Penalties and Company Cars

[Mr E]

A strange one that I thought i'd ask member's opinions on:

A guy at work has been hit by a congestion charge penalty and a bus lane penalty. His wife was driving the car at the time. However, it transpires that the lease company has paid the fine, and he's been hit with a £100 admin charge per fine.

To add insult to injury, he has a receipt that shows the CC was paid online but it seems he can't challenge this as the fine has been paid.

So two questions:

1. Can the lease company pay the fine and remove your legal right of appeal?

2. Can an "admin charge" of £100 be levied, or might this considered unfair (in a similar way to the current bank charge cases where an excessive charge is not allowed to be levied)?

One final point - we recently received a corporate communication that said that the fine would be paid / admin fee levied if the driver did not pay the fine within the period required.

 

[W210 Fan]

I would write a letter saying thankyou for paying my fine, I will reimburse you the money for the bus lane charge but not the CC as I have already paid it (please see attached reciept), as I believe your charge for admin to be very high and is not in your paperwork and conditions anywhere (I assume your friend has checked) I will not be paying it. Thankyou for your continued support,

if they have paid the fine without checking then its there problem, they didnt ask you whether its a TFL mistake (which it appears to be if you have already paid the CC,) so its there problem, if you rang a random petrol station and offered to pay the fuel of the next guy who walked through the door would you expect the money back?

 

[Dieselman]

as I believe your charge for admin to be very high and is not in your paperwork and conditions anywhere (I assume your friend has checked) I will not be paying it.

I bet it is, they normally have a clause covering admin charges.

 

[Mark300SL]

I think this is going to very much depend upon the contract with the leasing company.

This is ever so slightly relevant in as much as it covers completeting a service without giving the customer an oppertuniity to pay
For anyone buying in from abroad it's good information anyway


Forgive the lack of spelling and grammar!

Taken from: http://www.lancerregister.com/showthread.php?t=213532

this was taken from lancer forum.

http://www.lancerregister.com/showthread.php?t=213532

I found this and found it quite interesting indeed, as we know, large purchases from Rexspeed incur a charge by Pacelforce....well....I may have found a way around it....read on...



Firstly the package was labeled correctly as its legal to import for person use and customs didnt put up an arguement they simply held the package for a couple of days and then slapped the duty and VAT charges £23 something.

As the package was imported using the thai national postal service it gets handed over the Parcel force which is now a privatly owned devision of the royal mail.

Parcel force pay the customs charge on your behalf then slap £13.50 on for the priviledge of doing so.

When my mate went to collect his pack from the depo they refused to hand it over unless he payed the charge including £13.5. and storage on top of that.

My mate then quoted that it was illegal to complete a service (paying customs) and charge the customer wthout offering them the chance to pay it themself or having a proir agrement on the price.
Then he demanded that they hand the package over with an invoice as it was a criminal offence under the (criminal law act section 104 sub section 2d) to hold a postal package in "virtue of lien". This means holding a package for ransom of payment... This is just like saying....

"you cant have your package unless you pay us £13.50 cause we paid your customs bill,,,,, when you didnt even ask us to."

Also holding a package illegaly as a non government owned postal service (Royal mail and Parcel force are privatly owned now) is against the postal service act 83,84 and carries a sentense of up to 6 months.

He spoke to the manager who didnt give him the package and my mate then rang the police who after an hour or so of argueing with him told the boss he either released the package or they would arrest him.

He got the package. Parcel force paid the bill and as they didnt inform my mate they were going to pay the customs charge on his behalf they didnt have a leg to stand on so in the end he paid nothing.

Royal mail and Parcel force make millions every year doing this and its against the law so f**k them and next time you get a bill check to see if you legaly have to pay it.

Im telling you this now cause I just went to pick up my new set of golf clubs and they slapped a bill on for over £90. I walked in and stated the criminal law act 104 subsection 2d and the postal act 2000, 83,84 and they just gave me my clubs.

 

[Mr E]

I bet it is, they normally have a clause covering admin charges.

So do banks - but it's thought to be unfair which is why so many have been able to recoup their charges and everyone's waiting for the test case to be heard...

It's around the premise that you can recover legitimate costs but not apply a punitive charge - if they do the latter then that is unfair (in contract law) regardless of whether you signed up to it or not (i.e. you can't have an unfair penalty clause).

 

[Dieselman]

My comment wasn't in reference to the actual value of charge, but a poster had made comment to there not being a clause referencing admin charges in the contract.
I'm confident there will be a reference to admin charges, it's pretty standard in the car leasing world.

 

[Rory]

..and bear in mind that as this is company leasing the car, then normal consumer type law such as Unfair Contract Terms doesn't apply with same force as it does for consumers - companies are expected to be able to negotiate contracts properly.

It may be that if the leasing company won't withdraw the penalty then the only option is to go after TfL for damages.

Perhaps the company should review who it leases its cars off? I found in my last company that they (my employer) were all too ready to pay the leasing companies random charges. I only found out they did when I became a department manager and random payments started appearing.

 

[crockers]

Cant see why you have to pay anything for the charge when you have a receipt for paying.

The other one -- well yes and the admin fee albeit high will be part of the contract between your company and the lease company...

 

[Mudster]

I lease a couple of cars from Saab directly, they simply pass all communications on for us to deal with, they don't presume to pay any fines etc on our behalf....

Seems a very odd deal that a lease company would do as described....

 

[fyonn]

Seems a very odd deal that a lease company would do as described....

it's not odd when they can add £100 per fine...

 

[Mudster]

it's not odd when they can add £100 per fine...

Seems odd if they wish to have renewed/repeat business....

In the current economic climate, quality of service could make or break your business.

 

[V8mate]

I think this is going to very much depend upon the contract with the leasing company.

This is ever so slightly relevant in as much as it covers completeting a service without giving the customer an oppertuniity to pay
For anyone buying in from abroad it's good information anyway


Forgive the lack of spelling and grammar!

Not sure why the Criminal Law Act is mentioned (1967? 1977?)

The Postal Services Act 2000 is the only applicable statute: sections 83,84 and 104d being the relevant sections.

It doesn't excuse from paying the fees Royal Mail/Parcelforce have incurred on your behalf, it simply means that they cannot refuse to deliver your parcel before you have paid them. Whilst owing HMRC money could get you a jail sentence, not paying Parcelforce will, at worst, see you in the Small Claims section of the County Court.

 

[davidjpowell]

I've come across this before when a lease firm acts as outsourced vehicle manager. Not much you can do about it unfortunately, unless your friend can get someone with some power (ie can sack the company) interested in fighting his corner....
David

 

[Dragon]

A contract is a contract you agreed to the dotted line you signed unless otherwise. Next time read the conditions of the contract before you signed.

 

[davidjpowell]

Dragon I think you have been reading too many news websites. The whole point was it is the employer who had signed the contract. Therefore the poster more than likely will not konw the terms of it!

 

[Dragon]

Dragon I think you have been reading too many news websites. The whole point was it is the employer who had signed the contract. Therefore the poster more than likely will not konw the terms of it!

Yes I am still dazz from yesterday all day train journey.