A S Parking - new pay and display machines

caz74

Have picked up a private parking ticket today in my home town - this was in a beach side car park which for the whole time I have lived here has been free in the winter, and pay on entry to a man in a hut in the summer during the day, free in the evening when the man has gone home.

Parked today to go to the nearby doctor surgery, got back about 1/2 hour later to find a ticket on the windscreen, looked around and saw that pay and display machines had appeared. Charge would have been £1 for the time I was there.

Of course there are signs in place,but being a regular user of the car park, I just didn't notice them just parked and left. Not had a chance to look in detail at the signs but I know that not seeing them is not a valid reason to appeal. Have now found out that the charges came into force on 1 November.

At a quick glance there seem to be signs at the entrance, at the p&d machine, but certainly not at every pedestrian exit point. I was actually parked quite close to a machine so I am sure whoever issued it would have got a photo showing this.

The charge is £100.00 reduced to £60 if paid in 14 days. Having read through the guidance on this board, it seems that my only route of appeal would be to cite unfair terms in a contract/excess charges. The car park is run by a local charity who use the parking fees to maintain the parks, gardens etc in the town, so although I would be happy to contact them about it I don't want to go down the same route as some have done with supermarkets & other large retailers.

So my understanding is that I should not do anything now, wait for the notice to keeper and then write a letter similar to some of the examples stating that I am refusing to pay due to the charge being excessive, ask for a full breakdown of the landowner's loss etc. Then hopefully they will either cancel it or I can appeal to POPLA. Is this right?

Thanks for any advice.

Stroma

Well unless you are not the registered keeper of the vehicle wait until the Notice to Keeper arrives, it must be with you by days 29-56 after ticketing.

Make a complaint to the charity, and say that this does not reflect the loss to them, and its shameful to use unregulated cowboys to harass people in this manner, offer them a donation for this, say £5-£10 which will go in their coffers instead of a grubby parking company's back pocket.

Redx

yes that is more or less correct, I doubt the charity gets the £60 or £100 fee anyway, more like some of the £1 per hour charges when people do pay

just follow the advice in the sticky threads and wait for the NTK , or contact the charity and ask them to get the parking charge waived and agree a reasonable donation to their coffers instead

Umkomaas

OP - who precisely are the parking company? What company name do they display on your ticket?

Stroma

The OP has said AS Parking which are in the AOS

Umkomaas

Stroma wrote: »

The OP has said AS Parking which are in the AOS

The nearest I can see is Anchor Security Services t/as Care Parking.

I can't see any 'A S Parking'.

EDIT EDIT EDIT

Just found it Athens Security Services t/as A S Parking. Sorry OP, ignore my request. Cheers Stroma. It's all Greek to me!

Coupon-mad

caz74 wrote: »

So my understanding is that I should not do anything now, wait for the notice to keeper and then write a letter similar to some of the examples stating that I am refusing to pay due to the charge being excessive, ask for a full breakdown of the landowner's loss etc. Then hopefully they will either cancel it or I can appeal to POPLA. Is this right?

Thanks for any advice.

Welcome to MSE...and spot on with your research! See you back here in 2014 when you get your NTK.

caz74

Thanks for the replies, think I will contact the charity first, and hope they will accept a donation. Otherwise will be back for advice soon. .

dementedfeline

Caz - can you tell us what happened? Thanks, df

The_Deep

caz74 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, think I will contact the charity first, and hope they will accept a donation. Otherwise will be back for advice soon. .

Make them ashamed of themselves, send them something like this

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I wassurprised to see that you, a registered charity, employ a privateparking company to manage the car park at xxxxxx.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Youmay or may not be aware that this company is one of a number ofsimilar private parking companies who use underhand, threatening, andoften unlawful methods to bully, threaten and lie to extractextortionate sums of money from people, many of whom can ill affordit, for minor alleged breaches of non existent contracts. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Fora few minutes overstay in a free car park in a shopping centre, wherethere has been no loss to anyone, they will demand up to a hundredpounds in penalties, contrary to the Law of Contract. They uselegalise, threats, and scary letters from dodgy solicitors, debtcollectors and bailiffs. They try to pass themselves off as policeor councils, sending out fake court summonses, produce falsestatements from witnesses and take people to the County Court. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Onecompany, Parking Eye have issued over 7,000 summonses in the last 12months, although they rarely actually reach court as they know thatthey will lose most of them. However, according to an F.O.I. request, xxxx have not taken a single person to court in the last12 months. Could this be that they know that they have no case?[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Yourcontractor xxxx was I believe a former clamper called xxxxxx and isone of the more aggressive private parking companies. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thesecompanies are vultures, preying on the ignorant and vulnerable. Theyare not interested in the management of car parks for the benefits ofvisitors, but fining them for minor breaches of meaningless terms andconditions, and as a registered charity you should not be anaccomplice in their near criminal activities. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Theirso called Parking charges are merely speculative invoices, and theirclaims for breach are in fact unenforceable penalties.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Havingread this, I am sure that you will wish to disassociate yourself fromthis company immediately. [/FONT]

Please excuse the many errors, I typed this up in Word, and this is what came out, bloody computers.