Not sure how many away travellers (perhaps I should have pm'd ooh ah) stay in Travelodges or even use them for non footballing reasons.
However be aware that, despite properly paying for parking when booking, they are sending out £60 parking penalty charge notices.
Even "better" their tactic is to give you 28 days from the "alleged contravention" but they date and time the notice to arrive pretty much on the expiry of the 28 days, presumably to try to terrify people into paying instantly before they think too much.
I regard myself as reasonably savvy when it comes to these matters but, for a minute or two, it put the fear of God into me even though I knew I had done nothing wrong. Hence my tipping off people on here.
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Parked up & paid on the 12th December & still have proof.
On 8th January, I get a £60 fine increased to £100 if not paid in 14 days.
I've appealed on 8/1/15 and they should respond within 35 days = 12th February.
Unless they are local council the "fines" from any private car park operator are, in practice, not enforceable. North Greenwich might be a council car park managed by NCP, I don't know, but it's essential that you establish what status it is. Travelodge obviously is private.
If it's a private car park, unless they take you to Court and win a civil case against you and obtain an award of specific monies owed by you under contract law you owe nothing to anyone. Any demand for money is not a "fine" it is an invoice. Just register that you are disputing the terms of the alleged mutual contract, or you were simply unaware of the terms. They cannot get bailiffs to collect money as they have no legal authority without a Court order confirming you owe any money. Call their bluff, make it clear you are not paying and threaten them with legal action if they harass you for money, that is illegal and is a crime.
The laws that exist are to protect private citizens whose private property is not intended to be a car park and involves using clamping. The law is not designed to help commercial private car park operators extort money from motorists.
No private car park operator has ever succeeded in a private prosecution, it is not worth them even bringing one as losing the case would publicise the fact that the purported contracts have so many holes in them that the law would not uphold them as valid, fair or reasonable. At best they would get a token award of a few pounds for trespass and they would have their own legal costs to pay.
Unfortunately Councils have a statutory power for fines which means only the appeals process can get you off the hook.
Presumably, this makes them private ?
The parking charge notice also states that :- "If we reject your representation then we will send you information on how to appeal to the independent adjudication service. Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA). Please see www.popla.og.uk for more information.
If you want to act as an upstanding law abiding citizen and you made a mistake and should have paid, then just send them the car park fee due plus £2 for expenses. The Courts do not recognise "fines", it is a word to frighten people and give it gravitas, the Courts would only recognise amounts due under contract. Only the State can "fine" you for breach of a statutory duty or offence. Legal views I have seen say only the car park payment could be enforced at best, not something which purported to be a fine by an entity with no statutory power to levy one. If you agreed to park for £1 for an hour or £70 for 1 hour 5 minutes then it might be different.
Ask yourself why private car parks do not make it impossible not to make payment by having pay on exit barriers as many councils do. Fines are what pay for the third party operator's profits. He pays the property owner for the right to collect the ticket money, if there were not fines there would not be the juicy profits. If there were not fines the property owner would be offered less money for the contract. Every request for a driver's details earns DVLC £25 (I think), so the property owner and the car park operators and DVLC are in an unholy alliance to fleece motorists. It's a complete scam.
A couple of years back I was working in Bromley , paid by phone for two hours but when I returned to my van 90 minutes later there was a ticket on it . I realised after checking that I had accidentally clicked on my previous van reg which I'd forgotten to delete. Spoke politely to the warden who issued it and he said appeal it as you will be able to prove you've paid and it was a genuine mistake. Appealed it and Bromley council cancelled it and told me to be more careful next time.
Fast forward to last year I took the family to Gravesend on the Saturday before Christmas and decided to park on the street not quite in town as I didn't want to get stuck in a multi story if it got busy. Got back to the car and there was a ticket. Turned out I'd used the reg on the app for my work van but was in my car , wasn't worried as I remembered what happened before so I appealed and sent off all the relevant info , I could even prove my van wasn't there as I have a tracker on it. The appeal was refused meaning if I then wanted to take it further and lost I would have to pay the full amount.
My mistake obviously but the fact that I could quite clearly prove I had actually paid has made me pissed off , no wonder people would rather go to the likes of Bluewater and Lakeside where parking is free and unlimited and town centres are dying.
I have written to my MP, DVLC (see attached) and the Data Protection office complaining but they pass the buck around. MP says its to protect illegal parking, great, but why let it be manipulated into a commercial cash generating scam.
Incidentally when the law under pressure from NCP etc was changed to allow landowners to pursue vehicle owners for their "legal rights" rather than the driver with whom a contract is allegedly made, it was nodded through in Parliament under assurance that it did not change the law on the liability itself. So ignore any claims that are implied that the owner is liable if you don't pay their INVOICE.
if you walked out of Tesco and someone tapped you on the shoulder and asked to see your receipt, could he ask you for £100 if you had just thrown it in the bin, would you say OK I agreed to this when I walked in the shop here you go here's your £100. Do you think Courts would uphold such unfair practices. Where is the Office of Fair Trading on all this? It makes money for DVLC and that's why it's allowed, period.
All operators have to do is have a guy stand there and collect your money in or out, end of problem. If someone parks on my drive everyday without invitation I expect the law to help me, that law is simply being abused to support a money making enterprise.
Apart from Roland, nothing makes me more angry.
What was the response?
Look - I hate parking fines as much as the next person. Attempting to park pretty much anywhere near a town centre in London is a soul-destroying experience, and yes - I agree that it's at least partially responsible for the death of the town centre as a shopping destination. But your post just seems like the same I see or hear from everyone else who gets caught out through carelessness, or thinks the rules are too strictly enforced.
