A private parking question
Discussion
S11Steve said:
We had a couple of example recordings of calls to that helpline number, which we planned to playback in court, but it wasn't needed.
The first 5 options are for calling out a patrol, becoming a customer, appealing a charge or ordering a permit. Option 6 is for all other enquiries. Probably a sensible place to start?
"Your call is now first in line and will be answered by the next representative, thank you for your patience" - on loop, for 38 minutes before we hung up. The second time it was 32 minutes, the third time was 27 minutes.
01142 67 86 78 if you wish to try it yourself.
So now what would you do?
i thought even too many would know how thorough you are on this topic. apparently not The first 5 options are for calling out a patrol, becoming a customer, appealing a charge or ordering a permit. Option 6 is for all other enquiries. Probably a sensible place to start?
"Your call is now first in line and will be answered by the next representative, thank you for your patience" - on loop, for 38 minutes before we hung up. The second time it was 32 minutes, the third time was 27 minutes.
01142 67 86 78 if you wish to try it yourself.
So now what would you do?
. well done on yet another successful court case. S11Steve said:
So now what would you do?
Whichever option got me through to a human, so probably the sales option...If that didn't work, then the retail park's management.
wc98 said:
i thought even too many would know how thorough you are on this topic.
This isn't about what Steve would do - because he wasn't driving. This is about what the numpty driving the car should do to avoid making work for Steve in the first place.Nobody needs to spend three hours in a retail park - unless they're doing some work there. If they're working there, they (or the office) really should have sorted it out in advance.
Edited by TooMany2cvs on Monday 27th February 13:34
TooMany2cvs said:
Nobody needs to spend three hours in a retail park - unless they're doing some work there. If they're working there, they (or the office) really should have sorted it out in advance.
Bingo.A lot of the fleet that I manage consists of vans used by contractors. The guy was working on site, doing some big electrical refit. His vehicle was white-listed, but this apparently is only so that staff can drive past the cameras into a staff only car park at the rear. This guy was working at the front, needed his vehicle handy. Even the staff at Staples didn't know this particular uance of the contract.
Staples, and their new owner Hilco Capital, where very helpful and understanding, however the contract they have inherited with VCS is a bit one-sided and has massive penalty clauses for early cancellation.
Staples provided a witness statement, Hilco acknowledged that they were only recently taking over the business and couldn't really comment much.
But the case was thrown out on a number of grounds - VCS have a contract with a former management agent, not even a landowner, but the land was bought out in 2010 by some overseas banking trust, and VCS didn't even know this, even though their contract pre-dates this. The signage was deemed insufficient to form a contract in the first place, and VCS were not seeking keeper liability under POFA.
This latter point is curious, because it assumed that the driver and keeper were the same person, and their lawyer didn't even know why the claim was being brought on those grounds. The whole thing is a joke. The keeper is a Ltd company - how exactly does a certificate of incorporation drive a vehicle?
In short, the parking companies simply are using court claims as another method of intimidating people to pay unfounded charges, and given that I saw two undefended cases ahead of me, I assume that default judgements are what they are hoping for.
S11Steve said:
TooMany2cvs said:
Nobody needs to spend three hours in a retail park - unless they're doing some work there. If they're working there, they (or the office) really should have sorted it out in advance.
Bingo.A lot of the fleet that I manage consists of vans used by contractors. The guy was working on site, doing some big electrical refit. His vehicle was white-listed, but this apparently is only so that staff can drive past the cameras into a staff only car park at the rear. This guy was working at the front, needed his vehicle handy. Even the staff at Staples didn't know this particular uance of the contract.
Staples, and their new owner Hilco Capital, where very helpful and understanding, however the contract they have inherited with VCS is a bit one-sided and has massive penalty clauses for early cancellation.
Staples provided a witness statement, Hilco acknowledged that they were only recently taking over the business and couldn't really comment much.
But the case was thrown out on a number of grounds - VCS have a contract with a former management agent, not even a landowner, but the land was bought out in 2010 by some overseas banking trust, and VCS didn't even know this, even though their contract pre-dates this. The signage was deemed insufficient to form a contract in the first place, and VCS were not seeking keeper liability under POFA.
