Just been to Bruges on the ferry from Hull for the weekend. Bought a paking ticket for £15 from the pay and display machine with my credit card and put it on the dash.

Came back today to find a £30 parking ticket stuck to the window for not displaying a valid ticket and when I looked, the wind must have blown it over onto the wrong side or I’ve placed it face down when trying to unload the family (inc 3 year old and a baby) by foot into the terminal.

Is there any way I can get out of this as it’s very frustrating to have paid for the parking and then get fined as well??

BTW the car park was operated not by P&O, but http://www.premierparkingsolutions.com

Is there any way I can get out of this

Don’t pay it & ignore any correspondence they send you, they can’t prove who was driving it

uplink is right. there is a whole heap of stuff about this on moneysavingexpert

If it wasn’t on a public road or a council car park then it is a contract/civil issue so you can just ignore it. If they do chase you then the advice is to send a letter with £5 as reasonable payment for compensation and their inconvenience. This is what the guy in the motoring section of the Saturday Telegraph always recommends.

Don’t contact them. Ever.

I’m a little hazy from my legal studies, but I think the general gist of it is a parking ticket is confirmation of a contract between the driver of a car and the car park for parking of said car. A) the terms and conditions must be able to be proved to have been seen by the parkee, and B) the parkee must be able to be identified for any action to be taken by the car park.

As said above, NEVER contact them, don’t acknowledge the ticket, keep schtum.

You will have ONLY to pay to compensate them for the loss of revenue for parking incorrectly.

As you had a ticket, but failed to display it properly, then they aren’t out of pocket and so you owe hem nowt.

They can’t “fine” you. They have NO legal right to issue a fine. Only the cops & courts can do that.

Offer them NOWT.

One of the reasons I left the Uk.

The ‘Authorities’ must put a stop to this whole, screw people down attitude that seems to be allowed to happen for private gain.
Pensions, banking, payment on weird sliding scales for utilities…….bloody awful.

Probably needs a decent Government………..

Probably needs a decent Government………..

One which would ban clamping on private land?

Hmmm, things are looking up…. 🙂

Why can the OP just ignore it?…Because he has already paid?

By the way wouldn’t the OP’s credit card bill be proof of purchase if he did wanna “clear his name” so to speak.

Why can the OP just ignore it?

See coolhandluke’s reply. They can charge him for parking but there is no law that allows them to issue a fine.

My car had one a few months back. Started with some ropey firm leaving a £75 ticket.
Now been taken up by some debt recovery firm, & has gone up to £145.
Dare say it will go higher, with increasingly daft “legal” looking letters.
Letters keep coming to me, as listed keeper. But I am not prepared to inform them who was the driver, & they cannot force me to do so. (I was at work on the day in question).
They know this but will keep sending letters.

They have to prove to a magistrate that you owe them the money before things can get really serious. Prior to that all they can send you is an invoice.
Dont contact them under any circumstances.

It was on Watchdog last week, but some spineless producer decided that they shouldnt state the above on air, just that you should seek legal advice.

Keep the original ticket, as that is your “evidence” that you had paid the correct parking fee, and that the charge was levied on a technicality. If it does (and it shouldn’t) end up in a court, you’ve got your proof of parking fee paid.

Keep the original ticket, as that is your “evidence” that you had paid the correct parking fee, and that the charge was levied on a technicality. If it does (and it shouldn’t) end up in a court, you’ve got your proof of parking fee paid.

That seems reasonable. You paid to park there and how on earth can they prove you hadn’t displayed the ticket correctly? Perhaps they didn’t even look and just wanted to issue a fine to make themselves more money….

Send them a photocopy of the original ticket.

I once got out of a council parking fine doing this when my ticket had fallen off the window.

They should then drop it. If they don’t like others have said they can’t really force you to pay anyway.

how on earth can they prove you hadn’t displayed the ticket correctly?

They take photos of the car from every conceivable angle – I’ve seen them doing it.

Parking Pataweyo strikes again!
.
wait until there’s a burly chap in your living room removing your TV before you start to worry

how on earth can they prove you hadn’t displayed the ticket correctly?

