Help with Clamping and then Towing Away

julesandian

Hi,

Firstly here's what happened, I work from a van in and around B'ham and have no facilities for toilet, so its a case of pick a pub/fast food place etc buy a drink, use the bathroom.

I needed to go to the chemists to grab a prescription so parked on a pub car park next to a chemist thinking drop the prescription in, grab a drink, use the bathroom, pick prescription back up, back to work. Simple. Or not.

Parked up, saw the signs saying clampers in the area, car park for patrons only, but genuinely felt I was justified in parking on the car park.

Dropped off the prescription, then realised I had left my company camera on the front seat, so went to grab it before going into the pub to find I was already clamped, I couldn't have been more than 3 minutes. I asked him what the deal was, he said illegally parked that'll be £150 to release, going up to £350 if it was towed away.

I asked him for his bosses phone number and spoke to them to be told can't do anything mate, went to find out how long till I was towed to be told, It's too late he's already here!!!

According to my call register I then made a call to my boss to tell him I was being towed at 12:14. On my reciept that was filled in as I walked back to find the van clamped it says they clamped me at 12:05 - -9 MINUTES!!

I am willing to hold my hand up to the clamp, (I think it sucks but I did not go straight into the pub) but to give me 9 minutes to pay the fine, I think is unreasonable.

Does anyone have any advice, I have no idea on these kind of issues,

Thanks in advance

Ian

Doozergirl

They are rip off merchants pure and simple.

You need to go to www.pepipoo.com with your story. If you paid by credit card I understand you can do a chargeback, otherwise you will have to take these people to the small claims court to get you rmoney back - beware there is one particualr rogue trader operating in the midlands and if it's them, you may stand little chance of seeing your money back.

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but www.pepipoo.com I found very helpful with my unwarranted congestion charge fine. I even got my £8 back! It's very interesting and informative to read through the forums there

tomstickland

Do some google searching, there have been several stories about this sort of thing.