Parking Fines - your experiences

Soldato
Joined
6 Jan 2009
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6,356
Location
Hertfordshire
Morning all!

Just off the back of my own personal experience, I am wondering if anyone here has a story reference refuted parking fines or disputes?

I was being hounded by DRP (Debt Recovery Plus) and then Zenith and then BWLegal reference purposed parking fines for a Britannia car park from 2016. Originally the old advise was to "ignore these letters" but actually now since the BPA rules have changed, its always best to address these in the correct way.

Needless to say I was confident that the above purposed PCN was issued error, I ALWAYS pay for parking, and have never knowingly left a car park late by my own admission.

After fighting this since 2016 I received and email last night from Britannia Parking as pasted below:

"Dear ********,

Please find enclosed your SAR request.

Britannia Parking have amended their processes in line with current BPA guidelines, furthermore on review of the Parking Charge Notice I can confirm we have decided to no longer continue with our legal case for PCN ***** and ******.


We have instructed BW Legal to close the claim.

Regards


******

Training and Compliance Manager
"


The funniest part of all of this is that I only ever received paperwork for one of these purposed PCN's but apparently there were two against me on record.....

After checking the information they supplied that they held about me on record (SAR Request), the SAR even showed that a Valid payment to park was made, for my registration for both supposed offences? Which has left me entirely baffled.

None the less I am happy with the result. But the threatening letters of "possible" claims and "letter before actions" can catch a lot of people off guard. There are lots of resources available to those who may be going through similar so please do not unwilling pay these cowboys without doing some research first.

In effect i would be £160 x 2 out of pocket if I had blindly paid.

After doing a fair amount of research in my spare time myself over the last few years the regulations and laws enforced on these companies is not enough in its current form.

However there are new CoP being backed by many MP's which should soon make it impossible for these companies to continue to operate in this manner if new legislations are passed.

Does anyone else have any good stories reference these kinds of parking companies and collectors?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
26 May 2012
Posts
16,176
Had 4 parking charge notices from these parking cowboys... successfully contested all 4.
Private parking is a bloody wild west and needs proper legislation/regulation.

I dread to think how many people they've conned out of hundreds of pounds.

But yeah...greengrocer's apostrophe... Aaaargggg....
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
6 Jan 2009
Posts
6,356
Location
Hertfordshire
Had 4 parking charge notices from these parking cowboys... successfully contested all 4.
Private parking is a bloody wild west and needs proper legislation/regulation.

I dread to think how many people they've conned out of hundreds of pounds.

But yeah...greengrocer's apostrophe... Aaaargggg....

Under what principles did they try to charge you? No payment? Overstay? Just out of interest.

Yeah apologies but SP/Grammar never was a strong point of mine. So if you can help point out my mistakes Ill try learn from them.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
Had 4 parking charge notices from these parking cowboys... successfully contested all 4.
Private parking is a bloody wild west and needs proper legislation/regulation.

I dread to think how many people they've conned out of hundreds of pounds.

But yeah...greengrocer's apostrophe... Aaaargggg....

By contrast, I had a friend who got a fine as a result of transposing two of the letters in her number plate when entering the reg no into the system.

She sent her cheque, but with a letter of explanation

(Her logic, on checking the T&C's, it was stated that it was her responsibility to enter her details correctly and she had failed to do so)

And without asking or making any contest, the parking company returned her cheque and cancelled the fine by return post.

So they are not all bad!

:p
 
Man of Honour
Joined
26 May 2012
Posts
16,176
Under what principles did they try to charge you? No payment? Overstay? Just out of interest.
Not paying, even though their photographic "evidence" clearly showed the parking ticket... :rolleyes:

My appeal was pretty simple: your photos clearly shows the ticket displayed, if you refuse the appeal, give me a POPLA number for adjudication. Needless to say I won all 4 at POPLA, and the parking cowboys wasted £100.

