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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be cheering on a man who works in a chippy

45 replies

OurBlanche · 01/09/2015 19:16

He is challenging the private car park thieves bullies industry in the Supreme Court.

He may change the law for all of us

Over 50% of appeals are successful.

The BPA bleats says we have standards... a code of practice... we have a lot of bite, have suspended 6 members... introduced an appeals process (like that needed a round of applause)

Keep your eye on the news, it is being decided this month!

OP posts:

XCChamps · 02/09/2015 06:50

I don't know what his job status has to do with it either but as you specifically mentioned it in your thread title I imagine you thought it was relevant - so get it right

There's been loads of publicity for him for months locally, so I have the benefit of all the facts rather than having taken a fancy to someone on the One Show. To me be he comes across as someone who's loving his 15 mins and thinks rules shouldn't apply to him. This is absolutely not about him doing his bit for the greater good

WhoTheFuckIsSimon · 02/09/2015 06:55

Will watch with interest. Ive got quite a few fines from the staff car park at work, for which I pay a monthly permit btw. But the carpark is full when I get there so I mark in "an unmarked area" (not blocking anyone) and get a fine.

Each fine has rocketed up to £900 per ticket and I have about ten tickets.

InimitableJeeves · 02/09/2015 07:40

The point about whether he has offered to pay anything is that it's a good test of how genuine he is. Clearly he did break the contract and is iiable for damages, and if he wanted to show good faith he would have immediately paid whatever he says is an appropriate figure. If he didn't, then he is just trying to get out of paying anything.

It is untrue to suggest that there is no right of appeal: given that the company has to take the issue to court to enforce the charge, the motorist has every right to challenge its validity.

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 08:23

My Dad parked at the local hospital to collect my mum from her stay for a hip replacement. He put the wrong registration in the ticket machine (mixed up two letters) and they received a fine. They wrote to them appealing and the fine was waived. I guess it would be really bad publicity for the car park company in those circumstances if the fine was enforced. There really does need to be a legal ruling on this so everyone knows where they stands. Luckily my parents decided to pursue challenging this fine. It is obviously ridiculous but the fact it was sent in the first place suggests to me these car parks try it on and were hoping my parents just pay up. I think that is the point this man is trying to enforce and no matter how you feel about the circumstances in which this man received the fine it is an important one.

We received a fine on a car park belonging to a council. It was my partner who had it, my DD had stuck the ticket onto the windscreen and it fell off. We wrote to them and they rejected our informal plea and we were asked to write back again formally I think. The form sat on the side (I know) and eventually we received a court summons and the fine was up to £82. I paid it about three weeks ago. My partner is furious about the whole thing. He paid, he didn't take the piss. It fell off. There is no reasonableness with these car parking companies. They are there in my opinion to hold people to ransom, not punishing the pisstakers and the Parksure who run our councils car parks are just as bad.

SoupDragon · 02/09/2015 08:29

My partner is furious about the whole thing. He paid, he didn't take the piss. It fell off.

And you got the fine because you didnt ensure you sent back the formal appeal. Entirely your fault.

LurkingHusband · 02/09/2015 09:05

Is it me, being a bit thick, or is the last update from that story July 20th ?

Qwertybynature · 02/09/2015 09:13

Watching this with interest. I've got a fine from parking eye and I'm interested to see the outcome as they keep threatening legal action with reference to this case.

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 09:33

Soupdragon, I said in my post we should have sent back the formal appeal so thanks for stating the obvious. I think the informal appeal should have been enough. Why make people jump through hoops when it is obvious we paid and we sent the ticket in to prove it?

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 09:38

And you got the fine because you didnt ensure you sent back the formal appeal. Entirely your fault.

Also we didn't get the fine because we didn't send back the formal appeal. We got the fine because the ticket fell off. Honestly you cannot have a bit of a rant on here without some perfect person sitting on there high horse ready to tell you what a disorganised prat you are and ready to make you feel bad about yourself. It was upsetting, it was money we could ill afford and we got in a muddle with it ffs

InimitableJeeves · 02/09/2015 09:56

But the fact that you got into a muddle doesn't make the parking company bad people. They couldn't know that the ticket fell off, and when you didn't send back the formal appeal they presumably decided, reasonably, that you had thought better of appealing.

InimitableJeeves · 02/09/2015 09:59

Also, the fact that your parents were sent a fine does not in any way indicate that the parking company was trying anything on. They will have had a process whereby a notice is automatically levied if there is a car parked in the car park without a ticket being issued for a car with that number plate. Once they had the correct facts, they withdrew it. I can't see that they did anything wrong.

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 10:06

I will just say it one more time, we paid to park, sent the ticket in. They told us we still had to pay the fine. We were fools not to send the formal appeal back. I am cross, I am £82 down. It is partly our fault. I am not an idiot. I just think there could be more reasonable ways of dealing with this then sending a court summons threatening to take our possessions. Informal appeals are not enough clearly and I would imagine routinely ignored (although that is just my opinion). I just thought my story might make people realise the implications of what can happen.

As for my parents, I mean goodness me, two letters the wrong way round. Yes thats entirely reasonable in a hospital car park I don't think.

Original poster

OurBlanche · 02/09/2015 10:09

Jeeves, the BPA man explained the lack of right of appeal to the company is in their Charter, but some members don't include it, 6 have been thrown out. So until you are taken to court they, the issuing company, will not accept an appeal to them.

