In the merde again .

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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Paul-R »

RichardW wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 12:23Dick Turpin appears to have taken over the parking at Edinburgh airport!
And Liverpool Airport as well. I used to quite like Liverpool Airport. Not any more. Now no free parking or even drop-off. B*stards.

I absolutely refuse to recommend this rip-off place to anyone. I'd rather drive twice the distance and go to Manchester.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Richard_C »

The car park operator / unclear boundary thing seems to be spreading - similar stories in Cambridgeshire recently and there is one car park (don't recall where) where the ANPR cameras for one bit record cars turning into the other bit. Cameras are unforgiving - kip for 2 hours and 1 minute on a motorway service area at 2.00 pm, a penalty charge. Lots of fast food places now have 'camera enforcement' and although most of us would resent spending over 2 hours in a bigmacflamingkingpizza place, kids parties get caught out. Its all pretty rotten, landowners and parking enforcers see a way to make money so they do. No wonder amazon, pizza deliveries, and other online business is doing well.

£100 seems excessive. Not sure there is much you can do, some info here but not hopeful

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-court ... ng-ticket/

In airports, think of it all as a Ryanair/Easyjet tax. Once upon a time airports were a sort of service, most were publicly owned, airlines paid to land there and they broke even on everything else. Now the likes of Ryanair drive landing fees down to almost zero so the airports have to generate revenue in other ways. "You can make a profit from the passengers that we attract to your airport, but don't charge us or we won't come".
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Andy F »

Sorry to hear that Gibbo, is this the one just off Ladybellegate Street? By chance I was there earlier today and it really is not clear that it is two separate car parks. I'm sure in the past I've paid at one machine (that was closer) only to realise it belonged to the 'other' car park so ended up buying two tickets for one stay!
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Andy F wrote: 19 Dec 2017, 23:52 Sorry to hear that Gibbo, is this the one just off Ladybellegate Street? By chance I was there earlier today and it really is not clear that it is two separate car parks. I'm sure in the past I've paid at one machine (that was closer) only to realise it belonged to the 'other' car park so ended up buying two tickets for one stay!


That's the one Andy, only one entrance, two diagonally opposed identical 'please pay here' signs on the corners.

I've filled out their appeal form online and taken pictures of the site from Google Earth, if the appeal isn't granted I'll fight it in the court if necessary, I'm pretty angry at the set up, it looks like a deliberate trap set to catch the unwary and extort money.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by GiveMeABreak »

Something here that might be worth a read through Gibbo:
http://www.devonlive.com/news/motoring/ ... ice-326724
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Thanks Marc, that is interesting.......but I think the writer is being something of a bar room lawyer and some of his arguments would fall down if he was taken to court.
The suggestion to 'do not appeal' is wrong, there is a procedure to follow which starts by appealing, politely, to the parking company then if that's rejected to move on to the trade body's appeal system and if that fails to then say 'see you in court' which will no doubt bring out the debt collectors who really have no power but to threaten you and try to frighten you into submission.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by 411514 »

Gibbo2286 wrote: 20 Dec 2017, 11:34 Thanks Marc, that is interesting.......but I think the writer is being something of a bar room lawyer and some of his arguments would fall down if he was taken to court.
The suggestion to 'do not appeal' is wrong, there is a procedure to follow which starts by appealing, politely, to the parking company then if that's rejected to move on to the trade body's appeal system and if that fails to then say 'see you in court' which will no doubt bring out the debt collectors who really have no power but to threaten you and try to frighten you into submission.
I have not read the article, but I should imagine that the advice to not engage with some contrived appeals process operated by the parking operator is that I should bet in beginning the process you have admitted to being the driver. Thus, NCP will now seek to recover damages for an alleged breach of a contract formed with the driver at the time of parking.

Had you not admitted to being the driver, NCP would have, to recover contractual damages, been required to demonstrate the same on the balance of probabilities. As you might guess, doing so is usually v.difficult/impossible, and certainly far more difficult/impossible than would be justified for the sake of £100.

As it is, it is unclear what the basis for your appeal might be. You seem to have admitted that through your own error you parked in the car park and did not pay. Your only arguments now would appear to be that the terms of the contract allegedly formed were unreasonable, or indeed that the nature of the signage is such that no contract should be considered to have been formed, neither of which argument would appear particularly certain.