I suspect the contract is fulfilled if you by the ticket, not displaying correctly is an inconvenience to them – they’ve not lost anything, therefore they can’t claim anything

Send them a photocopy of the original ticket.

I once got out of a council parking fine doing this when my ticket had fallen off the window.

My wife didn’t. She took photos to show where the ticket was. One jumped up tart at the council decides you have to pay, so you have to pay.

As far as private goes, I got out of it (clamped when the pay&display machines weren’t bloody working! Have to pay the clampers and they show me the machine is (now) working. Bastards) by writing and explaining to the owner of the car park. He sent me a refund.

You can’t ignore a clamper, but I like the idea of ignoring the fine notice.

Be interested to hear how it turns out.

http://www.premierparkingsolutions.com/appeals-and-refund-policy.php

Interesting:
Appeals will NOT be considered for the following reasons:
[*]Your ticket fell down/was blown off the dashboard/on the seat etc.[/*]
[*]Your ticket was not displayed clearly, face up, on the dashboard of your vehicle[/*]

but they say nothing about what action they can take if you don’t pay…

It’s all be said above.. I’m just chipping in for weight of ‘evidence’ purposes.. Private companies can’t fine you. Ignore it and all correspondence they send you – it’s all designed to intimidate you into paying. It’s a civil matter so they can’t fine you. They can try and take you to court for none payment of an invoice… but since you can easily prove you paid up they won;t be able to prove they are out of pocket so they will have no case. ergo.. it won’t get to court. Do NOT do anything to let on to them that you were the driver of the vehicle. Once they have that information they can act. If they don’t have that they can’t do anything but send you funny coloured letters with made up solicitors names at the top.

http://www.pepipoo.com

Pepippoo.com is all about getting out of speeding fines isn’t it?

Cheers for the pointers…i’m def not paying up, but am slightly unsure about just ignoring everything.

The car belongs to the Mrs, she’s the registered keeper but it was I who was driving. As long as only she communicated with them and there is no mention of my name, then the advice on moneysavingexpert is for her to write to them and say she wasn’t driving the car and is not legally obliged to say who was, then ignore everything that comes afterwards.

any thoughts on that?

why has the thread gone wide and flat??

I used to get this a lot in previous job – edinburgh has a particularly ferocious squad of wardens around.

My approach was if they didnt see my ticket then i didnt see theirs. Never paid one like this ever.

Do not even let them know you know if you ken what i mean.

My approach was if they didnt see my ticket then i didnt see theirs.

genius, remember to take lots of photos of your car without a parking ticket on, as evidence

The car belongs to the Mrs, she’s the registered keeper but it was I who was driving. As long as only she communicated with them and there is no mention of my name, then the advice on moneysavingexpert is for her to write to them and say she wasn’t driving the car and is not legally obliged to say who was, then ignore everything that comes afterwards.

Sounds like good advice.

Sounds like good advice.

I disagree. Completely ignore them starting now.

I disagree. Completely ignore them starting now.

I have to admit that would be my default approach, but I’ve seen comments about it resulting in more hassle than just telling them definitively to go away. Just make sure you include in your wife’s reply that any further correspondence form them will be treated as harassment (a criminal offence).

It’s all been said above but just ignore them.

There are a limited set of authorities in this country who have the ability to issue fines. Private parking companies cannot issue fines.

What you have is, in effect, an invoice which is covered by contract law. Do you have a contract with the parking company? A contract requires, offer, consideration and acceptance. Being on the same piece of land as a sign is not ‘consideration and acceptance’

Don’t bother using their ‘appeals procedure’ – your appeal will be declined.

Private parking ticket scams work because a percentage of people pay them. Be part of the percentage that doesn’t pay.

To provide the counter argument:

You entered into a contract with them (assuming their terms and condition were clear). The fact you chose to pay £15 and purchase a ticket clearly suggests you were aware of the expectation to pay and that you were willing to enter into a contract. You then failed to comply with a reasonable condition of that contract – that you clearly display your ticket in the windscreen of the vehicle. They have issued you with an invoice for breaching the contract as you agreed to when you entered the car park / bought a ticket. Given the charges issued by some organisations, and that the correct price for payment in advance is £15 – £30 doesn’t seem unreasonable. You may wish to argue that you have already paid £15 and are therefore only due an additional £15. Persistently ignoring their correspondence is, in my opinion, unwise as it merely gives credibility to the size of the charge and any subsequent charges – as their time and effort in pursuing their invoice goes up.

