Parking stories in the News/media

Coupon-mad

Maybe...but it's a non-story in that respect. Journalist getting over excited about the wrong aspect of the story, as usual!

The lady could have appealed or used their complaints policy. And we all know you don't try to ring a scammer.

Good piece otherwise, to show that ANPR in the hands of private parking firms causes misery and huge data protection concerns.

Jenni_D

They publish on their website their company number (05645677) and their registered address (Horton House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool L2 3PF), and these match with their Companies House listing. But beyond that there is no easily-found contact info, except for their Data Protection email address on the Complaints/Privacy Policy page. 🙄

1505grandad

"When Denise tried to challenge the fines, she discovered that Civil Enforcement had made itself virtually unreachable. There is no phone number to call, no email address to write to, and no physical office to visit. The only point of contact is a payment portal."

Per "joint" single ppss CoP:-

"8.1.2.  The parking operator must ensure that a notice informs the recipient: a) of the contact details of the parking operator (e.g. telephone number, email address, website) and of those to which appeals should be made (where different);"

Nellymoser

Half_way said:

Nellymoser said:

CEL the untouchable parking firm invoices an Ipswich pensioner £700 for using her own drive

https://www.ipswich.co.uk/articles/civic-enforecement-fining-an-ipswich-pensioner-for-using-her-own-drive

Since August, Denise has accumulated seven pcns totalling £700 – not for illegal parking, but for the simple act of leaving her home. 

The camera, installed by retirement housing operator Kingsdale at Christchurch Court on Cobbold Mews, was meant to monitor the retirement housing car park. Instead, it has been capturing private parking spaces belonging to residents of neighbouring properties.

When Denise tried to challenge the fines, she discovered that Civil Enforcement had made itself virtually unreachable. There is no phone number to call, no email address to write to, and no physical office to visit. The only point of contact is a payment portal.

Civil Enforcement's business model appears to rely on making it as difficult as possible for people to challenge their fines. It has a 1.1-star rating on Google, based on more than 1,200 reviews from people who – like Denise – feel they have been unfairly treated and exploited. Words repeatedly used to describe them include "predatory", "exploitive", "thieves", "nightmare" and "horrendous".

Back in May Denise reached out to Kingsdale, the company managing Christchurch Court. The manager told Denise that she had spoken to the owners about the cameras and car park, and that "it is being looked into." Months later, nothing had changed, more pcns dropped through the letterbox.

Until Ipswich.co.uk contacted Kingsdale in November. 

A spokesperson confirmed they had been approached by Denise and that they were investigating. But in six months the company had taken no meaningful action to resolve the issue – until this week, when it appears that one camera was quietly removed.

One camera may have been removed, but the fines remain, and so does the fundamental problem. Private parking enforcement companies operate with minimal oversight, making themselves unreachable whilst threatening legal action against people who have done nothing wrong.

For Denise, the nightmare is not over as Civil Enforcement continues to threaten action.

Appalling story highlighting once again that citizens have to turn to the media for help.

simple, take legal action against the management company, time wasted and UKGDPR breach.
Those that enable PPCs need to be hurt (legally /financially) and until that starts happening the whole thing will just continue as is.

I think many will not have knowledge of this but if the MHCLG opt as outlined in the CoP consultation to "publish clear easily understandable guidance for motorists and make it available on GOV.UK" then what you're suggesting must be included in their guidance publication. 

We may all know that you don't ring a scammer but people who have no knowledge of the private parking sector don't know they fall into this category. Some may also have no or limited knowledge of complaints policy/privacy policy/CoP/ATAs and some may think appealing isn't the correct option when it's an operator error. Seemed sensible to me (at the time) to phone Nexus to inform them they'd made an error...not that I got through the phone number they provided was INVALID 😲  Certainly one way to stop pcn recipients contacting you !!

Jenni_D

1505grandad said:

"When Denise tried to challenge the fines, she discovered that Civil Enforcement had made itself virtually unreachable. There is no phone number to call, no email address to write to, and no physical office to visit. The only point of contact is a payment portal."

Per "joint" single ppss CoP:-

"8.1.2.  The parking operator must ensure that a notice informs the recipient: a) of the contact details of the parking operator (e.g. telephone number, email address, website) and of those to which appeals should be made (where different);"

The notice probably does have their website noted on it ... the problem is that the website gives no easily-found contact details. 🤦‍♀️

Fruitcake

This has been reported and repeated on several news sites in the South West.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yq737x0ngo

On one of the sites where comments are permitted, someone posted a question along the lines of,
"Why is the British Parking Association involved? They and their members are are completely unregulated, and a former CEO of the Association is a convicted sex offender."

Umkomaas

Jenni_D said:

They publish on their website their company number (05645677) and their registered address (Horton House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool L2 3PF), and these match with their Companies House listing. But beyond that there is no easily-found contact info, except for their Data Protection email address on the Complaints/Privacy Policy page. 🙄

Mail Drop address. They are there with dozens of other companies hiding operating in relative anonymity!

MothballsWallet

Jenni_D said:

They publish on their website their company number (05645677) and their registered address (Horton House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool L2 3PF), and these match with their Companies House listing. But beyond that there is no easily-found contact info, except for their Data Protection email address on the Complaints/Privacy Policy page. 🙄

That's still a breach of the Companies Act, which states that a company must include their full name, company numner, postal address, phone number(s) and email address(es) on their website - and it's all of those that have to be provided.

Nellymoser

Parking Eye has been issuing fines for seven years without permission at Fulwood Booths car park

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/cameras-preston-supermarket-ran-seven-144302681.html

The company has now been granted “retrospective” permission by the authority.

The firm said: "in relation to the oversights in those cases that any notices issued during the period that planning approval was not in place were “still valid”.

So embarrassing for a company that charges motorists £100+ for 'breaching rules' is actually 'breaching rules' themselves. Astonishing some think that's perfectly OK.

Umkomaas

Nellymoser said:

Parking Eye has been issuing fines for seven years without permission at Fulwood Booths car park

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/cameras-preston-supermarket-ran-seven-144302681.html

The company has now been granted “retrospective” permission by the authority.

The firm said: "in relation to the oversights in those cases that any notices issued during the period that planning approval was not in place were “still valid”.

So embarrassing for a company that charges motorists £100+ for 'breaching rules' is actually 'breaching rules' themselves. Astonishing some think that's perfectly OK.

Oh dear, an unfortunate oversight.  Well, perhaps not!

https://prankster58.rssing.com/chan-14693065/all_p47.html

One thing to note that may be of interest to motorists is that in the majority of sites, there is no planning permission. ParkingEye operate a model of retrospective planning. So get the go ahead from the client, bang the system in and then if there was any noise file a retrospective planning order.
The point was to save on costs. And it worked.

They’ve been at it for years!