The Mail gets dirty

londonTiger

To make my point I have downloaded a set of abbreviated accounts for parkingeye ltd.

People think the £60 fee is unjustified. But what they don't know is that £50 is their cost!

(accounts from the most recent file, y/e x/2013
Turnover: 14.2M
cost of sales: 2.3M
Admin expenses: 10.3M
Operating profit: 1.6M



So the parking enforcement loss is £50. And since PPC is not a charity and we live in a capitalist country where businesses exist to make profit. The £10 is probably a fair fee.

Northlakes

During my researches it has come fairly clear to me that the PMC's have no moral compass.
Like the banks they lost a sense of fairness and they are just interested in making money and most are quite prepared to lie in court to achieve the outcome they want.
They will hide the true nature of their contracts masquerading under customer confidentiality.
In time all will be revealed and I think we are about to see the birth of new claims industry, they will have plenty to go at!

verityboo

londonTiger wrote: »

Well loss is debatable.

Most people who whine about PPC have no idea of the bigger picture.

1) They assume that the car park has to be 100% full before it can incur loss. Forgetting that as drivers we would probably leave a supermarket car park after a few minutes of looking for a space. So even if the car park is 80% full legitimate customers will still leave and drive to another supermarket.

2) Parking is usually subsidised by the business. E.g. supermarket offers free parking for customers and the average customer spends £60 per shop. So the loss is not £0 just because they offered free parking. The loss is potentially £60 of revenue and future customer loyalty from that person who drove off because they couldn't find a space.

3) Parking enforcement costs money. Warden have to be paid, an employee has to be paid to constantly watch over the bays, admin has to be paid too. The bank default of £12 is all automatic. It is handled by a computer so the cost to the bank is probably just postage & printing. OTOH for parking the overheads are much more, it's a manual process.

Also if PPC was capped at £12 - I would never pay to park. Excel exhibition centre charges £15 for all day parking. Why would I pay? I'll just park up and wait for the parking invoice.

Chances are I will get away without a warden catching me 80% of the time so it's a good money saving gamble I can take.

LT, I wonder what your feelings are on these stories.

Firstly a case where a motorist stopped briefly at a southbound services in a morning and then briefly at the northbound services latter that day on the way home. They got a ticket for parking all day. Either the ANRP system they use is fundamentally flawed or they are intentionally issuing false tickets, which do you think?

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/parkingeye-charge-motorist-for-one-long.html

Secondly, this case where a judge ruled that the parking company had fabricated evidence

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/parkingeye-lose-case-judge-decides.html

You keep banging on that land owners have the right to control parking, no one seems to disagree! It's just how it's done. You seem to live in a dream world where private parking companies exist to control parking? :rotfl:

Northlakes

In reply to London Tiger.

In my researches from the last WmMorrison accounts I found that if a car park is full caused by an over-stayer of 30 minutes the loss in profit to them is £1.12.
Where does the £85 excess charge come from?

londonTiger

Northlakes wrote: »

In reply to London Tiger.

In my researches from the last WmMorrison accounts I found that if a car park is full caused by an over-stayer of 30 minutes the loss in profit to them is £1.12.
Where does the £85 excess charge come from?

I don't know about Morrison loss. Seems awefully low. Are you just looking at parking revenue?

But £50 of that is the cost of enforcement as per parking eye annual accounts.

halibut2209

Which part of "They cannot claim operating charges" do you not get?

Cornucopia

londonTiger wrote: »

Well loss is debatable.

Most people who whine about PPC have no idea of the bigger picture.

This isn't true. The "bigger picture" in terms of the balance sheets of the PPCs simply isn't relevant, and the terms of "loss" have been fairly well defined in the various court cases.

1) They assume that the car park has to be 100% full before it can incur loss. Forgetting that as drivers we would probably leave a supermarket car park after a few minutes of looking for a space. So even if the car park is 80% full legitimate customers will still leave and drive to another supermarket.

I suspect there is no liability for consequential losses. Even if there were, the profit margin on supermarket sales (for example) is very small. If the average shop is £60, then the profit is probably only £2-3.

2) Parking is usually subsidised by the business. E.g. supermarket offers free parking for customers and the average customer spends £60 per shop. So the loss is not £0 just because they offered free parking. The loss is potentially £60 of revenue and future customer loyalty from that person who drove off because they couldn't find a space.

I'm pretty sure there is no liability for consequential and notional losses.

3) Parking enforcement costs money. Warden have to be paid, an employee has to be paid to constantly watch over the bays, admin has to be paid too. The bank default of £12 is all automatic. It is handled by a computer so the cost to the bank is probably just postage & printing. OTOH for parking the overheads are much more, it's a manual process.

You are making the same mistake that the PPCs have made (and paid for in Court). The errant driver is not liable for any sum associated with the day-to-day costs of running the PPC.

This is the fundamental flaw in the business model. What is required is for the PPC to charge the landowner an appropriate fee for their services. This can then be funded either by parking fees or retail profits at the landowner's discretion.

The law is the law, and the PPCs' decision to implement a non-viable business model is not the concern of the public.

Also if PPC was capped at £12...

I didn't say that. I said that the admin fee could be capped at £12, and the (additional) loss would be determined by the type/cost of the parking concerned.

londonTiger

halibut2209 wrote: »

Which part of "They cannot claim operating charges" do you not get?

The part about we don't live in a communist country.

There are two ways to deal with this if they cannot claim parking enforcement cost.

1) Increase parking charges for everone so everyone pays £2 more per hour for parking enforcement.

2) Levy it from the overstayers for parking enforcement costs.

I don't know about you. But I don't want to pay £2 more each time I park just because idiots don't pay for their parking.

Northlakes

I think ParkingEye profits are going lower due to two factors,

1) The general public are getting wise to what they are up to.
2) Landlords rather than just accepting a contract where PE 'manage' a car park they want a share of the action through minimum amount kick-backs.

verityboo

londonTiger wrote: »

The part about we don't live in a communist country.

There are two ways to deal with this if they cannot claim parking enforcement cost.

1) Increase parking charges for everone so everyone pays £2 more per hour for parking enforcement.

2) Levy it from the overstayers for parking enforcement costs.

I don't know about you. But I don't want to pay £2 more each time I park just because idiots don't pay for their parking.

What about option 3 - have a fair system with a small overstay charge which covers costs but is not punitive such as here-

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/total-parking-solutions-set-overstay.html