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please don't choose number 1.

Stephen_Leak

A landowner can forbid you to go onto their land, but they can't tell you how you can leave it.

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 alleged breach of any alleged 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 recent landmark court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012, HM Revenue & Customs vs. VCS Parking Control, Lower Tax Tribunal, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs (Appeal), Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In these 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 just means that they can now harass the driver instead of harassing the registered keeper.

How will they do this 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 blackmailer can'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 odd to deal with something like this by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats and stop throwing good money after bad.

Plushchris

OP can you tell me where abouts in the car park you parked and how you left the site?

Just for research..