This latter point is curious, because it assumed that the driver and keeper were the same person, and their lawyer didn't even know why the claim was being brought on those grounds. The whole thing is a joke. The keeper is a Ltd company - how exactly does a certificate of incorporation drive a vehicle?
In short, the parking companies simply are using court claims as another method of intimidating people to pay unfounded charges, and given that I saw two undefended cases ahead of me, I assume that default judgements are what they are hoping for.
TooMany2cvs said:
So, basically, a singularity of incompetence and wuckfittery that's nothing at all to do with whether Joe Average-Customer's "ticket"...
Correct. And through no fault of anyone except VCS did I have to jump through so many hoops to get it cancelled. 13,000 a year are issued for my fleet alone. We've never paid one, I have dozens of POPLA wins, and a number of courts wins under by belt. I've yet to find a ticket that can't be challenged, and regardless of whether the driver was right or wrong to park in the manner in which they did, using the court system to extort money out of people when they have no legal right to do so is fundamentally and morally wrong.
I posted this on the bad parking thread too - I got this charge cancelled at POPLA on the grounds that UKPC have no authority to issue tickets on that land.
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway. I've got no right to do so, but if I send enough letters and rely on a default court judgement, it may well earn me a few quid.
S11Steve said:
....
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway. I've got no right to do so, but if I send enough letters and rely on a default court judgement, it may well earn me a few quid.
This whole system needs to be given a real shake-up. There needs to be a much more honest approach from those issuing notices, and there needs to be a much more robust way for land-owners to control who parks on their land, and how long they stay.This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway. I've got no right to do so, but if I send enough letters and rely on a default court judgement, it may well earn me a few quid.
Steve is 100% right with his example above, but at the moment if you owned that drive you would want to stop somebody else parking on your drive wouldn't you?
Landlords who provide free parking for shoppers often need to restrict parking to stop their car parks being filled with local office staff or commuters parking for the whole day for free. Abuse leading to full car parks which will put off genuine customers as much as the prospect of paying £1 an hour. 2 hours for free should work perfectly well for retail parks, it only fails when users abuse the system or when the parking enforcement is amateurish / draconian.
S11Steve said:
...regardless of whether the driver was right or wrong to park in the manner in which they did...
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
TooMany2cvs said:
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
To be honest, in my experience it's incredibly rare that it's the landowners who have instructed the parking companies, it's invariably a management agent who has had a couple of minor issues, brought in UKPC or one of the IPC sharks, and fallen for a duff contract that doesn't cost them anything, and if they are really lucky, they may even get a bounty on each ticket paid. A few weeks later the complaints start rolling in about unfair tickets on genuine users, but parking company needs to earn their money from somewhere - they've offered their "management services" for free....What would you suggest as a way forward?
Pay on exit, or token/RF tag controlled barriers work very well without the need for excessive invoices and court claims.
S11Steve said:
TooMany2cvs said:
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
To be honest, in my experience it's incredibly rare that it's the landowners who have instructed the parking companies, it's invariably a management agent...What would you suggest as a way forward?
The fact that that is a relevant wrinkle is part of the problem, of course.
S11Steve said:
Pay on exit, or token/RF tag controlled barriers work very well without the need for excessive invoices and court claims.
But then, of course, you start to cause hassle for the genuine users.TooMany2cvs said:
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
We used to do emergency (and planned) glazing etc and worked for all the major supermarkets, insurance companies etc, we would get 2 or 3 tickets a week, usually due to parking in disabled spaces or on the pavement, our guys would intentionally use their vans to block access. You don't want someone pushing their trolley past you when you are trying to carry a 200kg bit of shop front. We were only onsite at the specific request of the operator of that site, generally to secure their business. I can fully understand a parking company issuing the ticket, I can not understand why they would not cancel them, especially when confirmation was supplied by the landowners.What would you suggest as a way forward?
What makes it worse is when they use the courts as an intimidation tactic. We ended up engaging counsel at huge cost.
