Paying for parking in the first place

bonj

OK so I know this forum's mainly about dealing with bogus "fines" which are really simply requests for payment, and the technical aspects of dealing with PPCs.

But. Supposing someone hypothetically worked somewhere that charges a not-insignificant sum (multiple pounds, rather than pence) to park there all day, while said hypothetical person was at work.
If they knew, partly from such excellent sites as this, how easy it was to avoid paying the unfair "penalty" that the PPC foists on them, they could simply not bother buying a pay-and-display ticket at all. And over the course of weeks, months, years, save quite a packet.
Should they?

(Apologies if this is off topic and verging too far into the whys and wherefores, morals even - but the above question got me thinking about, if parking wasn't such a cash-crop, would quite so much land be given over to it?)

forgotmyname

After you fail to pay a couple of tickets and they get nowhere with the bogus fines i guess they could still chase you for the unpaid parking tickets.

Avoiding those and legal costs will be harder. The main saviour at the moment is their silly charges. £90+ for being on the line or staying 2 minutes longer than you paid etc.

If they claim the correct parking fees and legal costs then your probably going to lose.

andy_foster

The Fraud Act 2006 created (or otherwise codified) an offence of obtaining services dishonestly. Assuming that the use of a parking space qualifies as a 'service' and the charge the driver is deliberately avoiding is a legitimate one, then I would say that you would 'hypothetically' be committing a serious criminal offence and that anyone who advised you to do so would be guilty of conspiracy.

I would add that suggestions such as yours are tend to justify the PPCs' 'unorthodox business model' ('cos we can't call it a scam) of issuing fake fines to protect vulnerable landowners from scum who would otherwise 'steal' parking spaces.

The_Slithy_Tove

At multiple pounds per day for multiple days, it would be well worth the PPC taking legal action for the recovery of that money. Check out Parking Eye v Smithy. Even though PE tried to claim several hundred pounds, which was deemed a penalty, Smithy did end up having to pay the unpaid daily charges plus DVLA fees. If a judge deemed you hypothetical fee-dodger to have been acting unreasonably in deliberately and repeatedly not paying, he may not be so generous towards the defendant.

hoohoo

If I was the landowner I would be taking legal advice on
a) Issuing a notice that from now on you and your vehicle would be trespassing
b) Removing the vehicle if it reappeared to a safe area (possibly the keeper's address)

Hot_Bring

It's called theft and is no more acceptable than if someone told you how to get away with stealing stuff from a supermarket. Would you do that ..... hypothetically speaking ?

The_Deep

Whilst it may be acceptable to "forget" to pay £12 in a MSA after dozing off, deliberation avoiding a charge of that amount for several days in a P&D car park might be deemed by a judge as behaviour verging on the criminal. In which case, you could be writing a largish cheque.

bonj

Hmm. Thanks all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning it at all, if nothing else, it doesn't pass the "if everyone did it" test - it's not fair on our hypothetical protagonist's colleagues who, it has to be assumed, do pay.
Still not sure it's criminal/theft, which requires intention of permanent depravation of the owner - or trespass, which is a civil offence...
But then I suppose staying in a hotel and then b*ggering off without paying is almost certainly theft, so not sure where line is drawn.
Certainly take the point about it reaching the point at where a claim is justified.

bonj

Hot_Bring wrote: »

It's called theft and is no more acceptable than if someone told you how to get away with stealing stuff from a supermarket. Would you do that ..... hypothetically speaking ?

The difference being that the supermarket is permanent deprived of that product, where a PPC is not permanently deprived of anything.

The only thing you're depriving them of is the revenue that they may otherwise have earned, in which case it's similar to illegally downloading music.

Again - just to strongly point out - I'm certainly not condoning this - just hypothetically wondering.

Herzlos

They are entitled to take you to court for actual losses, which in this case would be a real GPEOL (the daily fee x number of days you failed to pay + whatever it costs to persue you). It's likely also a criminal offense.

As The Deep almost said; it's one thing to not notice that charges exist, or overstay for a few minutes and refuse to pay an inflated penalty. It's something entirely different to deliberately avoid paying rates in the first place.

Hot_Bring

bonj wrote: »

The difference being that the supermarket is permanent deprived of that product, where a PPC is not permanently deprived of anything.

The only thing you're depriving them of is the revenue that they may otherwise have earned, in which case it's similar to illegally downloading music.

Again - just to strongly point out - I'm certainly not condoning this - just hypothetically wondering.

You are depriving them of the fee for the service so it is theft. Now the 'penalties' they attempt to charge if you don't pay are immoral and unlawful.

Let's say you are a builder and you build a wall for a client. They pay you up front for the materials but then don't pay you for the labour .... ever. They've not deprived you of a physical product so you'll be OK with this ?