I got a ticket without ever entering a parking space or leaving my vehicle!

Car1980

Yep, it's not about winning. It's about making money through a business model that utilises
the court service. They never have any intention of going to a hearing and would have discontinued anyway if the judge hadn't struck it out. No profit in complying with the court order.

They literally file 1000 claims a week with the intention of discontinuing them all. They only need 140 people to pay up to break even.

I wouldn't be surprised if 500 do. That's £125k made on an outlay of £35k.

tegmim

It seems like a massive abuse of the legal system, to strongarm people into paying money that is not due.

Coupon-mad

The CNBC wastes its time and resources on well over 2000 cases per week from DCB Legal. We know this from the DLUHC's draft Impact Assessment in 2023 where they were the supposedly anonymous biggest bulk litigator on the 'top ten' list from the MoJ.

@tegmim  I hope you plan to stick around to respond with us (each individually) to the Public Consultation which is now open for August?

What parking operators do is is a national disgrace and a drain on Society, in terms of money and anxiety.

If you want to be part of the push to change things in future, it's very important that people like you tell the Government that:

a) you have no faith in POPLA or the IAS and that there must be a SINGLE APPEALS SERVICE that people trust. The sector is crying out for an independent and impartial appeals service - not two involved in a race to the bottom - that will give a real option to resolve disputed cases out of court. 

b).  THE ENRICHMENT OF 'DEBT RECOVERY FEES' MUST BE COMPLETELY BANNED. CASES ARE NOT SOLVED BY DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND OFFERING A 'PAYMENT PLAN' THAT ONLY THE VULNERABLE PAY. DRAS LIKE DCB LEGAL MAKE NO MONEY IF THEY HANDLE DISPUTES IN THE SPIRIT OF THE APPEALS CHARTER, WHICH IS WHY THEY ALWAYS PLOUGH ON TO COURT CLAIMS AND CCJs, RATHER THAN OFFERING REAL RESOLUTION AT PRE-ACTION STAGE. THEY OFFER NOTHING, NO LEGITIMATE OPTION TO KEEP CASES OUT OF COURT.

c). Tell them about your experience and the complete and utter waste of court resources caused on a grand scale by greedy bulk litigators who don't do the right thing by consumers and use pre-action stage merely to threaten and intimidate. Then they use and abuse the court system. Show the Government those court orders. This wasted the time of a judge, an officer of the court, the CNBC and yourself. It's got to stop.

Responses are invited to the Consultation now:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

Do it this month pleeease!

We will discuss it further next week on that thread if you need more focus. But I suspect you could write a book about it after all this!

tegmim

I completed it.

In particular, I said: 

The consideration period needs to be much longer. It can take 15 minutes to drive into a car park and the then to look around all the different sections of it (especially if it contains numerous dead-ends, or winds in and out of railway arches, or goes up and down narrow ramps into different sections or levels) before discovering there is no available space and leaving. Also, it is normal practice to wait in a row of a car park for another car to leave, before being able to park - but this is not part of the period of parking that should be charged for. It is an inconvenience, not a service! And then you have to allow for walking to the payment point - and it is often not clear where this is - as this could take a long time, especially for someone elderly or disabled.

The consideration period must be at least five minutes longer than the average time taken from entry to payment and/or payment to exit during the busiest hour of the week for that particular car park. On top of this, any requirement for payment needs to be coupled with evidence of parking - which means entering a parking space and leaving your vehicle, not just entering the car park, looking or waiting for a space and then leaving.

This level of fees fuels a whole industry that profits from pursuing people, who often have not done anything wrong or had reasonable mitgiating circumstances. This amount is paid by the most vulnerable because of intimidating tactics, and the income from this reinforces an industry that pursues charges in bad faith. The is absolutely no excuse to let law firms, debt collectors or parking companies profit from pursuing charges that are often not lawful to begin with. There is no reason to allow charges higher than those for late payment to other types of businesses, or the administration charges that can be applied in the financial sector, which are usually capped at £10-20.

Do feel free to copy paste any of this that you agree with.

I also said I think that parking charges discriminate against protected characteristics such as age, health and disability, because people with those issues take longer to pay for parking and are more likely to struggle with payment machines.