Private parking firms could hand out 6.5 million tickets this year - MSE News

Umkomaas

FullCircle wrote: »

That is quite a number.

if this is year on year increase, clearly parking companies management styles are lacking somewhat.

no wonder Parking Eye was sold off for what was it £235m?

But it's nowhere near the real number. The 6.5m figure is based on the number of accesses of the DVLA database by PPCs - and they can only do it once per ticket.

But there is an unquantified figure to add to the 6.5m in the shape of those motorists who, when receiving a windscreen ticket, simply send off the £60 parking charge to avoid it being hiked to £100 within 14 days. For these motorists there is no need for the PPC to access the DVLA database. And I'd guess that the additional figure would be much more than significant.

waamo

According to industry insiders the majority of motorists pay up before they get a letter through the post. The amount of DVLA requests is just the tip of the iceberg.

Coupon-mad

MSE_Callum wrote: »

Well, we covered in January that the Government was having a 'crackdown' by introducing a new code for parking firms, but as we explained at the time, companies which don't sign up to the code of practice WILL still be able to issue tickets.

These companies will not be able to access DVLA data to chase non-payers.

But it's only firms that are members of parking bodies, which already have codes of conduct, that are able to access DVLA data anyway, so it's unclear what the crackdown will do.

And it's only the MSE article (and the frankly awful and dangerous to wealth 'interactive appeal letter for private parking firms') that has the completely wrong advice that actually tells people:

- to pay a private PCN if they think it was fair. There are no fair private PCNs.

- to talk about the story of what happened, including why they parked/who was driving,

and even worse:

- to actually reply and give their data to non-ATA member rogue firms...who can't get their data any other way and whose 'PCN' had as much legal weight as a Burger King flyer, and would/should have gone precisely nowhere, except to the bin.

So only poor saps who read the MSE article, and not this forum, will be chased as a 'non-payer' and open themselves up to be sued by an unregulated rogue firm! AAARGHH!!

The article urgently needs editing to reflect the correct advice from this forum.

Please.

We have asked so many times, I've had pm's and exchanged an email with the forum team suggesting urgent changes, then nothing gets changed.

It is not a risky piece of advice to tell people NOT to reply to a scam PCN on the windscreen, from an unregulated firm. MSE needs to revisit that, please.