XCC well he certainly seems to have annoyed you. I am so very sorry that a light hearted moment of amusement has annoyed you so much. I shall go sit in sack cloth and ashes.

OP posts:

LittleRedSparkle · 02/09/2015 15:44

" The form sat on the side (I know) and eventually we received a court summons and the fine was up to £82. I paid it about three weeks ago. My partner is furious about the whole thing. He paid, he didn't take the piss. It fell off. "

I think you are wrong here, its your fault the ticket fell off (not the enforcing agency) and its your fault the form didnt get sent, i dont see how you can argue this one at all?

I had a dropped parking ticket on hols last year, got a ticket - appealed with a photo of my ticket showing date/times etc and fine was waived

For me (back on the main post) its the disproportionate fine - you spend up to what a few quid for parking an hour - say £3 to park, how on earth can you be fined for £50 or £85 by overstaying less than an hour? thats what doesnt make any sense to me

(oh and OP - i thought you were talking about XFactor with your title!)

Original poster

OurBlanche · 02/09/2015 17:11

Well, I was singing that Kirsty McColl song as I typed

OP posts:

Andrewofgg · 02/09/2015 17:46

If you defend the court case they will probably drop it, because it will be moved to your (more) local court and if they win they will only get the original charge and the court fee - not their legal costs or anything for their management time. It's all bluff.

OwlinaTree · 02/09/2015 19:20

I had similar to bearleft parents. Parked in hospital carpark, paid for the wrong car and left. When the fine came luckily I had the ticket so could prove my dh has paid, but for the wrong car. They let us off.

So it's not always no excuses accepted.

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 21:22

Oh my god (bangs head against desk) Littlereadpsarkle for the millionth time I sent the ticket back with a full explanation to the parking company. I sent the informal appeal back, it was the formal appeal that I didn't. I sent it registered post. I have already said I am partly at fault. Thanks again for stating the bleeding bloody sodding obvious. I am so glad your dropped ticket got sorted. Mine didn't. There was no redress. We forgot to send the formal appeal back in time because other things were happening in our lives and the next letter was a court summons threatening us with bailiffs. The wouldn't entertain dropping it when we called. Is that clear enough for everyone???

bearleftmonkeyright · 02/09/2015 21:34

I am beginning to wish I had never bothered replying on this thread. I thought it was a chat about parking tickets, not lets all pile on one person. My initial post was about how I thought it was necessary to set a legal precedent as this man is trying to do. I was just quoting a couple of examples of what happened to me and I think I have been fairly clear about what happened but as usual one person starts and the rest follow. Where do people get off constantly jumping on one person about a parking ticket and throwing their words constantly back at them. I didn't ask for judgement. I was trying to be helpful. So could we please drop it because I am sick of going round in circles about this.

unlucky83 · 02/09/2015 22:22

oh I have mixed feeling on this -the private parking companies need to be regulated -they did at one point completely take the piss. I think they seem to have got slightly better.
And then again we do need to discourage people taking the piss ...
My DP was a regular shopper at a centralish supermarket.
He had a friend who was having a hard time (MH problems) and lived really close by. Once a week or so he would go to the friend - take him to the shop to buy food, help him carry it back, spend maybe 30 mins with him and then do a shop for himself....
Then one week this friend was having a bit of a crisis - DP went more often and stayed longer for 3 days (until proper help was arranged). He visited him twice the next week. End of fourth week the first ticket arrived....the next 5 arrived the next day. He had run up fines of £540 - or £270 if paid within 14 days or similar...so you couldn't really contest it.

They had introduced restrictions - camera ones -so you didn't know you had got one until later, signs were really not obvious - he honestly hadn't noticed (being a regular)...finally the length of time it took to send them out ...if they had notified him quicker he obviously wouldn't have run up so many... it did feel a bit like like they deliberately were trying to generate as much revenue as possible before people noticed.
Long story - he didn't pay (followed the instructions on a website), we got threatening letters and then they gave up...
He was more careful of exactly how long he spent doing this and parked in his friend's (free!) residential parking (just a bit of a faff cos it is locked etc) if he had to stay longer. And he did once over stay again - and paid the £45 fine. That was almost fair...
The thing is people did take the mickey - used the free parking to go shopping in the town centre for hours, commuters parked their all day (dread to think how much they ran up in fines) -it was difficult to park to shop...
The fines were ridiculous though - you can park for a day here in another car park for £20...£25 would be an incentive - not £90!
Now they are even stricter - you have 10 min free and up to 60 mins but you have to give them your reg no when you pay... but people do still take the mickey - a man in front of me was rushing to pay for one 2L of milk because his parking was about to run out...60 min to pick up a carton of milk... No wonder it is still a struggle to find a space...

I've been ticketed unfairly and just ignored it ...and never heard anything about it again -if I had I would have fought it.
DCs and DP went to get the ticket whilst I made an unusual phone call on my mobile... I did forget the time and overran by just less than 5 mins ...I was thought that was taking the mickey a bit but then noticed according to the parking ticket it was 20 mins - checked the time on display ticket and I had ...but I knew that wasn't possible...(not even me getting confused - because of the phone call). The time on the machine must have been wrong - went to check and it wasn't Looked at another machine - definitely not the one we had used - and it was 15 mins fast...I think someone (the ticket issuer) was scamming - wonder if they got caught out ...why they never chased my ticket...
(I do always check the time on those tickets now!...also apparently my dad once got 'caught' because a pound coin had gone straight through and he thought he paid for longer than he had...)

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