Whilst I am not a fan either of the armchair lawyer parking online forums, which tend to be full of a lot of misguided opinions, my advice in this sort of situation in the future would be to ignore any requests for parking charges which are said to be owed by the driver as contractual damages, and if the operator intends to use the provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to transfer liability to the registered keeper, to inform the operator of the driver identity (I usually nominate some poor chap living in the darkest depths of North Korea), thereby preventing transfer of liability to the keeper.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Gibbo2286 »

411514 There is no doubt that I was the driver and little point in denying it, that would only add to the possible costs because they would be able to claim the need to search DVLA for information and add that to their recovery costs should the matter come to court.

Trying to be too clever can land you in a whole load of more s**t than being honest and claiming that the set up is poor and unreasonable, almost as thought the system is deliberately intended to entrap the unwary and extort large amounts of money from them.

Still awaiting a response from them.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by 411514 »

Gibbo2286 wrote: 22 Dec 2017, 10:19 There is no doubt that I was the driver
How could they establish (at least cost effectively) without doubt that you were the driver?
Gibbo2286 wrote: 22 Dec 2017, 10:19 they would be able to claim the need to search DVLA for information
The DVLA does not hold records of the drivers of vehicles, only their registered keepers.
Gibbo2286 wrote: 22 Dec 2017, 10:19 claiming that the set up is poor and unreasonable, almost as thought the system is deliberately intended to entrap the unwary and extort large amounts of money from them.
In my view none of those reasons are anywhere near certain reasons for repudiating the supposed contract. They appear arguable, but probably not worth the argument for £100. Claiming that the set up is unreasonable is one thing, demonstrating it is another.
Gibbo2286 wrote: 22 Dec 2017, 10:19 that would only add to the possible costs
Those costs would not be recoverable from the keeper because of Section 4(5) Schedule 4 Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. They might however be recoverable from the driver, which is another reason not to voluntarily identify yourself as the driver.
Gibbo2286 wrote: 22 Dec 2017, 10:19 Trying to be too clever can land you in a whole load of more s**t than being honest
If you want to tell someone that you will "see them in court" as you suggest you need to be sure your arguments have basis in law. If that is being 'clever', than that is what you need to be.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Just received an email from the parking company "On this occasion the business manager has requested the cancellation of this notice.
No further action is required of you in respect of the PCN."

Whew! :)
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by myglaren »

Nice Christmas present :)
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by lexi »

Brilliant! £100 buys quite a few diesel miles.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Zelandeth »

Totally read the title as "in the media again" until I read it again and allowed myself to breathe again!

There are a lot of increasingly daft parking setups out there, especially where ANPR systems are used.

I had a spat with the Sainsbury's in central MK because of the utterly *stupid* way the system appears to be configured. Apparently this system throws a major wobbler and assumes you've "snuck in" or overstayed if it doesn't "see" your car going through the entrance. Which given where they've put the camera is all but inevitable if your front plate is in any way recessed under the front bumper as it is on the Lada.

Took me a while, but I eventually managed to get someone from their management agent to meet with me, allowing me to demonstrate the flaw. Did they fix it? Nope! Just "whitelisted" my reg number on their database apparently! Oh...and cancelled the £600 worth of penalty notices.

The NCP/Council car parks by the Centre in MK are beyond baffling in some cases and look to have been designed to fool people into taking the wrong ticket.

Don't get me started on pay and display areas which require you to put the reg number on the ticket... that's blatant profiteering and is one of those things I will walk halfway across town to avoid using.

Oh, speaking of those, first time I came across them was in Oxford...and in Oxford (at least the car parks I tried to use around Summertown) where they had this setup, I found the machines refused to accept the reg on the Saab as valid, which was a right faff that day as I was in a real hurry. Ended up having to play parking warden roulette as I simply couldn't obtain a pay and display ticket.
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by CitroJim »

Gibbo, that's brilliant news :)

Zel, that's total overkill for a supermarket car park but technically interesting as I did wonder how the system worked - I thought it was all just down to the round sensors in the middle of each parking bay...
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Re: In the merde again .

Post by Zelandeth »

CitroJim wrote: 29 Dec 2017, 05:24 Gibbo, that's brilliant news :)

Zel, that's total overkill for a supermarket car park but technically interesting as I did wonder how the system worked - I thought it was all just down to the round sensors in the middle of each parking bay...


That's how it used to work Jim, was changed to camera control about six months ago I think. Not sure of the logic behind it...most likely saved a job as penalties are now issued by a computer and sent by post rather than physically slapped on the windscreen.
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