I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again

Guzzi

As a first post on this Forum I would like to thank all those who contribute their stories and advice it really helps to fight these parking companies. We know they rely on people taking the easy way out and paying up these extortionate fees.

Here's my tale

Not long ago I went to a popular concert venue and parked in a nearby industrial estate, after the concert I find a PCN attached to the car. Kind of ruined the evening, then again as the area was quite busy with concert goers and cars parked on both sides of the narrow road I had put a wheel on the kerb, myfault. I got home and took a closer look to find it said I didn't have a permit, didn't see any "Pay and Display" machines anywhere. A scam perhaps, even if they only got 5% of the cars parked along the street they'd be quids in , most were on the kerb.

Next day I emailed the council to find out if this was a genuine charge and they informed me that don't have a contract with XXXPC. I decide this is a scam but to email an appeal since this was indicated on the PCN, with a nice clear picture from Google Earth showing this is public highway and they don't have enforcement authority from the council. I get an automated reply inviting me to pay and saying appeals need to be in writing. In the evening I pop back to the site and find a sign not shown on Google "Warning Private land" on the fence of a business compound with terms of a parking contract. Also around the estate there are "Warning Guard Dogs", "No Parking" and "No Trespass" signs. I ask the business employee but he says they're nothing to do with their business. Definite scam thinks I and will wait for any further action.

Now I have a letter, they got my address from DVLA even though they could have contacted me by email and saved themselves a few quid. It says that I had an opportunity to appeal but that has now lapsed and have 28 days to pay.

I replied with a 5 page challenge with 10 cases they would need to satisfy to justify the claim for £100. Who owns what land and where, evidence, habius corpus etc. Mainly though to get my case in first that with a plethora of signs I am not going to read them all in detail especially when I am about to see the most awesome band ever,they become part of the background scenery. Mostly though that any sign could be reasonably expected to refer to land within the compound rather than the rest of the world as no boundaries were mentioned. No contract had been formed or individually negotiated and so basically to put up or shut up.

I await their response and will keep you kind people posetd to help the next fellow traveller in the same way this forum has helped me.

Any advice or predictions for the next exchange, did I do the right thing, could I have done better? All welcome feedback.

Cheers

Guzzi

Stroma

Have you asked the council if this is a public road? If they are ticketing without authority its akin to fraud. Who is the parking company involved? Did they send the notice to keeper within 56 days of getting the fake ticket? Is this England or Wales? Have you admitted you were the driver?

Thanks

pogofish

Was this in England or Scotland? - I can think of one Scottish venue with a private estate nearby that does this - And the course of action there would be to ignore but not if you are in England.

Also, which company issued the ticket? This also has import.

Guzzi

Thanks for the replies, this is in England and no I didn't ask if it was a public road, it so obviously is and it is a through road but in the unlikely event it isn't my main argument is that the signs appear to reffer to the compound rather than the road. Their NtK letter reffers to a company and postcode on the estate but says land at XYZ

notice to Keeper was sent quite quickly and within 56 days.

The company has appeared on other forums ... forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=1657893&page=1

pogofish

OK, so its our old chums UKCPS. As fine a bunch of scamming lowlifes as you might expect.

And the council have confirmed that they have no involvement, so you are into the standard post-POPLA procedure for challenging it:

What you need to do if you are in England or Wales is make a "soft" challenge/appeal to UKCPS, this can be as detailed or light as you like as it will most likely be refused - but you need to insist on a POPLA code along with any refusal.

Then you take a good look at the various successful POPLA challenges here and choose the ones most apt to your situation and base a proper challenge on that. Poor sinage and possible breach of BPA T&Cs or planning permissions may well feature highly but those with more skill in putting appeals together will no-doubt be along soon.

Guzzi

Thanks, seems they have form. I requested in my apeal email a POPLA reference, didn't get one and have requested one also in my challenge letter. I made quite a strong challenge to them with the sort of request for information that a POPLA / court pre-action process would need.

Also interesting in the thread mentioned above is a reference to them selling a do-it-yourelf ticketting kit. You ticket whatever you like and they handle the paperwork and will pay you something for each succesful scam. Who is then committing the fraud?

Coupon-mad

Guzzi wrote: »

Thanks, seems they have form. I requested in my apeal email a POPLA reference, didn't get one and have requested one also in my challenge letter. I made quite a strong challenge to them with the sort of request for information that a POPLA / court pre-action process would need.

Also interesting in the thread mentioned above is a reference to them selling a do-it-yourelf ticketting kit. You ticket whatever you like and they handle the paperwork and will pay you something for each succesful scam. Who is then committing the fraud?

Your case is the same as every other UKCPS thread, so read others while you are waiitng (but ONLY recent ones from May onwards for instance). Google 'UKCPS factual issues' to see threads with the same template response you got, and to see what happens next.

Report them to the BPA and DVLA right now, for not replying to a challenge with a POPLA code. BPA email can be found on their website 'how to report/complain about an AOS member' (or summat like that). DVLA reply on this email:

[EMAIL="FOI@dvla.gsi.gov.uk"]FOI@dvla.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

HTH - and also read 'POPLA strong appeals' threads, loads of links on loads of threads all over the first few pages of the parking forum.