Parking Fine UKCPS

JennyC18

Hi there, just looking for some advice....so I recently received a parking fine for parking at my own doctors surgery when attending for my baby's vaccinations, it seems I was parked in the wrong designated bay (sign very confusing!) and after a lengthy appeal with them I lost and took it on the chin having to pay £130. I was gob smacked today to receive another fine for £160 which was for parking in the same bay only three weeks after my first appointment and before I knew (following receipt of the fine later) I was not allowed to park there, before notice was given and after appeal for the initial incident. I've not paid this yet and has now been passed to debt recovery company, threatening to take me to court if I don't pay by the 23rd August.
I'm currently on mat leave with a baby and can't really afford to give them an additional £160 but worry if it goes to court I may end up with a much higher bill?!!

Any advice would be much appreciated! So gutted to have been penalised for what was a genuine mistake in the first place! Thanks

Coupon-mad

You never had to pay the £130, you were taken for a mug by a scam.

You are now on a mugs list, and UKCPS think you will pay every time.

What on earth allowed this to happen/you to pay? Why not complain to the Clinic/surgery Manager and get them to cancel the stupid fake fine?

worry if it goes to court I may end up with a much higher bill?!!

No, that doesn't happen and it's not a bill. You really should have come here first.

Even if you'd lost in court (and UKCPS are not very litigious) you would not have paid anything much different (no CCJ, nothing bad, no huge costs) and were more likely to get it cancelled simply by complaining, or defending it well, if a claim had arisen.

Tell us how you get on when you go in brandishing it and complain to the Manager, NOT taking ''no'' for an answer. Do that this week, to get it quashed.

Be polite and go well dressed, in heels or office shoes to make you feel confident, and not 'stressed mother with baby on hip'. You will be taken seriously if you complain and look like someone they - the clinic - need to take notice of, not a mum with baby brain (sounds awful but it's true).

Be professional in appearance and polite but assertive and refuse to walk away if rebuffed - ask for the person who can cancel these and do NOT be told that ''UKCPS own the car park''. AFAIK, they own no car parks.

UKCPS sometimes want £10 or so to cancel, if so then that might be worth doing, but they only offer it to landowners so you can't get that 'offer' yourself. The clinic can.

The_Deep

You have been scammed. Most surgeries have a feedback facility. You can write bad stuff on it about how they are in bed with scammers and probably in breach of NHS Guidelines.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles/nhs-patient-visitor-and-staff-car-parking-principles

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the House of Commons recently

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41 recently.

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.