Ticket received from private parking company - cloned plate
Discussion
As the subject says, my wife received a parking ticket for her car from a private parking firm (CPM - UK Car Park Management) for last Saturday.
It is her reg and the car looks identical (reg, colour, model year, etc.) - except for it having a "UK" sticker on the back which my wife's car does not.
The weird thing is the ticket was received very locally to where we live, so it's obviously somebody who has seen it on the road and got plates made up.
We have google location data showing she was elsewhere at the time (or at least her phone was), and (hopefully) dashcam footage that shows she was driving before and after the offence, but nothing actually at that time.
What are the chances of successfully appealing this? I mean, I shouldn't be worried as it's innocent until proven guilty, but she has no proof of where the car was or what it was doing actually at the time. For reference the offence isn't more than half an hour from the location of her car and in theory there would be time for her to have driven there, parked without paying, and got back in the timeframe!!
What's the next step? I assume report a cloned plate to the police and get a crime number, and report to the DVLA, but with a lack of concrete evidence what can she say to the parking company?
It is her reg and the car looks identical (reg, colour, model year, etc.) - except for it having a "UK" sticker on the back which my wife's car does not.
The weird thing is the ticket was received very locally to where we live, so it's obviously somebody who has seen it on the road and got plates made up.
We have google location data showing she was elsewhere at the time (or at least her phone was), and (hopefully) dashcam footage that shows she was driving before and after the offence, but nothing actually at that time.
What are the chances of successfully appealing this? I mean, I shouldn't be worried as it's innocent until proven guilty, but she has no proof of where the car was or what it was doing actually at the time. For reference the offence isn't more than half an hour from the location of her car and in theory there would be time for her to have driven there, parked without paying, and got back in the timeframe!!
What's the next step? I assume report a cloned plate to the police and get a crime number, and report to the DVLA, but with a lack of concrete evidence what can she say to the parking company?
Magic919 said:
Just tell them it s a clone and not your vehicle.
Will do, but the coincidence is incredible - she pretty much drove past the location on her way to visit somebody in hospital. No real way of proving her movements apart from ring footage of her leaving home and google location tracking and ring footage of her arriving home again. She bought petrol but it was in the area and not at the exact time so that proves nothing either.Just infuriated that she could end up on the hook for this when we know it wasn't her. Or am I being paranoid?
Is it absolutely clear from the picture that the reg is the same? I ask because daughter got one from the Runcorn bridge - she lives fairly close to it and does use it, but not often. At a glance it did look like her reg but looking closely you could see a letter wasn’t as it first appeared.
If it the same you should report it the police. I wouldn’t expect any great difficulty in getting it cancelled but I might be being over-optimistic!
If it the same you should report it the police. I wouldn’t expect any great difficulty in getting it cancelled but I might be being over-optimistic!
Sheepshanks said:
Is it absolutely clear from the picture that the reg is the same?
That's what I was going to say. Similar cars often have similar registrations, particularly if they are registered on 1st March or 1st September.If it was cloned I'd be expecting more problems than just one parking ticket? (Not wanting to make you paranoid!)
We received a ticket for somewhere we’d never been (by several hundred miles) for a car that wasn’t remotely similar (different make and style) with a reg plate that was close(ish). I couldn’t be bothered with their procedure as we’d done nothing wrong so located the names of the company directors and flagged their error and complained about data protection etc. an email cancelling the ticket came in hours.
You may wish to do the same rather than spending much time on it was their formal procedure will probably be a faff as it will likely be designed to put people off.
You may wish to do the same rather than spending much time on it was their formal procedure will probably be a faff as it will likely be designed to put people off.
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
Sheepshanks said:
Is it absolutely clear from the picture that the reg is the same?
That's what I was going to say. Similar cars often have similar registrations, particularly if they are registered on 1st March or 1st September.If it was cloned I'd be expecting more problems than just one parking ticket? (Not wanting to make you paranoid!)
As I say the thing that really bugs me is that it is a local incidence which makes me think rather than guessing a plate somebody has actually seen the car locally which I find a bit disturbing. Also that this makes it harder to argue against.
I'm ordering a couple of window stickers to make the car more obviously different and a bigger microSD card for her dashcam. Irritatingly my old GPS tracker with its lifetime subscription to a logging website seems to have expired
so without spending £10 pcm or setting up my own server it's hard to track. I'm fully expecting more tickets to turn up though...NiceCupOfTea said:
As I say the thing that really bugs me is that it is a local incidence which makes me think rather than guessing a plate somebody has actually seen the car locally which I find a bit disturbing. Also that this makes it harder to argue against.
Have you reported it to the police and got a reference number?Not quite the same but a neighbour emigrated and sold his old car through a local auction. I never got to the bottom of how it happened but our address was coming up against the car - it's possible it was always wrong and our postman had redirected tax reminders etc. We got several penalty notices, topped off by the police getting us out of bed in the middle of the night.
Yes, reported and now have a CRN. Amusingly the police say that it’s not actually a crime! So I plan on avoiding all my ULEZ fines by cloning somebody else’s plate
Getting a couple of empty tax disc holders for the windows to make it more obvious. It is very odd though and if it wasn’t for the UK sticker on the offending car I might have wondered if somebody had somehow stolen the car and returned it!!
Getting a couple of empty tax disc holders for the windows to make it more obvious. It is very odd though and if it wasn’t for the UK sticker on the offending car I might have wondered if somebody had somehow stolen the car and returned it!!
NiceCupOfTea said:
I might have wondered if somebody had somehow stolen the car and returned it!!
When I was a kid I ran out of the disco in the hammering rain. Jumped into my Morris Minor & set off. I suddenly noticed something hanging from the rear view mirror (still a pet hate of mine).It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
When I was a kid I ran out of the disco in the hammering rain. Jumped into my Morris Minor & set off. I suddenly noticed something hanging from the rear view mirror (still a pet hate of mine).
It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
So you were able to open the doors it started with your key?It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
Monkeylegend said:
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
When I was a kid I ran out of the disco in the hammering rain. Jumped into my Morris Minor & set off. I suddenly noticed something hanging from the rear view mirror (still a pet hate of mine).
It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
So you were able to open the doors it started with your key?It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
I'm sure youd be luck with a Morris minor any yale type key would probably fit
As for Ford, weyehr it's a myth or not I once heard in a ford delaers there were 7 combinations
snotrag said:
Monkeylegend said:
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
Nearly every single one of my friends group had Fords as our first car, Mk3 Fiestas and Escorts mainly.It is entirely true.
SpeckledJim said:
snotrag said:
Monkeylegend said:
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
Nearly every single one of my friends group had Fords as our first car, Mk3 Fiestas and Escorts mainly.It is entirely true.
Monkeylegend said:
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
When I was a kid I ran out of the disco in the hammering rain. Jumped into my Morris Minor & set off. I suddenly noticed something hanging from the rear view mirror (still a pet hate of mine).
It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
So you were able to open the doors it started with your key?It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
Monkeylegend said:
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
When I was a kid I ran out of the disco in the hammering rain. Jumped into my Morris Minor & set off. I suddenly noticed something hanging from the rear view mirror (still a pet hate of mine).
It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
So you were able to open the doors it started with your key?It wasn't my car! I carefully returned it and searched mine out
I heard a story once that Ford only had so many different keys and you could often open other Fords with your key. Not sure if that was true.
NiceCupOfTea said:
Yes, reported and now have a CRN. Amusingly the police say that it s not actually a crime! So I plan on avoiding all my ULEZ fines by cloning somebody else s plate
Err.... what?You might want to ask them to go and re read the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, particularly section 44
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