AS Parking? Should I pay up?

Silenced

Hey all, enquiring for a friend

Recently got a parking ticket from a company named AS Parking, the reason was that he parked his car in the car park of a B&Q (Or similar place) and then walked around 20 metres to go into the McDonalds for some food, the reason he parked in the B&Q was because the McDonalds car park was so full there was no spaces.

He got a parking ticket saying he left the site therefore now has a fine.

What's the best thing to do here? Pay up or leave it?

SodG24

Silenced wrote: »

Hey all, enquiring for a friend

Recently got a parking ticket from a company named AS Parking, the reason was that he parked his car in the car park of a B&Q (Or similar place) and then walked around 20 metres to go into the McDonalds for some food, the reason he parked in the B&Q was because the McDonalds car park was so full there was no spaces.

He got a parking ticket saying he left the site therefore now has a fine.

What's the best thing to do here? Pay up or leave it?

Hmmm, let me see ......... thousands upon thousands of posts making clear that you should ignore "tickets" from private parking tickets. A sticky thread that lists almost every PPCs letter chain. Hmmmm, yes, that's a difficult one !!!!! I'd bet on the correct advice being ..... IGNORE !

Stephen_Leak

I have every sympathy for a car park owner, who pays good money to provide parking for their customers, only to see it used by others. However, allowing a PPC to blackmail them isn't the answer.

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.

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 (which involved a driver committing "anti-trespass"), 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, , maybe, also 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.

Coupon-mad

It is a scam. Ignore it. THIS IS NOT A FINE.

NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, no CCJ, nothing! It's not a real PCN so please also tell your friend this fact too.

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.

As long as none of your cars that got the fake 'tickets' are company or hire cars then it's easy for the registered keepers to ignore the letters now they know it's all a well-known con trick.

Oh and show your friend the Watchdog clip linked on another top sticky thread 'PPC letters & threats' which is currently 2nd 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.

It's not difficult to play 'snap' with some junk mail you can predict! Enjoy the Summer and you/your friend can just tick off each matching letter against our thread.

HTH