£60 or 100

StockportTom

Hi All

Having read a lot of the posts and useful info I would grateful if folks could advise me on a couple of matters:

I have been issued a Parking Charge Notice from Stockport Peel Centre for not having / displaying a valid ticket - which had fallen on floor given it did not have an adhesive back

I have been given 14 days to pay £100 which will be reduced to £60 if paid in 7 days

All of the posts suggest ignoring the parking charge and await any court proceedings ( if any) before taking action - however does this not imply that I am then liable for £100 rather than £60? !Also they are stating that they will also recover additional costs incurred through debt recovery - cam they and what would this cost me if they are successful?!

Also, is it not best that I at least write to these folks to legitimise a ticket that they do not believe that I had? The forum suggests taking a militant approach but surely it's best to set the record early - and within the 14 days given for an appeal?

Thanks

BASFORDLAD

You are taking these bunch of chancers to seriously and treating them like a decent company.

You just ignore.

Its not enforceable its a penalty and they cant do that

They could raise the charge to £10000 and you still wouldnt be liable. You can see the letters you are likely to get and play snap as they come through the post

Stephen_Leak

It'll be reduced to £0.00 eventually.

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. Private parking companies (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 with 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 also involved The Peel Centre.)

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 CPO can charge for parking and take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgements set legal precedents.

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 take anyone who didn’t pay them to court.

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.

PS. And don't call me Shirley.

bargepole

StockportTom wrote: »

... All of the posts suggest ignoring the parking charge and await any court proceedings ( if any) before taking action - ticket that they do not believe that I had? ...

Excel won't be going anywhere near Stockport court after their last spanking - here: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1458879_motorist-wins-18-month-ticket-battle-after-judge-agrees-stockport-parking-signs-were-too-small

Stephen_Leak

bargepole wrote: »

Excel won't be going anywhere near Stockport court after their last spanking - here: http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1458879_motorist-wins-18-month-ticket-battle-after-judge-agrees-stockport-parking-signs-were-too-small

Have they replaced the signs, as instructed by the judge, yet?

bondy_lad

ok, tom, so you got a FAKE ticket on my patch from the well known SCUMBAGS on here excell parking,i spend loads of time walking around the peel centre warning folk about excell,you are taking this as serious as possible,,why on earth are you doing this, you have recieved a FAKE ticket,so why do you wish to contact them about it,the real ticket is called a PENALTY charge notice=issued by police/traffic warden,,you DO NOT HAVE THIS,,you have loo paper which is called a PARKING charge notice,so do not bother doing anything other than a)read the stickies on what letters to expect,(excell/roxburghe/graham white =all part of the scam),,,b)ignore and c)ignore some more,,,,so there you go aint the job a real good un,they have no powers to fine you,all they are doing is IMITATING AUTHORITY,,conning you into paying,,court will not happen,because they know, we know now you do, that they will lose hands down,,google michael cutts,he took THEM to court about the signs there(to small), he won, judge ordered them to change, have they yet???? well is the pope married,,so they would be welcome back in court for two reasons,,a)you have a valid ticket and b)failing to carry out judges orders,,so i doubt if they would,,but they will send you threat o grams, so ignore,,incidentally writing to them to appeal,,sorry, you have lost, just like everyone else,they dont do appeals, they want your cash, full stop.remember you have a FAKE ticket/invoice,do you really think they will take it further,,,,finally do not under any circumstances respond to any pms you get, as excell trawl this forum on a daily basis,they may try to trick you, only respond to anyone with a high post count,excell know who i am as i preach often in their car park about their SCAM, they dont like me, but i am 3 times the size of them and as you know,, cowards arent brave,,end of sermon,,ignore and come back for reassurance as often as you like, but read the stickies first.

The_Slithy_Tove

Just do a search on this site for "Peel Centre", and you'll see what a bunch of crooks are running the parking there. Despite a judge telling them to change their sighs, they have not done so. They lost in court over a ticket at the Peel Centre. You are safe to ignore completely.