I think the current law is reasonable in most respects, but I would make the PPC lodge in escrow, as soon as they threaten court action, the amount claimed for each claim, this would then be paid to the defendant in the event of the court finding in the defendants favour or if their is a discontinuance from the PPC.
This would force the PPC to get its paperwork in order and not use the courts as a pressure tactic. In our case they had no prospect of success, due to the landowner instructing the PPC to cancel.
TooMany2cvs said:
S11Steve said:
...regardless of whether the driver was right or wrong to park in the manner in which they did...
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
Barriers work well and are not expensive in the scheme of things
pork911 said:
Can't she read a sign and a clock or was bridezilla fixated on the dress?
It was a gaggle of bridesmaids so 5 people trying on various things I guess.Easy to exceed the 2 hours.
2 hour limit is obviously there to stop people using it for free all day parking etc and they're happy to waive it for genuine customers.
blueg33 said:
TooMany2cvs said:
S11Steve said:
...regardless of whether the driver was right or wrong to park in the manner in which they did...
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
Barriers work well and are not expensive in the scheme of things
It would be nice to see this ticketing system in use in more places - definitely less likely to penalise genuine customers.
TooMany2cvs said:
S11Steve said:
...regardless of whether the driver was right or wrong to park in the manner in which they did...
This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
The problem, of course, is that it's the ONLY way in which landowners can legally prevent piss-taking eejits from abusing their facilities.This is pretty much the same as me charging people to park on their own driveway.
What would you suggest as a way forward?
Just to add 'having a polite word' hasn't worked, the layout is unsuitable for barriers and to rub it in we have the car park as part of the lease so pay rent and rates on it.
In my opinion the issue of landowner authority should be dealt with. The management should automatically have authority to instruct a car park company. At the moment it's just used as a ticket dodging wheeze. On the other hand every first offence should be cancelled and taken as a warning as this would deal with mistakes and misunderstandings. Hopefully serial abusers would find themselves having to pay up.
herewego said:
In my opinion the issue of landowner authority should be dealt with. The management should automatically have authority to instruct a car park company. At the moment it's just used as a ticket dodging wheeze. On the other hand every first offence should be cancelled and taken as a warning as this would deal with mistakes and misunderstandings. Hopefully serial abusers would find themselves having to pay up.
But that doesn't fit the business model that the parking companies use - they offer to manage the site for free, and can only profit from it if they issue lots of tickets. This is why genuine residents and occupiers get targeted - the original serial abusers do get deterred pretty quickly, and the only way for the scheme to be sustainable for the the PPC is to continue issue tickets to genuine users.If anyone here is from Scotland or Northern Ireland, can you tell me how you guys ever find a place to park, as the private parking laws do not apply there. It must be carmaggedon there without any option for enforcement.
S11Steve said:
But that doesn't fit the business model that the parking companies use - they offer to manage the site for free, and can only profit from it if they issue lots of tickets. This is why genuine residents and occupiers get targeted - the original serial abusers do get deterred pretty quickly, and the only way for the scheme to be sustainable for the the PPC is to continue issue tickets to genuine users.
...
You are right up to a point, it is sustainable primarily because there are so many members of the public who think that even the most basic rules don't apply to them. Genuine residents, occupiers, and users simply do not get ticketed in sufficient quantities to make this profitable. ...
The Surveyor said:
You are right up to a point, it is sustainable primarily because there are so many members of the public who think that even the most basic rules don't apply to them. Genuine residents, occupiers, and users simply do not get ticketed in sufficient quantities to make this profitable.
Maybe as a whole, but on individual sites - and I have numerous examples, the residents and estate managers are telling me that the original problem, if there even was one, has gone away, but the PPC have only got the residents left to earn money from. A lot of these free management contracts are a minimum 2 year term, but once the residents know some of the legal arguments to use, they have found life a lot easier, particularly when Primacy of Contract is explained to them in simple terms in relation to their tenancy agreements, or a successful court claim where signs are insufficient to form a contract. It amazes me that they can write a contract for parking charge that can be blown away on numerous points, but a two year break clause in a supply contract is seemingly water tight.
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