Asda Car Park Fine?

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A couple of days ago I got a £90 (reduced to £60 if paid by blah, blah, blah) camera ticket from a well known PPC for overstaying 17 minutes in a local car park.

First private one I've got so this should be interesting as I'm following the Pepipoo party line, ignoring it & not responding at all. If anything unusual happens I'll update.
 
Since receiving his "final notice" at the beginning of September my son has had nothing at all from Parking Eye. We've just ignored them completely, seems to have done the trick.
 
As this thread has been resurrected, I thought it would be useful to update the situation regarding the one instance of Parking Eye following through with court action to which I refered in post #35 of this thread.

Details can be found here, but in summary the judgement was that the amount claimed by Parking Eye was a penalty charge (which cannot be levied by a private parking company) and therefore not enforceable , but it was also ruled that Parking Eye were entitled to claim any amount that represented a genuine loss to them - in this case the parking fee that hadn't been paid.

So, in summary, if it's a "free" car park then they suffer no loss and you have no liability. If it's a chargeable car park and you don't buy a ticket then you should consider offering them the amount that you should have paid to park. If they refuse that, it's their own funeral.
 
So, in summary, if it's a "free" car park then they suffer no loss and you have no liability. If it's a chargeable car park and you don't buy a ticket then you should consider offering them the amount that you should have paid to park. If they refuse that, it's their own funeral.

This would appear to back the arguments being made over the years.

I wonder if the reason that this went to court was because enough people are ignoring the 'penalty' notices from these companies that they felt it was finally worth the risk of trying it on.
 
I wonder if the reason that this went to court was because enough people are ignoring the 'penalty' notices from these companies that they felt it was finally worth the risk of trying it on.
It's probably more to do with the fact that the regulatory authorities are taking more than a casual interest in the solicitors used by these PPC's who sign thousands of letters a year threatening court action but never taking it or, worse still, commencing action and then not turning up when the case is defended.

Bluff and bluster would seem to the stock-in-trade of all the PPC's and the last thing they need is a high profile court case going against them - which is why they always threaten but very, very, rarely follow through.

For completeness, it has to be said that the case I linked to was heard on the Small Claims track and therefore does not set precedent.
 
Just to add my story to anyone getting one of these 'private' tickets ...

We parked up, local town retail park and the usual story.
The only difference for mine is that the parking attendant pounced on the car as he saw us walking towards a shop with my family (wife and two young children) thinking I was not intending to buy a ticket. He didn't expect me to walk out a few minutes later, £1 parking fee in hand to go and get a ticket. As I walked past the car I asked what he was doing. He said I'd been longer than the allotted 10 minutes for buying a pay and display ticket. I hadn't and I pointed this out to him on my watch confirming my time of arrival and the current time. He was embarrassed as he had not had chance to take a picture of the car (his normal procedure) or to finish writing the ticket. He didn't get to stick the ticket to the car or to take a photo of the ticket on the car (again his normal procedure). Our shopping spree was ruined so we left straight away - and haven't returned since nor will we.

Over the next few months I got five letters and a phone call which came on average every two weeks (three at most) and always on a Friday. The Friday thing is not coincidence they often purposely send letters to arrive on Friday so you are left worrying over the weekend whilst their office contact numbers are closed. My letters and others are all show here: Private Parking Companies' Letters: What to Expect (add your own) - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

My first letter was off the parking company asking for payment of their invoice at a 'discounted' early paynment amount of £60. (It's not a fine - they are invoicing you a vastly over inflated parking charge).

Second letter was parking company again with increased invoice price. Now double.

Third letter was allegedley a solicitor threatening debt collectors/ court action (although a quick google showed the firm were a limited company calling themselves a solicitors rather than a true firm of solicitors).

Fourth letter was a firm of debt collectors threatening. This now had the charges due (without good reason) upto a few hundred pounds.

Fifth letter was Solicitors again expressley urging me to ignore information about parking companies I may find on the internet and threatening court action if I continued to ignore thier requests for information and payment.

Between the fourth and fifth letter the 'Solicitors' phoned my home (which is ex directory) number and left a message asking me to phone them. I've no idea how they got my phone number as it's not something I make freely available.


Its now been over six months since the last contact (letter five) and I've heard nothing in that time.

Until such a time that the law changes should I get another private parking invoice (I do not intend to as I always pay where required) then I will again ignore all contact. It is worrying when you get the letters, but they are trying to scare you into paying so their contact is all purposely aggresive, threatening and intended to look and sound very legal which they are not.
I did google the parking company, solicitors (that weren't) and the debt collectors and all are unsurprisingly part of the same group fronted by the same owner.

All of the letters, the private parking companies laughable 'appeal system' and the phone call are in persuit of one thing only - The name of the person who drove and parked the car when the ticket was issued. Without that they can do nothing (until the law changes) and so will eventually go away if you simply avoid any and all contact/communication with them.
They have the registered keepers details from the DVLA but as they cannot prove the registered keeper was driving the car (and you don't have to incriminate yourself) this is no more than a starting point for them.
 

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