Yeah apologies but SP/Grammar never was a strong point of mine. So if you can help point out my mistakes Ill try learn from them
Haha I only said it in jest :p
But so you know: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/greengrocer's_apostrophe
 
Man of Honour
Joined
26 May 2012
Posts
16,176
And without asking or making any contest, the parking company returned her cheque and cancelled the fine by return post.
That's because they'd lose if it went any higher. They can't demonstrate any evidence of loss, seeing as your friend actually did pay for parking.
Did the sun rise from the west that day? Lol
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
6 Jan 2009
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6,356
Location
Hertfordshire
Not paying, even though their photographic "evidence" clearly showed the parking ticket... :rolleyes:

My appeal was pretty simple: your photos clearly shows the ticket displayed, if you refuse the appeal, give me a POPLA number for adjudication. Needless to say I won all 4 at POPLA, and the parking cowboys wasted £100.


Haha I only said it in jest :p
But so you know: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/greengrocer's_apostrophe

OOOO the thread title!
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2016
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8,757
Location
Oldham
Look up Daniel Bostocks videos on youtube. He not only gets away with this stuff, but when the BBC wanted to include him in a programme probably making him look like a nutcase, they realised what he was saying was true and suddenly didnt want to include him.
 
Soldato
Joined
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7,809
That's because they'd lose if it went any higher. They can't demonstrate any evidence of loss, seeing as your friend actually did pay for parking.
Did the sun rise from the west that day? Lol

I think you miss the point. The point is, they didn't have to. It would have been clear to them that she was not going to challenge it and they could have cashed her cheque with impunity.
 
Permabanned
Joined
1 Jun 2004
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2,019
Location
London
Get a sticker for your car stating you don’t agree to any terms and conditions. Then you can park for free, they get you because by being there you’ve implied you accept them, but outright stating you don’t means no contract.
 
Joined
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21,386
Location
Wilds of suffolk
Interesting one, contract law on who accepts whos conditions has some precedence. The basic assumption is that the last one to present has had theirs accepted. Its not quite that simple but go with it as the principle.

I would expect at court this one to go the parking companies way. Based on ability to accept.
The parking company can present their terms via the board with the T&Cs on it, by driving onto their site you have accepted these terms.
However the driver will argue he has later declared his terms by displaying in his car. This is where i think he would lose, since no one from the parking company has the ability to accept his terms, and hence his remain, unaccepted because he hasnt reasonably tried to get them to accept.
 
Permabanned
Joined
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Posts
2,019
Location
London
Interesting one, contract law on who accepts whos conditions has some precedence. The basic assumption is that the last one to present has had theirs accepted. Its not quite that simple but go with it as the principle.

I would expect at court this one to go the parking companies way. Based on ability to accept.
The parking company can present their terms via the board with the T&Cs on it, by driving onto their site you have accepted these terms.
However the driver will argue he has later declared his terms by displaying in his car. This is where i think he would lose, since no one from the parking company has the ability to accept his terms, and hence his remain, unaccepted because he hasnt reasonably tried to get them to accept.

As the driver you’re not stating any terms, you’re just saying you don’t accept theirs. They cannot claim breach of contract if you’ve denied being part of one. Any photographic evidence they use will have this denial in it.

There’s no way they would win in court if their contract conditions are ‘implied’
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Feb 2009
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4,978
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South Wirral
TL;DR; sometimes they can be reasonable.

Many years ago I was fined by Wirral council for not paying a car parking fee. In fact I had, however had not stuck the ticket to the window very well and it had fallen down where there was no chance the traffic warden could have seen it. I paid the fine as the offence was actually phrased as "failure to display a valid parking receipt" (which I had indeed failed to do ...) but wrote a nice letter enclosing the ticket and appealed. It seemed worth a try and the cost of a stamp. I was pleasantly surprised when they accepted my appeal and enclosed a refund cheque. I was even more surprised when a week later a second refund arrived (!) Being an honest chap and also not wanting to tempt fate and bad karma I returned the second cheque.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
As the driver you’re not stating any terms, you’re just saying you don’t accept theirs. They cannot claim breach of contract if you’ve denied being part of one. Any photographic evidence they use will have this denial in it.

There’s no way they would win in court if their contract conditions are ‘implied’

However, I would have thought that by choosing to park on "Private" land and refusing to agree to the T&C's, you may not have agreed to the contract but would instead be committing a "Trespass to Land" br parking there without the landowners permission.

What the consequences of this would be, I do not know. But I think you could still be clamped and have life made difficult for you.
 
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