Got parking ticket from ParkingEye.

Overstayed 35 min on 3 hour ticket.

What is my chance of success of refusing to pay due to disproprtionate charges?

£60 rising to £100.

Canvey Island car park, privately operates AFAIK.


[Edited on 25/8/15 by 02GF74]

Zero

Private or public parking space? If private, you can almost certainly ignore it. If public road, cough up!

http://pepipoo.com Is forum of choice for these sort of matters!

Check advice on moneysavingexperts. I got my tesco one revoked, but was in a free carpark.

remember if you pay £60 then appeal and win you get £60 back. If you don't pay and then fail the appeal you have to pay £100.

7 letters and counting for me
First was £90
Then £140
£160
£180
Dropped to £100
A few reminders and threats

HOWEVER

no letter was record delivery so I decided to ignore unless Recorded delivery and signed as received

A very good question…. Parking Eye are one of the big operators. Be very careful about internet forums advice in this area you could easily get the wrong end of the stick. The issue of whether silly "fines" can be imposed for being late in moving your car is a matter which some folk have fought all the way to the supreme court. https://www.supremecourt.uk/news/beavis-v-parkingeye-ltd.html Judgment awaited

The relevant law relates to "penalty clauses". The tide is out on the argument at the moment but watch this space the Supreme Court is very independently minded. That said the costs of this action must be eye watering.

If you accept it was you who parked the car and accept that the signs were clear then I would not expect much from an appeal.

[Edited on 25/8/15 by Theshed]

SWMBO got a ticket from Parking Eye. I did a bit of Googling and decided to ignore it. I then ignored all the correspondence from Parking Eye which included some very threatening letters and the fine increased from £80 up to over £400. Then I got a letter from a debt collection agency. The debt collection agency just happened to share the same postcode as Parking Eye so I ignored that too. After a couple of months the letters stopped.
My advice is ignore everything from Parking Eye. Once you reply to them you may inadvertently acknowledge that you/they have a 'contract' (based on the signage around the car park).

Hi Owelly what was the out come of the ticket PCN.

cheers

Nige

I ignored all the letters, demands for money, threats of court, etc. I ignored all of them and they gave up.

It's tricky- they can only charge for their losses caused by you over-staying but such "free for X hours" companies claim zero income other than fines (sorry penalty charges) and therefore divide their total costs for the year by the number of penalty charges they hand out. Which is a strange way of working it and even one of the judges in the recent supreme case already linked to suggested it was a bizarre business case where they are totally reliant on people not realizing they have over-stayed (likely) or just not caring (unlikely). Then again the silly judge also said although they're not fines they not disproportionate because they are similar to the fines the councils etc charge for illegal parking. Which in my mind is ridiculous because if they're not fines then whats the cost of a fine got to do with it???

I had one of these relatively recently- our local Wickes had carefully put the "warning signage" 20 foot in the air over the exit so unless you walked out of the store backwards looking at the sky (by which point it's too late anyway) you were at risk..... I just went ape poo at their customer services people and it was cancelled (eventually).

Trouble is the debt collection agencies can get quite nasty- ringing from random numbers six times in the course of an hour, leaving messages on my work mobile answerphone (which I never gave them) saying I needed to ring them urgently without identifying who they were, ringing my home number (which I also never gave them etc). If they just sent letters it would be okay but they take it waaaaaay too far.

I got stung at the local retail park. Why are the signs so high if they are not trying to snare people. Obvioulsy designed to be above windscreen height as you drive through the car park. After being issued with my 'charge' I went back to check the signs (I'd not seen). I could hardly read the text when stood right underneath them (and I'm 6' 1" ). Looking at Street View, the contact address for my 'charge' was a mail box attached to the wall of a dodgy looking newsagents on a main road up near Denham. Nothing to hide there then!

[Edited on 31-3-2016 by DJT]

I am not entirely convinced that the judges in the Supreme court could fairly be described as silly. Most if not all are brilliant. I have read the entirety of the Parking Eye judgment. I had rather hoped it went the other way but it was a well reasoned decision reflecting the law. I have been advising my poor old dad in a spat with another parking company. The, ignore the debt collection letters, strategy will SOMETIMES work.

My work takes me to county courts frequently. It is rare to see a list without a Parking Eye or parking enforcement case. They do take cases all the way and the costs soon dwarf the ticket.

Probably the safest advice is to try and avoid tickets in the first place! What a dull world we inhabit

[Edited on 31/3/16 by Theshed]

Last heard from them was oct 2015.

Wrote asking for data on number in cars in the carpark at 15 min intervals during the time i overstayed in order to fight in court that there was no loss in revenue since there was always spare places so my car was not preventing a paying customer leaving their car.

Not had any response and its been 5 months.

My son had a anpr fine from them on 1st jan. Now at the court stage. He was at the cinema never overstayed but never realised he had to input car reg. Hence the penalty.He sqid it was crap and would not pay.

Dad is now involved and deciding to appeal very late in the process. He has bank statement with debit at cinema so hoping to sort it out. Reading through court appeal process is a nightmare. Fingers crossed

N

If you are trying to appeal a judgment of a District Judge on the small claims track be warned you are in very technical territory. You must identify an error of law (not fact). In other words its not a re run of any trial.

There is so much bad advice on the internet it may pay you to spend a few hundred pounds speaking to a lawyer. I hated typing that knowing that the original ticket was probably £40 or there abouts but the costs of an appeal will dwarf that.

"Last heard from them was oct 2015.

Wrote asking for data on number in cars in the carpark at 15 min intervals during the time i overstayed in order to fight in court that there was no loss in revenue since there was always spare places so my car was not preventing a paying customer leaving their car.

Not had any response and its been 5 months."

This is the argument that was fought and lost in the Supreme Court.......they have 6 years so do not get complacent...


Sorry about all my negativity folks .. on a moral standpoint I am right with you. Legally there is no leg to stand on save for unclear signage or similar. If the terms are clear you will owe the money if you park there.....

quote:

---

Originally posted by Theshed
"Last heard from them was oct 2015.

Wrote asking for data on number in cars in the carpark at 15 min intervals during the time i overstayed in order to fight in court that there was no loss in revenue since there was always spare places so my car was not preventing a paying customer leaving their car.

Not had any response and its been 5 months."

This is the argument that was fought and lost in the Supreme Court.......they have 6 years so do not get complacent...

---

Parked at our local soccer dome. Failed to notice the parking system had changed. You had to register your car at reception.
Got a £40 fine through the post. Ignored it and expected them to go away as they done in the past.
Big Big Big mistake.
More letters arrived but just ignored them.
Then what looked like a fake county court letter arrived from an address on a road called "county court". I ignored it and went on my holidays.
On my return more threatening letter and finally decided to look into the matter.
To my shock/horror I'd left it too late to do anything about it. Things had gone too far.
I paid £220 thinking I'd just managed to stop thing going any further. Wrong very wrong.
Did a credit check and guess what very poor score.
Did some further checks and found out I'd got a county court judgment ccj awarded against my name because I failed to show at court. The money owed by me had been paid but the ccj will now stop on file for 6 years.
Bad credit score. Can't get a decent mortgage deal all because I failed to register my car on a soccer dome car park.
Ignore any parking fines at your peral.
Not sure what to do next. Anyone been in a similar situation.

[Edited on 31/10/16 by cfc999]