Parking ticket from CM Services Ltd. Any advice?

vickybarbie86

Am so annoyed; I came out of work today to find a parking ticket from CM Services Ltd. stuck to my windscreen as I'd forgotten to display my parking permit. It was a £100 'fine' reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days, and said that they'd taken 5 photos. I am the registered keeper and it happened in Cheshire in England.

I am determined that I'm NOT paying this, i.e. a charge for parking in a space that a) I couldn't have accessed anyway had I not worked within the building, as you need an allocated key to unlock/lower a metal post that is positioned in the middle of the space to prevent people parking there that shouldn't, and b) is already paid for by the company I work for through their lease of the offices within the building!

There are signs up in the car park but have never read them as have never had any previous parking concerns.

I have had parking 'fines' before from a company called Parking Eye, however I was advised to ignore their letters (which became increasingly demanding). I did this and they eventually just stopped contacting me!

Should I do the same with this company?! Any advice would be much appreciated

Umkomaas

First off - thanks for starting a new thread so we can deal with your specific case, which is quite different from the thread you started on because CM Services are not members of the BPA, but come under the auspices of the IPC:

http://www.theipc.info/#!aos-members/cv75

and deal with things on a slightly different basis - a contractual charge rather than one for breach of contract. IPC is a fairly new arrival on the scene and we are developing strategy in dealing with contractual charges.

But the first thing you must do is to await the Notice to Keeper (NtK) if all you've received so far is a windscreen ticket, unless this is a company or hire car (come back immediately if it is). The NtK should arrive somewhere days 29 and 56 after the parking event.

Meantime please take the time delay to thoroughly read the NEWBIES sticky at the top of the forum index where you will find the most comprehensive online advice available about how to deal with all things related to private parking charges.

Coupon-mad

Genuine question - could you help me understand why the top sticky thread is invisible? What doesn't grab your attention BEFORE posting, about a thread right at the top of the first page, permanently there, called:

Sticky: **NEWBIES!! PRIVATE PARKING TICKET? OLD OR NEW? **READ THESE FAQS FIRST!** Thankyou!

Why did I bother to write the sticky and tweak it every week to keep it up to date with all a NEWBIE needs to know about a private parking ticket, if newbies ignore it and post 'help I've got a fine, what do I do?'

Sorry for the rant but this is silly and we can't keep up with the same stuff again and again - which is why I wrote the top sticky FAQs thread and why it's 'stuck' at the top. To start a new thread newbies must have started on page one...did you not read the sticky threads at all even though that's where the info is already typed out?

Start here and learn about how a forum works, what sticky threads are, how to search the forum board, how to find your way back to page one, etc.:

New To The Forum?

...then go to the sticky threads. My signature below even explains where to click to find current threads & advice, under every post I write.

We really want everyone to learn about and beat this scam but - that's why the advice is there at the top, so no-one misses it. Oh wait...

vickybarbie86

Coupon mad - sorry to have missed your amazing, all-singing all-dancing thread, however as a first time user of an internet forum this is all completely new to me. Have you never found anything unfamiliar and a little hard to understand at first?
I have now seen your thread and whilst it is helpful, I'm sure you can understand that people will still want to seek further clarification / confirmation on what you say, hence them starting new (what you deem to be unnecessary),threads.
Anyway, thanks for your 'help', but what I was actually looking for were other people's experiences with this specific company.

Guys_Dad

You made one point that worried me. Yes, in the past if you ignored PCNs they sometimes went away, but for 18 months now, the game has changed and since POFA2012, there is a concept of Keeper Liability and the PPCs, having lost their clamping revenue, have become more aggressive so don't ignore.

Also, you mentioned Parking Eye. They have been catching up on their back catelogue.

Coupon-mad

vickybarbie86 wrote: »

what I was actually looking for were other people's experiences with this specific company.

So to find those you can search the forum for 'CM Services' or maybe try 'CMS' as a keyword. On any forum, read sticky (information) threads and do searches, in priority to starting a thread from scratch which is only going to be seen by a few people then it will become dormant. Your chances of someone with a CMS ticket stumbling upon your threads and reading this are low. Whereas if you practise using the 'search this forum' heading above the sticky threads at the top of page one of this board, next to 'forum tools' you can search for anything at any stage and you WILL find those other people.

The 'new to the forum' link in blue I also gave you above is the basic run-thru for newbies to understand the monster that is MSE forums - and we know it is hard to negotiate for newbies. You don't find others in the same boat by starting a thread, you find them by searching.

Sorry I was a moo with my posts (you weren't the only one last night to get that reply!). We just had far too many new 'help me' threads started in one day when the posters must have looked at page one to have clicked 'new thread' so we do wonder why the NEWBIES FAQs thread is overlooked. Saves us having to repeat what's already here - and the danger can be you could miss the advice at a later stage if you don't use the search facility or know about the sticky thread. It takes you right through to how to win at IPC appeal (a bit like a POPLA appeal).

Can you show us the sign on site? Although IPC members 'have to' avoid using words like 'breach' or contravention' that's not always the case and the signage wording could win this for you at independent appeal stage. As a newbie you can't yet post working links so you would need to host your pics on tinypic or photobucket and then post a partial URL to the photos, here in a reply (remove the http://).