Parking Pirates
Author
Discussion

MrMoonyMan

Original Poster:

2,602 posts

227 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
Afternoon all,

Firstly my apologies for firing a commonly asked question at you all. I have looked this up elsewhere and the advice varies from ignore it to send a cease and desist etc.

My wife went to her class here last year, the machine for logging your reg was not working. The teacher would confirm she was there.
When she first received a letter last year she replied and said she had been at the class and provided a picture of the machine not working.

Fast forward to now and we have just received this letter.

What should we do please? It is outside of my usual expertise.

Thank you

paul_c123

1,036 posts

9 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
Who is "we" - who exactly was the letter addressed to?
Who is the RK of the car?
Has at any point, your wife admitted to being the driver?
Were there any other machines, albeit a little bit of a walk away? How far?
Were these working or faulty?

MrMoonyMan

Original Poster:

2,602 posts

227 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
Wife is the owner of the car

She was the driver, she has confirmed this when she replied to say the machine was faulty and she was there.

It’s a free parking as long as you’re attending one of the businesses there. You just have to put your registration number in on the way in.

There is just the one machine inside.



MustangGT

13,408 posts

296 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
Wait for the court case, present the same evidence as sent to them initially and win the case.

carl_w

9,915 posts

274 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
Only once court proceedings start is it too late to get the charge cancelled. Ask the people running the class or the venue to get it cancelled.

Failing that wait until you get notification of a hearing and follow the advice here, but be prepared to wait some time: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/co...

It's a faff but invariably they will discontinue. I've just had one of these rumbling on for four years and they discontinued the day before they had to pay the court filing fee.

The0perator

311 posts

45 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
You just need to prove she as there because she was meant to be, can be proven by the teacher per your post?

I have had a letter like this before, like an ALDI car park I think. basically had to prove that I had business there, I contacted them with proof of purchase and they 'graciously' offered to cancel the ticket.. but of course once I had proved that they couldn't really take it to court as I had genuine business there.

ADJimbo

662 posts

202 months

Thursday 14th August
quotequote all
As mentioned by others. It’s only at letter of claim stage.

If they do litigate, Northampton CCBC will write to you with a stamped claim form - assuming that they commence proceedings. You’ll need to engage at that point

That said, I’ve done a couple of hearings pro-bono for family members in the last nine months and they both actually went to hearing stage (which is a change in their modus-operandi) on the small claims track. Parking Eye offered no evidence at the start of the hearing (which I expected, on account that a .pdf of the sign design was the only document submitted - which does not count as evidence) and the second one, the name of the parking company I forget, where I thought it could go either way, I’ve never heard of a more bored DJ for a long time.

Wait and see what their next move is would be my thought process.

Edited by ADJimbo on Thursday 14th August 15:54