Kite2010

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

Have they replaced the signs, as instructed by the judge, yet?

No, because according to the BPA the signs meet their regulations so don't need to be changed.

After-all the BPA regulations over-rule any judge.

HO87

Kite2010 wrote: »

No, because according to the BPA the signs meet their regulations so don't need to be changed.

After-all the BPA regulations over-rule any judge.

Despite his blustering rebuff to the judge would Simon Renshaw-Smith (MD at Excel and VCS one of the companies listed in Stephen Leak's write-up above) actually risk running another case in front of Stockport County Court?

The intended "victim" of Excel's last court expedition at Stockport was one Martin Cutts. What they didn't realise was that Martin is from the Plain Language Commission and he systematically deconstructed Excel's case and won the day.

I urge people to read some of Martin's articles on the subject which now appear on the Plain Language Commission website and can be read here. Towards the bottom of the first page (there are several and additional links to the side) there is a link to the PLC's full report on private parking which is far more comprehensive than anything that could be condensed from reading around this forum for a few hours.

Stephen_Leak

And then the organisers of the last BPA AGM invited him to speak.

HO87

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

And then the organisers of the last BPA AGM invited him to speak.

Indeed they did and the text of that speech can be found via the link above. IIRC Martin was also invited to write an article for the BPA's members magazine "Parking News" but when they read the copy they declined to print it.

It has since been alleged by Patrick Troy, chief executive of the BPA, in a letter that Martin has "embarked upon a campaign to discredit the BPA, its members and the legitimate parking enforcement sector". Is that not somewhat laughable given that the principal contributor to PPC World's current discomfiture is the BPA itself? The architect of s.56 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 was the BPA and it was the figures the BPA provided to the government, through the DVLA, that undoubtedly weighed heavy in the decision of Parliament to pass what was then Clause 56.

We now know, thankfully, that the reality of the number of PPC cases that appeared before a judge in the small claims court was just 49 (of which more than 50% were lost by the PPC) in the whole of England and Wales out of a total of 845 proceedings that were initiated by PPC's. The BPA, had "informally" alleged that between 36,000 and 90,000 cases were going through the courts annually.

The BPA has since stated that it had arrived at the 36,000 to 90,000 totals (which represents between 2 and 5% of all PPC invoices) based on anecdotal information from its members. Now, if it transpired that some wonk based in his lofty perch in BPA Towers simply guessed at it then the BPA should properly take the criticism squarely on the chin. If, in the alternative, it became clear that PPC's had just executed a snow job on the BPA, with regard to the number of cases going through the courts, then the nature of the BPA hierachy's connection with its membership must be seriously called into question. There is no one else to pass the buck to either the BPA messed it up themselves or their membership did. Plain and simple.

It is my view that as the BPA, through its approved operator scheme, effectively acts as the "gatekeeper" to DVLA's database as far as its PPC members are concerned it owes a duty to the British public to come clean about this. Frankly, the BPA would gain some credibility, in my eyes, were it to admit to this debacle and respectfully suggest to the government that the enactment date for s.56 be postponed indefinitely.

This might all have been avoided if someone at the BPA, realising that what they were requesting of Parliament in the shape of s.56, was worthy of serious reporting, and therefore research, had conducted a phone survey of the AOS members and obtained accurate numbers. Doing things in such a considered way would also have demonstrated a respect for its duty to the British public in respect of its "gatekeeper" position. It could all have been done in a day.

It is, perhaps, unfair to assume that the motive was the lure of the "£" sign. I for one wonder whether the problem doesn't actually lie in the prospect of achieving one of the BPA's much vaunted five-year plans? There has been a number of pronouncements originating from the BPA suggesting that council and private enforcement processes be "aligned". This even found its way through to the DVLA-drafted legislative impact assessment (which also contained the infamous BPA court figures). After all, council parking (proper) fines may, ultimately, be enforced against registered keepers.

I suspect I will continue to wonder for some time.