The problem with what may seem like perfectly valid reasons to you are that the rules are in place not for the scrupulous, but for the unscrupulous. I'd say that you should have considered yourself extremely lucky that you got off the first ticket, because people sharing tickets between cars is something councils have been trying to clamp down on for years.
I'm not being confrontational here - and the OP about parking on private land and being clamped then charged extortionate release fees or threatened with fines is disgusting. But comparing your experience with that isn't even in the same ballpark
How long till I get a letter from their solicitors?
It may indeed have been a genuine error but a bit of googling suggests that this firm has form for at best immoral and at worst illegal practices and others (my wife's elderly aunt for example) may have been panicked into paying this kind of opportunistic notice.
The authorities do not seem keen to support decent, working people against sharks like these.
Anyway at least I have something in writing that the case is closed if (when) they try to send the cavalry in!
The local councils do this in an attempt to extort money from the public by frightening them into paying. It's a horrible tactic but it is a revenue stream that they need to continuously keep ticking over. Especially now when most local authorities have suffered so many deep cuts to their budgets.
Just for info, for the most part, less than 10% of parking revenue is actually put back into the parking and traffic management services of each local authority.
Why do you call them "fines". Not moaning about not paying a fee to park, I'm moaning about the principle, just like Wonga, that you exploit those who enter into contracts from a weak position and have limited choice. You make money from expecting the terms to be inevitably broken and seek to apply a disproportionate levy that bears no relationship to the value obtained. Remember how the law ruled against Wonga pursuing debts when they were taken to Court. I'm moaning about the State collaborating with private enterprise to create a money making chain of supply that adds no value and serves no public good.
Parking terms on "fines" are unfair contracts that in any other sphere of our life wouldn't be tolerated. It is a monopoly position that is being exploited. I pay my way and have no problem with paying for private parking, I draw the line at having the piss taken.
I've never paid a private car park fine and never will. I send the fee for the overstay as a token gesture and to defuse absolutely any legal case.
DVLC replied that they do what they do in the interests of motorists!! That letter was 2008, the law now clarifies that DVLC have to supply the details to organisations that belong to the car park trade association, so they don't have to explain why they do it.
I kept the receipt from the shop which had on it the time of the shop 12.16pm, the PCN was issued at 12.12pm
I sent off my appeal saying it was a genuine mistake, with receipt as evidence, stating I simply forgot to get a display ticket. A couple of things bug me. I sent my appeal off over a month ago now, I hope they received it, because I've heard nothing back. I don't want them to think I'm just ignoring the ticket or refusing to pay it as that may lead to more demands of penalty fees etc.
Although it was a Sainsburys car park it was under Lewisham council I got the ticket.
Has this happened to anyone before, do you think they will accept my appeal, bear in mind I have provided a reciept?
First , the new 2012 legislation that @Dippenhall mentions prohibited clamping. Second, as Dippenhall says, in a sop to them, it gave the private car park firms the right to pursue the registered keeper for the debt if they could not trace the driver.
Third be careful with car parks attached to railway stations (tube stations?) as they may (or may not) be operating under railway byelaws and therefore be similar to council-run car parks. Whatever, there cannot be both a fine and a penalty charge.
Fourth, read the advice on here forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60 about how to deal with private parking contractors these days. DO NOT IGNORE but use POPLA in the first instance appears to be the current advice. Apart from anything else it costs the operator money.
All the stuff Dippenhall mentions about speculative invoices, penalty charges, etc is correct - probably - but do you want to try that out in the Courts? The trouble is that their are random judgements and none of them set a precedent or are binding on other Courts. It's a shambles.
Parking Eye, for one, seem prepared to fight their corner in Court and claim to win 90% of the cases - although it seems certain this figure has dropped off as people become wise to their tactics. Read more here parkingcowboys.co.uk/parking-eye/
One thing to be aware of if you are parking illegally in London Boroughs (not private land). Each time you are given a parking ticket this is logged on a database. Any successful appeals will also be logged with each PCN issued. If you are the type of person who just gets tickets and ignores them and never pays, some councils have the authority to tow away your vehicle if you are caught parking illegally again. If they do this, they have the right not to release that vehicle until all fines (and subsequent costs) are paid in full as well as any charges for towing and impounding said vehicle.
The biggest problem with this countries parking regulations is the lack of global legislation. Each Borough or Local Authority has a certain amount of leeway in decided how the law is applied. What has been needed for many years is legislation that is all encompassing that every Borough or Local Authority must apply in exactly the same way. The way things are now just leads to confusion, particularly when people park outside of areas that they are used to frequenting where they understand how the laws are applied. A good example of this would be the blue badge scheme for disabled people. Some Boroughs will let a disabled person park absolutely anywhere. Others are very strict on where blue badges are allowed to be used without being subject to a contravention. The only way a disabled person will know how each Borough applies the law is by contacting them in advance to ask them. This is not always practical as I'm sure you can understand.
Sorry for the long post. Thought it might be some useful info.
My advice would be to don't ignore the tickets as it makes your case worse. Follow the really excellent advice here:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets
Also check the forum as there are so many threads with a large number of scenarios of where people have got tickets and successfully had them cancelled. There is advice on where to complain and how to appeal through POPLA with great success. I myself had a ticket revoked following their advice, which as later confirmed by all parties involved was given in error.
I rang the PCN i appealed to and they had "no receipt" of my appeal.
Too much trust that if I sent off the receipt that would be okay I guess
Section 7 states:
References to service by post.
Where an Act authorises or requires any document to be served by post (whether the expression “serve” or the expression “give” or “send” or any other expression is used) then, unless the contrary intention appears, the service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing, pre-paying and posting a letter containing the document and, unless the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.
So, you've got the receipt, by law, that means that delivery is deemed to have taken place a couple of days later - whether it did or not!