DH parked in wrong bay at my work and now have parking fine

[Loveweekends10]

This has been issued by a private company. The fine is for £120. Is it legal? How does that company track my personal details. What about data protection? Do I have to pay it?

You could google it - it was on that money show the other night with Martin Lewis. From what I saw if it is not a council run car park it is just an invoice and you can write back and give them the reasons you will not pay.

Don't take my word as gospel though!

Don't write back, just ignore it.

Yes, I've read that too. It's not legally enforceable and you are supposed to ignore it. They send a few nasty letters and then give up, apparently.

click here

Don't ignore.

Challenge it if your DH made a genuine mistake.

Most parking fines that are challenged do win, esp if you can prove signage was unclear.

If you ignore you are likely to incur bigger fine etc.

I think the point is that they have no authority to issue fines in many cases. Not a legal leg to stand on, so you don't have to do anything.

Yup, private companies can't really enforce it. So just write and explain why you will not be paying. And use all your creative writing talents. I recently responded to one where I'd been more than 2 hours in a shop car park. I explained I was very disappointed that, in a time of economic downturn, when this country needs consumers to be spending money in British shops, these people appeared to be trying to limit the amount of time I was allowed to spend in that shop, thereby curtailing my expnditure and damaging the British economy, and was Gideon George Osbourne aware of this reprehensible behaviour?

They dropped the charge.

Goodnight - it's not a fine - private companies have no authority to issue fines. It's an invoice worded to appear to be a fine, and can be safely ignored.

Ignore ignore ignore. Even when they drop the fine to half. Don't be tempted. You say it's your work, do you mean the same company you work for? Who has filed the charge, is is someone in your company whose space it is? Maybe they thought it was a chancer and you could tell them what happened.

to be fair they do have a contract legal leg to stand on - in theory - they can take you to court for none payment since by parking in the car park you have 'agreed' to park correctly or pay a fine - but it is very rare they follow it up - it's not worth the expense

However if he works there they may 'harass' him at work - would his employers be happy with the company that controls it's car park being in dispute with their employee?

Here is MSE's advice on private parking fines, most of the time they are unenforceable.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets

But don't they have to prove it's you driving the car? Or something like that anyway

also Martin Lewis talks about UNFAIR tickets - the OP's DH ticket it not unfair - he was parked in the wrong bay .

I was sent a 'fine' by the company that Go Outdoors uses to manage its carparks, I'd been there for more than two hours.

I rang the manager of the branch, who in turn contacted the car park management company, to tell them that Mrs Knickers had spent £192 that day and is a regular customer they don't want to lose. I've got dogs, children, we go camping etc... I probably spend several hundred pounds a year there.

They withdrew the 'fine' with an apologetic letter.

If your DH was at your workplace for a good reason, your workplace should be able to tell the private company not to pursue this one.

Ignore it. As previous poster said, it's an invoice. Technically they're saying that you've broken a contract which you entered into when you ignored or didn't see a sign. They cannot prove you saw the sign. The sum these companies charge is plucked out of the air. You will get another invoice, then the threat of a debt collector, then a letter or two saying that they are considering court action, then nothing. They will not actually take you to court as they will not want to risk a test case going in your favour. This is a scam. Ignore.

Ok I just looked and got template letter from moneysavingexpert. Apparently we write back and say we are not paying and these are the reasons. It will be poor/ lack of signage.
Thanks all.

Ignore ignore ignore

Don't write back, don't acknowledge it. I'm a Fleet Manager and get these every week for our drivers. Ignore, then ignore again and ignore some more!

Ignore. I get regular tickets at work for parking in wrong bays, etc. I ignore all the letters, inc all the ones which purport to be from bailiffs, solicitors, etc. I owe nearly 1k according to all the letters and they're taking me to court.

I wish they bloody would take me to court. I'd love it if they did. Unfortunately they never do. You can't get bailiffs without a ccj, you can't get a bad credit rating without a ccj, you can't get a ccj without been taken to court.

Ignore, its an invoice not a fine!