Parking Charge Notice Scam
Discussion
Hello !
I thought you all ought to know about the "Parking Charge Notice" scam that companies such as Highview Parking Ltd are doing in retail car parks and supermarket car parks under the guise of contracted car park enforcement. Since this is private land you cannot be fined for parking there, only a court can fine you. They also seem to break the Company's Act legislation by not having a Company address and Company Registration number on their "invoices". Also if the don't say "within 28 days from RECEIPT of this notice" it's unenforceable.
They contact DVLA and pay their 2.50 fee to get the registered keepers name and address and then bombard you with frightening " We will take you to court - this will affect your credit rating" etc phrases. The silly thing is they can't prove the keeper was driving the car and if any "contract" was entered into by using the car park it is up to them to provide evidence of who was driving - not the registered keeper. Only the police can insist on this information being given!
Don't pay the charge - in fact don't even bother to reply as they don't even seem to follow up on their hollow threats and even then - given the above info they are then laible to pay your costs in defrending yourself.
Hope that's helpful ( and posted in the correct place !)
Happy driving,
E aka disgruntaled of Hants ( DOH )
I thought you all ought to know about the "Parking Charge Notice" scam that companies such as Highview Parking Ltd are doing in retail car parks and supermarket car parks under the guise of contracted car park enforcement. Since this is private land you cannot be fined for parking there, only a court can fine you. They also seem to break the Company's Act legislation by not having a Company address and Company Registration number on their "invoices". Also if the don't say "within 28 days from RECEIPT of this notice" it's unenforceable.
They contact DVLA and pay their 2.50 fee to get the registered keepers name and address and then bombard you with frightening " We will take you to court - this will affect your credit rating" etc phrases. The silly thing is they can't prove the keeper was driving the car and if any "contract" was entered into by using the car park it is up to them to provide evidence of who was driving - not the registered keeper. Only the police can insist on this information being given!
Don't pay the charge - in fact don't even bother to reply as they don't even seem to follow up on their hollow threats and even then - given the above info they are then laible to pay your costs in defrending yourself.
Hope that's helpful ( and posted in the correct place !)
Happy driving,
E aka disgruntaled of Hants ( DOH )
Hi everyone. A quick update on this. After reading around regarding Highview Parking and after tracking the letters and doing some digging I found out that the "Debt Collectors" they were using and another "Parking Company" were actually different trading names for Highview, therefore the same company. What did annoy me was that they sent a letter saying they had "bought the debt", which is strange as buying the debt from yourself is erm weird and a scam.
I contacted the Companies Investigationb Branch - a government dept that polices companies. I explained all the details on the fill in form on the web site. A few weeks ago I had a call from them asking me to send copies of the correspondence and they would look into it. Unfortunately they cant say what action if any is taken but hopefully if enough people do this we can run them out of town.
Hope you find this useful.
All the best,
DGoH
I contacted the Companies Investigationb Branch - a government dept that polices companies. I explained all the details on the fill in form on the web site. A few weeks ago I had a call from them asking me to send copies of the correspondence and they would look into it. Unfortunately they cant say what action if any is taken but hopefully if enough people do this we can run them out of town.
Hope you find this useful.
All the best,
DGoH
disgruntledhants said:
Also if the don't say "within 28 days from RECEIPT of this notice" it's unenforceable.
Incorrect, it's still a valid Invoice - not the wording I'm using here, it's an Invoice relying upon contract law.disgruntledhants said:
They contact DVLA and pay their 2.50 fee to get the registered keepers name and address and then bombard you with frightening " We will take you to court - this will affect your credit rating" etc phrases. The silly thing is they can't prove the keeper was driving the car and if any "contract" was entered into by using the car park it is up to them to provide evidence of who was driving - not the registered keeper. Only the police can insist on this information being given!
This much is correct however, unless you are stupid enough to admit that you were in fact driving at the time, or stupid enough to reply to them in any way, shape or form, other than to direct them to send the Invoice to the person who formed the contract with them. Anything else may leave yourself open to a claim. Don't pass comment on anything to do with the legality of parking, don't say you were parked legally, just reject that you formed a contract with them.
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