To not want to pay parking charge

[coffeeforone]

I have been sent a parking charge notice from a private parking company for £100 (or £60 if I pay sooner). DH entered car park to pick me up (on xmas eve) after I had took DS to see santa and lunch with friends. He waited while I said bye to everyone and helped get DS/presents into car, but didn’t actually park or leave car unattended, so didn’t buy a ticket. They have CCTV of us entering and leaving car park (14 mins apart). We appealed but it was rejected as they say there is no evidence we didn’t park, and we used the car park. AIBU to not want to pay the £60?

Some places read your number plate and so don’t have a little man coming round.

Some of these aren’t always 100% accurate. Our white van is still in a car park in the lakes wheras a black one, with a vv similar and easily misread one came out without going in!

Read advice carefully - they may not come after you but you may have problems getting loans/mortgages later?

I do laps to avoid being out of the free pickup time. I have a personal merry go round at Manchester Piccadilly if a train is late.

He did park though. He stopped the vehicle for 14 minutes. It doesn't matter that he stayed in the car, didn't park in a bay or even turn the engine off. I'm not a fan of parking charges but that one seems reasonable to me. You used the car park for 14 minutes.

@Findingdotty - why dont you generously pay the fine then on behalf of the OP?

Yeh, didnt think you would....

Innocent until proven guilty- the onus of proof is on them, not you

That's criminal law. Pay attention.

Oh great! I'll just tell DH next time we go shopping, as long as one of us just drives around the car park or parks at the front of the car park not in actual space then we don't have to pay.
Think of how much money everyone is now going to save now they know as long as your not parked between the lines in a car park then you dont have to pay to be there.

Check out the parking board on moneysavingexpert.

If they are BPA registered, you should have received a POPLA code when your appeal was rejected. (They ALWAYS reject appeals by the way - you aren’t dealing with reasonable people!) You have 28 days to lodge a POPLA appeal so time may be critical now.

The newbies thread on MSE will guide you through it. Don’t contact the parking company again. Do what the thread says and you have a good chance of it being written off.

Lastly, forget genuine pre-estimate or loss as that argument won’t work any more. There is other angles though - just act quickly if this has been hanging around since Christmas Eve!

YANBU - private parking companies can only invoice you and only idiots pay up without question.

You might not like it but they're still a business and have terms and conditions connected to the use of their premises. One of those is that you have to pay to park if you are there for more than 10 minutes

• which you where. You have to set a guideline for customers or no one would ever pay.

You can fight it if you like but IMO yabu.

Had a similar experience, DH waiting in car park, not parked. We received a demand by post with a rear photo of the car, DH clearly visible in the driving seat! Challenged, didn't hear another thing.

Moneysavingexpert website is very useful on parking charges.

The ultimate resource for these situations is the pepipoo forum.

forums.pepipoo.com/

These appeals are time limited so you must act.

Many of the PPCs (private parking co's) Will most definitely take you to court and get a judgement against you.

Everyone who gets a PPC ticket should appeal using the correct procedure. You never know, you might just win and even if you dont, you will cost the PPC time and money.

Remember that if they sue and you defend it gets moved to your nearest court and if they win they don't get their costs - except the court fee - so they are highly unlikely to sue.

I got one like this once...threatened to take me to the County Court...
I'm in Scotland and there is no such thing.
I filed it in the bin.
Never heard from them since.

All of these things just rely on your haste to pay up whilst it's still "only" £60.

And only on MN would people buy a ticket when they're not even parking. (Or say they would). Would never occur to me in real life. Because I'm a normal person and not a MN-bot.

The grace period is 10 minutes so you were over by 4 minutes.
The grace period only applies to council parking.

Private parking firms do not go on your credit rating- very ill informed people on this thread!

Don't pay it. I think appealing it mesns you're on theit radar to chase up.

I've had about 3 parking charge notices and haven't paid one. Didn't hear back from any of them again.

The grace period only applies to council parking

The BPA brought private in line from 1st Oct 2015

Thanks for the advice everyone. We do have time to appeal to POPLA. Our appeal to NPS was dated 15th Jan, the rejection letter is dated 8th Feb so we have now 28 days (until 7th March).

Standard procedure for these car park cunts is to reject appeals. They prey on people being frightened.

POPLA appeal and sit back.

DO NOT PAY the fuckers. At all. Ever.

I’m not worried about my credit rating or anything. I understand it would only be a problem IF they took me to court (unlikely), I lose (probably 50% chance), AND I then don’t pay court ordered costs (I would pay if a court said I must).

Innocent until proven guilty- the onus of proof is on them, not you.

Yep. And they have the proof.

Chance it if you want OP.

BeHappyMummy - It was ok to ignore them at one time but that’s bad advice now. They can be in some circumstances but most people need to act. Dont ignore them unless you know 100% it’s ok to do so or you could end up with paying or court as your only options.

@fairenuff There is no reason not to appeal it to POPLA. There is nothing to chance.

If your DH stopped in the car park for 14 minutes, he parked.

The "disproportionate loss" argument no longer works since the Beavis case, and you would be very foolish indeed to assume they won't sue - parking companies have demonstrated time and again that they are very willing to do so. If you wait till they sue, they will obviously add court costs to the fine.

"parking companies have demonstrated time and again that they are very willing to do so"

What a load of fucking untrue bollocks.

It totally depends on the operator. Euro Car Parks is one that almost never follows up - and if you want proof, head to the Pepipoo forum for evidence.

ParkingEye though do follow up in the majority of their cases, but not all. So the assertion that they are willing to do so is as variable as smelling a fart in a wind.

Just a technical point in the appeals - do they care who the actual driver at the time was? Car is registered in my name and I responded to the appeal and so I think they have assumed I was the driver. Should we clarify (it makes no difference to us), or do they not care as long as we stick to the same driver (I.e. I’ll just sat it was me)? CCTV isn’t that clear I don’t think.

Identifying the driver means you can’t use POFA to argue there is no keeper liability and, as that’s often the strongest appeal point, it’s never wise to identify the driver.

There is other points you can use though so it’s still worth submitting an appeal.