Bought ticket, received PCN from HX Car Park Management

Coupon-mad

You don’t have to go to court, these cases are heard by telephone now.

I hope you see this through and don’t fund the scam operation.  Most cases don’t go to a claim anyway.

...but someone posted a win v HX Parking today, we assume you read it among today’s threads already as we read them all every day.  Learning and gaining confidence from other threads is the best use of the forum.

Not_A_Hope

I helped my son with a case involving HX Car Park Management who issued a claim for failed to purchase / validate a ticket. The signs informing him to enter his full and exact registration number were deliberately hidden on the poor condition terms and conditions signs away from the pay machine and the main entrance sign. He put in his £ and it gave him a ticket without prompting for a VRN. Fortunately he kept the ticket but HX would not accept it in his appeal even though somehow it had the first 2 digits of his VRN. Instead of perhaps offering a reduced £20 payment as a BPA member might they decided to take it all the way to the small claims court. With the help of the forum we put a good defence together and witness statement. HXs solicitors were Gladstones who didn't bother providing the court with a contact number so the scammers lost and he was awarded £95 costs. 

If HX deny your appeal it is a waste of time to appeal using their arbitration service IAS which may cost you £15 which they may suggest is binding a binding decision. IAS only agree to 4% of appeals and are a kangaroo court. HX are likely to bluff you all the way to a small claims court and defending their claim takes time and involves some work. I just hate to see these companies, debt collectors and solicitors getting away with their lies and scam the general public out of a large fortune every year. If I had evidence that payment was made I would fight it

Dave_Sk

Thanks for your replies. I'm really unhappy about paying a "fine" despite a valid ticket, on principle, but I know it'll cost me more than £60 worth of time and stress. I read the other post earlier about the person who won against HX which is great news and gives me a little confidence. 

I guess I'll see where I'm at after the appeal and see if the bank can provide more details of the transaction (the date on the statement doesn't match when the vehicle was parked as it was over the bank holiday weekend so payment didn't go out until Tues)

Thanks again, I'll come back either way when I hear back from them. 

Le_Kirk

Not_A_Hope said:

If HX deny your appeal it is a waste of time to appeal using their arbitration service IAS which may cost you £15 which they may suggest is binding a binding decision. IAS only agree to 4% of appeals and are a kangaroo court. HX are likely to bluff you all the way to a small claims court and defending their claim takes time and involves some work. I just hate to see these companies, debt collectors and solicitors getting away with their lies and scam the general public out of a large fortune every year. If I had evidence that payment was made I would fight it

You DO NOT use the paid for IAS appeal service as you will have agreed it is binding and very few are allowed in favour of the appellant.  Is it possible that because it was a van you have fallen foul of not paying enough?

Coupon-mad

To be clear, there are two IAS.  Both kangaroo courts but we only say never to try the pointless £15 non standard one.

The other one is at least free and whilst it is almost useless for consumers the current view is to try anyway as it looks better later and no Judge is going to be influenced by their rubbish.

Dave_Sk

Sorry for the delay - I said I'd get back when I hear more but I've been away for a week. 

HX Car Parks rejected my appeal. Seems that their argument is that the driver didn't display the ticket and that's part of the contract formed when entering the car park. 

I've now worked out who the landowner is, it's a local business that owns a hotel and some caravan parks by the looks of it, along with the car park. I've emailed them a complaint with the details and asked for them to cancel the charge.

Hopefully they will be more reasonable but if they refuse then I'll share my experience on as many review sites and social media sites as they have.

Does anyone know the legality/possibility of doing a charge back on the original £5 paid? A service was paid for a service and not been received. It's only a fiver but the hotel will get charged a few quid more to process it. 

Fingers crossed the hotel company are reasonable at this point.

Oh, the machine did only ask for the last 3 digits of the reg too - the rejection letter mentioned it. 

Coupon-mad

Good idea to do a chargeback snd yes, if you paid £5 then you didn't get that service. Maybe the hotel will step in when they know you are threatening a chargeback and bad Trip Advisor report.

KeithP

Dave_Sk said:

Does anyone know the legality/possibility of doing a charge back on the original £5 paid? A service was paid for a service and not been received. It's only a fiver but the hotel will get charged a few quid more to process it.

Good idea, but there are a couple of things to be aware of:
1) Mastercard have a minimum claim amount of £10. No minimum for Visa or Amex.
2) time limit of 120 days to claim - should still be ok with that.

More details here...
MSE's Chargeback article

Dave_Sk

Sadly, the land owner has refused to help with a vague "we can not overrule or become involved in their day to day management responsibilities"

Am I right in saying that the land owner ALWAYS has the last say in these cases? Or is it possible they they would like to help but the parking company won't always cancel even when the land owner requests it. 

If I don't pay the £60, what would my be defence be? They have evidence I didn't display the ticket. I have evidence I paid for the ticket but I can't prove it was displayed.
Sorry to ask further questions. I have searched the forum I can't seem to find anyone mounting a similar defence.
If they can show that I didn't display then I've breached contract apparently. Best argument I can come up after reading some threads is that the ticket slipped down the dash or fluttered away. Do these come up often and are they generally won?

Sorry again to ask for more info at this point. I'm just trying to get an idea of my chances of winning if I don't pay up. 

I'm sure the info is there on the forum but in my stressed rage I'm flitting from thread to thread and not finding anything concrete I can get my teeth into 

Le_Kirk

Search "fluttering ticket" there are loads of threads.