Car Park Fines

[keith]

I got a letter today from a company wanting to charge me £80 for going over the free 2hours parking. There is a sign at the begining of the car park but i missed it. Its shared between Focus DIY and some other shops never thought that it would be a privately owned car park. They advise they will reduce the fine to £50 if i pay prompt.
Whats my rights or is it a case of I am royal'y snookered.

[edd666999]

I got a letter today from a company wanting to charge me £80 for going over the free 2hours parking. There is a sign at the begining of the car park but i missed it. Its shared between Focus DIY and some other shops never thought that it would be a privately owned car park. They advise they will reduce the fine to £50 if i pay prompt.
Whats my rights or is it a case of I am royal'y snookered.

do they have pictures of your car there?

[stealthwolf]

only council parking is legally enforced. Tell them to f**k off.

[keith]

I got a letter today from a company wanting to charge me £80 for going over the free 2hours parking. There is a sign at the begining of the car park but i missed it. Its shared between Focus DIY and some other shops never thought that it would be a privately owned car park. They advise they will reduce the fine to £50 if i pay prompt.
Whats my rights or is it a case of I am royal'y snookered.

do they have pictures of your car there?

They say they have, but they obtained my reg from 'eyeball technology' as they put it, DVLA gave them my addres for free probably
I am tempted to ignore but it then rises to £110 later on. Wifes panicking already lol!

[edd666999]

I got a letter today from a company wanting to charge me £80 for going over the free 2hours parking. There is a sign at the begining of the car park but i missed it. Its shared between Focus DIY and some other shops never thought that it would be a privately owned car park. They advise they will reduce the fine to £50 if i pay prompt.
Whats my rights or is it a case of I am royal'y snookered.

do they have pictures of your car there?

They say they have, but they obtained my reg from 'eyeball technology' as they put it, DVLA gave them my addres for free probably
I am tempted to ignore but it then rises to £110 later on. Wifes panicking already lol!

no ticket on your car? id tell them that you don't recall being there and you require proof.

[Gtiain]

I got a letter today from a company wanting to charge me £80 for going over the free 2hours parking. There is a sign at the begining of the car park but i missed it. Its shared between Focus DIY and some other shops never thought that it would be a privately owned car park. They advise they will reduce the fine to £50 if i pay prompt.
Whats my rights or is it a case of I am royal'y snookered.

do they have pictures of your car there?

They say they have, but they obtained my reg from 'eyeball technology' as they put it, DVLA gave them my addres for free probably
I am tempted to ignore but it then rises to £110 later on. Wifes panicking already lol!

no ticket on your car? id tell them that you don't recall being there and you require proof.

I Agree, this happened to my dad recently, he asked for proof and they never bothered following it up. Might aswell give it a go!

[Edition30]

Do they say how long you actually stayed? A friend got one but due to being so busy it took her ages to get out of the car park which took her above the 2 hour limit, managed to get off the fine.

Makes me sick, stupid fines like that 

[Gene Hunt]

Friend of our's got clamped the other week (along with all the other cars parked)for parking on some land they had always used for years & the removal fee ...............120.00 quid!!!!!robbing barstewardss. One of those ''private'' companys had taken over & ''yes'' there were signs but as usual not easily spoted.
Everyone went mad & police turned up but there was nothing they could do.

[RedRobin]

.
Call their bluff by challenging them to present proof. Don't let the basturds grind you down.

[cameluk]

Don't pay anything until they send you an invoice


You sure they saw you driving the car, and not just sent the letter to the registered owner

[M7AXB]

When dealing with "tickets" from private parking companies (PPCs) our advice is ignore them. For the following reasons, you should not enter into any correspondence with private parking companies.

This link will take you to a You Tube video of a BBC Watchdog piece on PPCs.

There is a great deal of doubt about the legal enforceability of private parking invoices that are issued to motorists. Unlike parking tickets issued by local authorities, which are backed by statute, the enforcement of private parking is essentially a matter of contract law. A private parking company needs to overcome many significant legal hurdles in order to be successful, which include:
Establishing that any claim is under the law of contract, rather than the tort of trespass (see case of Excel Parking Services v Alan Matthews, Wrexham County Court, May 2009 where the parking company lost on this ground);
Establishing that all of the elements of a contract (offer, acceptance, consideration) are present;
Establishing who the driver was on the relevant occasion, as any contract can only be enforced against the driver, who may or may not be the registered keeper of the vehicle;
Establishing the prominence and adequacy of any warning signage, and that the driver actually saw and understood the signage (Waltham Forest v Vine [CCRTF 98/1290/B2]);
Establishing that the amount claimed is not an unlawful “penalty”, including that there was no attempt to “frighten and intimidate” the driver (see well reported case of Excel Parking Services v Hetherington-Jakeman, Mansfield County Court, March 2008 where the parking company lost on this ground);
Establishing that any contract does not fail foul of the Unfair Contract Terms Act and associated regulations.
How do you know if your ticket is a PPC ticket or not? Well, legitimate council tickets will be called a "Penalty Charge Notice" or "Excess Charge Notice" and will have the council's address on them. A police ticket will be called a "Fixed Penalty Notice" and have either a police or HM Courts Service address on it. If it's not called one of the above and it's got a private address on it then the chances are that it's a PPC "ticket", and ought to be ignored.


http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=46975
 

[Rich]

HEY


You wont believe theis either, i got a parking fine at my local services saying i overstayed there for 14 hours!!!!

Thats utter baloney, no way have i stayed over night,

They say they have caught me going in at 7:36pm and leaving at 9:20am.. with picture evidence...

I use the motorway services as a short cut to which connects to a local road near where i live... so obviously they caught me using it on a evening going home... then caught me going to work on a morning leaving...


Dads written a letter in to them... and if worse comes to the worse, we are getting solicitors involved.

[Moschops]

Do not reply to any of these letters as they will then have your corrcect address and also you are admitting it's your car.

There was something about this on TV recently and the advice was to completely ignore it...send no correspondence as they will then keep badgering you and slowly grind you down...

If it's council force as the other poster stated it can be enforced.

[Saint Steve]

I had the same, said i used their carpark and walked off sight to go next door in another superstore. Took a photo of my car and sent it to me.

As said do not reply to any letters, they will send about 7-8 letters warning you to pay up or face court action or Bayliffs.

icnore them keith, they 1st have to proof you have received these warning letters.

let them keep sending red letters, your invoice will then get passed on to another debt collection agency (after the 1st one will give up trying to con you).which if you still havent payed by this time, they then  slash the price back down to what it 1st was!!.
Mine started at £90, went up as far as £248, and after the 7th or 8 letter that i got monthly, they said it was £60 pay now!!!.

Take the above advice from everyone. its a con, and it wont effect your credit rateing whatsoever.

They gave up after 5 months of trying to contact me, and had nothing at all since, and that was 12 months ago.

[Pablos007]

^^^^ 

Advice above is spot on, the wife had two of these last year and it's a total scam!!   

After Googling the company and looking on Pepipoo, we decided not to reply to any of their letters and ignored the threats of court and baliffs.  They sent about 5 or 6 letters over a period of about 3 months for each 'offence' and then the letters just stopped.  We've heard nothing for over 9 months now.