PCN removed from car
Discussion
Received a Notice to Owner this morning from Westminster council about a contravention 6 weeks ago. At the time I thought I was parked in a legit bay (it was one of a handful marked for residents only - no dispute - but an honest mistake) and there was no PCN on the car when I returned... so until now I had no idea I'd made the mistake.
I logged into their system and there are photos of the PCN tucked under a wiper so can only conclude somebody else must have taken it. A few hours passed between the PCN being issued and my returning.
I'll explain and ask if they'll grant the opportunity to pay a reduced charge (which i would have paid promptly on receipt of a PCN) but wondered if anyone else had been in this situation... as if they can uphold the full charge it would seem that any driver receiving a PCN is somewhat at the mercy of third party scrotes who might be compelled to remove or tamper with it.
I logged into their system and there are photos of the PCN tucked under a wiper so can only conclude somebody else must have taken it. A few hours passed between the PCN being issued and my returning.
I'll explain and ask if they'll grant the opportunity to pay a reduced charge (which i would have paid promptly on receipt of a PCN) but wondered if anyone else had been in this situation... as if they can uphold the full charge it would seem that any driver receiving a PCN is somewhat at the mercy of third party scrotes who might be compelled to remove or tamper with it.
akirk said:
I would be surprised if they did - there is no way of proving that this happened / that you didn't simply throw it in the bin...
not necessarily fair - but one of the flaws in the system
CCTV. Surely they are stuck to the screen, not tucked under a wiper? Was it wet at the time?not necessarily fair - but one of the flaws in the system
speedking31 said:
akirk said:
I would be surprised if they did - there is no way of proving that this happened / that you didn't simply throw it in the bin...
not necessarily fair - but one of the flaws in the system
CCTV. Surely they are stuck to the screen, not tucked under a wiper? Was it wet at the time?not necessarily fair - but one of the flaws in the system
It was an area where you have a mixture of shared and residents permit only spaces and I somehow plonked it in one of the latter despite the clear signs (in hindsight). I think I was paying more attention to avoiding getting drenched than the sign posts.
I think somebody has nicked it.
theboss said:
I logged into their system and there are photos of the PCN tucked under a wiper so can only conclude somebody else must have taken it. A few hours passed between the PCN being issued and my returning.
Have you heard of 'ghost ticketing'? There are still CEOs who perpetrate this scam.Challenging it can be difficult. Depends on how credible you are to the adjudicator.
Red Devil said:
theboss said:
I logged into their system and there are photos of the PCN tucked under a wiper so can only conclude somebody else must have taken it. A few hours passed between the PCN being issued and my returning.
Have you heard of 'ghost ticketing'? There are still CEOs who perpetrate this scam.Challenging it can be difficult. Depends on how credible you are to the adjudicator.
As I also understand it, some people will take a PCN affixed to another car and stick it on their own, on the basis that an enforcement officer is likely to assume it's already been issued to that car (unless he walked down that same street 15 minuters earlier, which is quite possible).
I filed a representation online and am waiting for a response in the post. In any case I won't let it go further than necessary, for the sake of £130. I'm guilty as charged, and it was still a fairly cheap way of getting 4 people into the heart of the West End for an evening.
Ghosting happens with private parking firms, but tbh Ive not really heard about it being done for the council (assuming this is council)
Used to bait UKCPM into giving me tickets for months while parked in my own space and ended up with 20 tickets, all defeated at POPLA with ease but council is another matter.
Used to bait UKCPM into giving me tickets for months while parked in my own space and ended up with 20 tickets, all defeated at POPLA with ease but council is another matter.
theboss said:
I'm not sure I completely get this ghost ticketing business - it would make sense for a private firm with a commercial incentive to collect 'full' fines, but I don't see what an individual council employed enforcement officer would stand to gain - and with the prevalence of cameras in and outside cars (this was on a fairly busy street in Mayfair) it would seem like a big risk to take.
What you're missing here is that private companies are integral to local authority parking enforcement. Very few, if indeed any, London Boroughs employ CEOs: it's all sub-contracted. What a CEO would stand to gain could ultimately be keeping his/her job. Fail to meet your target and your supervisor is going to be on your back like a measles rash. Why? you might ask. Because the supervisor's manager will be on his/her back (see below). And so on. Using a private company allows a LA to try and distance itself from dodgy goings-on.I guess you must have missed the BBC Inside Out program where certain London Borough contracts were found to contain (questionable, nay even illegal) incentives (e.g. minimum target numbers, a sliding scale of performance payments for numbers above the base line, and grading of CEOs according to the number of tickets issued). One of them was where I was resident at the time!
theboss said:
As I also understand it, some people will take a PCN affixed to another car and stick it on their own, on the basis that an enforcement officer is likely to assume it's already been issued to that car (unless he walked down that same street 15 minuters earlier, which is quite possible).
I don't know how prevalent or effective that gamble might be.theboss said:
I filed a representation online and am waiting for a response in the post. In any case I won't let it go further than necessary, for the sake of £130. I'm guilty as charged, and it was still a fairly cheap way of getting 4 people into the heart of the West End for an evening.
Many years ago, on a visit to the in-laws, I got ticketed for exactly the same thing in RBK&C. Unfortunately for them both the LA and the enforcement officer made some fundamental errors. Sensibly the LA cancelled the PCN before it needed to be subject to adjudication at PATAS (now London Tribunals).Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff