Mr McDonald

trisontana

To add to that, I thought it's the landowner who has to suffer a loss, not the parking company.

nigelbb

Umkomaas wrote: »

Pin-point accuracy, as usual, Nigel; laser guided observation. Always read your inputs with interest.

Thanks. I think that we get bogged down in firefighting PCNs with POPLA appeals & ignore the elephant in the room that the whole PPC industry is founded on a Big Fat Lie. Aside from the fact that no losses are incurred by the PPCs (& rarely by the landowners) in most cases there is no contract for parking but instead permission or licence from the landowner e.g free parking at retailers. Even if there is a contract in a pay & display car park the contract is never with the PPC but always with the landowner/leaseholder.

Stroma

But that argument can only be used in a court or popla, it's no good advising posters that there is no contract and no loss without using that in a place that can get it cancelled. Most regulars know this already, but we are advising people who have never come across this scam previously.

The only way to really liquidate these companies is to ignore them completely, and I mean everyone when they get a fake ticket. The only time to respond if a claim drops through the door. But getting more than 2m motorists to ignore is nigh on impossible

nigelbb

I'm discussing strategy not tactics. Of course we advise the victims on the most pragmatic way to get these vultures off their backs but we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture. These PPCS with their corrupt business model didn't exist 15 years ago so they serve no real function except to take money generally from shoppers.

Stroma

I agree with you, and these vermin are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in 95% of places, very few car parks are abused, and those who do this generally know this is a scam. I see a number of supermarkets near with no scammers, and in general have no problems.

The problems start when the vermin are arrive, they only make money from genuine users of these places. How these retailers fall this spiel time and again makes me wonder at the sanity of the service providers, how they can think that they will get something for nothing is beyond me. If it's to good to be true then it is!

nigelbb

It's all part of the management culture of outsourcing. Years ago when I was a corporate wage slave in a large organisation the expenses department used expense claim forms that they produced & issued to the organisation (this was before widespread computerisation). Someone had the bright idea that they wouldn't send out the forms any more but each department would take one of the old forms & every time that someone needed an expenses form they would photocopy it. So the forms were still used & the budget of the expenses department looked more healthy as they weren't paying printing costs for the forms but the overall cost to the company of photocopying all the forms was higher.

The_Slug

nigelbb wrote: »

Agreed. Loss is loss not absence of profit.

Legally wrong. Please see:

In the case of Burmah Steam Ship Co Ltd v CIR [1930] 16TC67

"At page 71 the Lord President (Lord Clyde) drew a distinction between filling a hole in the trader’s profits and filling a hole in the trader’s assets. A sum received to compensate for loss of profits would be chargeable as trading income. A sum received to compensate for loss of a capital asset would be a capital receipt outside the scope of the charge of income tax:

‘Suppose someone who chartered one of the appellant’s vessels breached the charter and exposed himself to a claim of damages at the appellant’s instance, there could, I imagine, be no doubt that the damages recovered would properly enter the appellant’s profit and loss account for the year. The reason would be that breach of the charter was an injury inflicted on the appellant’s trading, making (so to speak) a hole in the appellant’s profits, and the damages recovered could not therefore be reasonably or appropriately put by the appellant - in accordance with the principles of sound commercial accounting - to any other purpose than to fill that hole. Suppose, on the other hand, that one of the appellant’s vessels was negligently run down and sunk by a vessel belonging to some other ship owner, and the appellant recovered as damages the value of the sunken vessel, I imagine that there could be no doubt that the damages so recovered could not enter the appellant’s profit and loss account because the destruction of the vessel would be an injury inflicted, not on the appellant’s trading, but on the capital assets of the appellant’s trade, making (so to speak) a hole in them, and the damages could therefore - on the same principles as before - only be used to fill that hole.’"

Damages to a company can only be to the profits or to the assets of the company.:)

Stroma

But they are not the ones making a loss as they are not actually the landowner. And as the landowner is not taking them to court but a third party company, they don't have any right to initiate claims in most cases. This is not about the parking company it's about the landowner

The_Slug

Quite right the landowner could potentially make a loss but the BPA say otherwise. POPLA appear to think, that PE for example, should be able to demonstrate their own (PE's) loss. In fact PE try to show that they have suffered a loss - many times in court judges have accepted that.

Stroma

The small claims will always be a lottery, because that is the very nature of them. But district judges appear to be seeing this for what it is, and that is baseless claims without merit. The problem for parking eye is that the more claims they make the closer they will come to being vexatious litigants. When that happens their whole operation will fall apart.