Newcastle Airport UKPPO BW Legal collective defence group

Ralph-y

The private parking bill parliament history.................................

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-02-02/debates/CC84AF5E-AC6E-4E14-81B1-066E6A892807/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill

and slightly longer, the committee stage

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/d5550515-cce9-4185-83ec-754dadb7524a

''Rip-offs from car park Cowboys must stop''; unfair treatment; signage deliberately confusing to ensure a PCN is issued; ''years of abuse by rogue parking companies''; bloodsuckers; ''the current system of regulation is hopeless, like putting Dracula in charge of the blood-bank''; extortionate fines; rogue operators; ''sense of injustice''; unfair charges and notices; wilfully misleading; signage is a deliberate act to deceive or mislead; ''confusing signs are often deliberate, to trap innocent drivers''; unreasonable; a curse; harassing; operating in a disgusting way; appeals service is no guarantee of a fair hearing; loathed; outrageous scam; dodgy practice; outrageous abuse; unscrupulous practices; ''the British Parking Association is as much use as a multi-storey car park in the Gobi desert''; and finally, by way of unanimous conclusion: ''we need to crack down on these rogue companies. They are an absolute disgrace to this country. Ordinary motorists and ordinary residents should not have to put up with this''.

·    These are the exact words used, so you should quote them to your MP in a complaint and ask him/her to contact Sir Greg Knight MP if he wants further information about this scam.

and some quotes from the committe stage

"The other area is hospital parking, and I want to single out one company for some pretty shady practices. That is ParkingEye"    
      " is very clear to me that there is collusion between parking companies and solicitors’ firms—so-called roboclaims companies. "
            "They are often set up adjacently and involve the same directors and personnel. Incidentally, the same personnel get involved in the so-called appeals bodies." 
        "Essentially, it is a money-making enterprise that takes advantage of motorists up and down the country. They operate in a very business-like fashion, which is why I call them roboclaims companies."         
      "The companies are jamming up parts of our legal system."           
    “I now pretty much know exactly how the parking companies and in particular the IPC have been running this scam for the past 5 years. Basically both of the appeals processes are a complete and utter sham, (and part of that sham is Gladstones Solicitors itself)”     
               "The appeals process at Excel/VCS is run by a team of minimum wage office workers with no legal knowledge or experience whatsoever,"      
        " It is claimed by the head of the appeals service (retired Judge Bryn Holloway) that this is a completely independent fair process, it is not”         
  "The letter mentions two individuals—Will Hurley and Bryn Holloway—and concludes   this is a typical example of the clear collusion between the IPC, their members and the IAS"  
                  "what we can do about roboclaims companies and solicitors  firms that profit, often in shady ways"            
       " the very large amounts of money that can be involved in such scams—a company called Smart Parking was involved in one such scam on my patch"        
        "tightening up the rules regarding the unfair use of automatic number plate recognition"                  "BW Legal, regularly issues 10,000 county court judgments a month, and is known to have issued 28,000 in one month"       
          "They are jamming up our court system, and are often totally unjustified."        
 " because the lifeblood of trying to extort money from people is having access to their details."    



and the third reading
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/e5b67de6-b2f5-4e03-98bf-52d40c8af2df?in=12:05:05&out=14:14:53

it has now gone to 'the other place'  .....

Ralph

KeithP

Ralph-y said:

it has now gone to 'the other place'  .....

Ralph

Ralph, it's passed through that other place and received Royal Assent on 15th March 2019.

It is now law.

All we are now waiting for is the Code of Practice which apparently the British Standards Institute are charged with producing.

Edislaw

Have the British Standards Institution consulted the public on what should be in it?

beamerguy

Edislaw said:

Have the British Standards Institution consulted the public on what should be in it?

As far as we know, not yet.  I doubt we will see anything for while now.
Until then, we are having fun getting the scammers spanked in court

D_P_Dance

Is this normally part of their MO?

Edislaw

Frankly, the fact that you have had to tell thousands of people over the years where the Newbies thread is supports my point that it would benefit all to find a better way of advising people from the start of their journey. Having decades of volunteering, campaigning and local politics behind me I understand the frustration when one's message doesn't get through but the answer is never to belittle, berate or otherwise insult the person in receipt of your message with comments like "so I will take your comments seriously when you are up to speed and not firing blanks whilst blindfolded or with blinkers on"
The first thing I did was contact my MP but because work was involved he took his usual get out route of referring me to a minister whose response was useless. 
Thirteen months is not an unethical delay to produce regulations but it is unacceptable. Pressure needs to be brought to bear in those responsible. Brexit and Covid-19 are both, in this context excuses for inaction.

D_P_Dance

Edislaw, surely it has not escaped your attention that many of our  "customers" have not made the slightest effort to help themselves get out of situations which are entirely their own fault in the first place.  Sometime tough love is the answer.   

Edislaw

Tough love is no excuse for rudeness!

Fruitcake

Edislaw said:

Frankly, the fact that you have had to tell thousands of people over the years where the Newbies thread is supports my point that it would benefit all to find a better way of advising people from the start of their journey. Having decades of volunteering, campaigning and local politics behind me I understand the frustration when one's message doesn't get through but the answer is never to belittle, berate or otherwise insult the person in receipt of your message with comments like "so I will take your comments seriously when you are up to speed and not firing blanks whilst blindfolded or with blinkers on"
The first thing I did was contact my MP but because work was involved he took his usual get out route of referring me to a minister whose response was useless. 
Thirteen months is not an unethical delay to produce regulations but it is unacceptable. Pressure needs to be brought to bear in those responsible. Brexit and Covid-19 are both, in this context excuses for inaction.

What in your opinion would be a better way to tell people about a sticky thread that is at the top of the very first page a new poster will come to when they land on the parking forum, asking people to read it before posting or starting a thread?

Earlier you said, "Might it be easier for the new reader to find if a link like this one were emailed to each person as they posted for the first time on this forum?"

I presume you mean send a private message because nobody here will know someone's email address in advance, and it would be a very bad idea to actually post an email address on a public forum that the parking scammers read.

Who would you suggest sends the link? Are you volunteering to do it a hundred times a day, (roughly the number of new threads we get on a daily basis) and monitoring the site 24/7 to ensure you don't miss someone out? 
How would any of the regulars or occasional visitors know if this had already been done or not? Do you really expect every one of us to do it only to fill up somebody's inbox because 20 other people have already done it?

When people sign up to MSE, and most other internet forums, they are told to read the stickies first. It's no different to driving or going into a shop or bank or similar. Signs, in this case the sticky threads, are put up at the entrance explaining most things people need to know before entering. 
Speed limits, opening and closing times, entrance and exits are all signed at the beginning, and the NEWBIES thread is no different.

Yes we do get fed up having to repeat ourselves because people have missed the important information already given. It is there so we don't have to repeat ourselves a hundred times a day. 

If you can think of a better way of doing this then please tell us how. I've repeatedly asked MSE to get the NEWBIES heading changed to a red font, but I have no power to do this myself. Even then I'm sure people will still miss it. 

All of this is distracting from the original purpose of this thread that was set up to help a group of people with the same problem at one specific location. 

If you want to discuss just the NEWBIES then perhaps you would be so kind as to start a new thread and provide some constructive comments about how it can be better highlighted so the regulars don't have to keep going over the same ground.

D_P_Dance

There us nothing wrong with being rude to someone if there is justification.