My suggestion would be you provide evidence of payment (the ticket and credit card bill). Ask them to provide proof of breach of contract. They will likely have pictures – at which point you apologise to them for failing to display the ticket correctly and offer the £15 difference [you could skip straight to this part]. Failing this expect to find yourself / wife with a small claims court action for at least £30 and possibly extra costs – unless they have failed to make the contract clear (which the big parking companies are all switch on to) then I think you can expect the “judge” to find in their favour.

As a few have said above, absolutely positively do nothing. Do not contact the sheisters and ignore any further correspondence from them (there will be quite a bit I should imagine). Wife went through something similar with one of these private parking companies. They seem to have now given up after half a dozen threatening letters. Shame really, we were quite looking forward to receiving the next one…

I think you can expect the “judge” to find in their favour

Has a judge ever found in favour of a private parking company?

My suggestion would be you provide evidence of payment (the ticket and credit card bill). Ask them to provide proof of breach of contract. They will likely have pictures – at which point you apologise to them for failing to display the ticket correctly and offer the £15 difference [you could skip straight to this part]. Failing this expect to find yourself / wife with a small claims court action for at least £30 and possibly extra costs – unless they have failed to make the contract clear (which the big parking companies are all switch on to) then I think you can expect the “judge” to find in their favour.

Definitely the wrong thing to do. You are aware that legally it’s the driver who is liable, but they’ve sent their invoice to the registered keeper? They have no way of knowing (let alone proving) who the driver was unless you tell them – so you don’t do that by not entering into any correspondence with them apart from pointing out that you’re not going to tell them who the driver was. If they try taking the registered keeper to court the judge will throw it out. They can’t take the driver to court as they have no proof who it was.

So hypothetically:

There is an NCP car park down the road from me with no entry barrier (its really just a vacant lot with an NCP pay and display machine)

My wife is the registered keeper of the car, so i could park in the NCP carpark without paying and just ignore any tickets I got as they have no way of enforcing any fines they give me?

Hypothetically

Pretty much, as long as their not running it for the council

Higgo – Member
Has a judge ever found in favour of a private parking company?

It would appear so:
http://www.ukparkingcontrol.com/legal/courtcase.aspx

Although I accept their vested interest in publicising it!

If the charges are completely illegal then none of us should bother paying to park on private land? That is ludicrous – so then the question becomes what happens to someone who doesn’t pay (or fails to display proof of payment)? They should pay – and there needs to be a disincentive to chancing your luck and paying in arrears on the occasions you get caught – so the payment should be larger than for those customers who bother to pay upfront. Doubling the correct fee seems totally reasonable to me (especially when compared to other fees levied in the parking industry).

Judges don’t find in favour because they hate parking companies – they find in favour or against on the basis of law. The only possible defence is he wasn’t driving. (In fact since the Charge Notice will first be sent to his wife, that is her “defence”). The court only needs to establish on the balance of probability who entered the contract – given that the OP travelled on a ferry from the adjacent port, purchased a ticket using a credit card at their machine, and has admitted on the internet to parking their then I think there is enough evidence who entered the contract if the parking company can be bothered. The other common defences are likely to be invalid if the company is running a genuine parking business (as it appears) rather than a scam.

has admitted on the internet to parking

Well if Papa_Lazarou is his real name he’s in big trouble. Meanwhile as his wife also presumably travelled from the port, good luck to the parking company trying to prove even on balance of probabilities which one was the driver – I can’t see how the credit card transaction helps them at all in that respect. The case you quote is slightly different in that the registered keeper was also the driver, which does mean you have to actually deny being the driver rather than simply refuse to name them.

Personally I don’t feel at all uncomfortable with helping somebody who paid the correct fee, but accidentally failed to display the ticket correctly, from avoiding excessive charges.