Author Topic: Menace of the new parking cowboys  (Read 1308 times)

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Menace of the new parking cowboys
« on: 28 July, 2014, 08:14:21 AM »
Menace of the new parking cowboys: Drivers 'fined' £100 for overstaying by minutes at fast food chains and shops

    Tickets doled out by private firms do not have official legal status
    Many are in fact issued unfairly and without the proper legal authority
    AA president Edmund King says many use 'scare tactics and bullying'
    Drivers cannot be compelled to pay unless a court order is granted


By Sean Poulter and Stephen Wright and Mario Ledwith

Published: 22:53, 27 July 2014 | Updated: 05:33, 28 July 2014



‘Cowboy’ parking squads hired by High Street firms are hitting hundreds of thousands of drivers with £100 ‘fines’ and using threats to make them pay up.

The companies – employed by fast food chains, retailers and railway operators – issue what appear to be official penalty notices, similar to those used by council traffic wardens. They then extract huge sums from drivers who are sometimes just a few minutes late in returning to their cars.

However, the tickets do not have the same legal standing as official fines. Many are being issued unfairly and – in some cases – without proper legal authority.

The ‘bounty hunter’ tactics are an unintended consequence of the outlawing of clamping on private land in 2012. Private firms who used to fleece motorists with clamps have simply switched tactics and now issue £100 tickets to those judged to have overstayed.

But consumer groups say High Street names such as McDonald’s are letting their reputations be dragged through the mud due to their association with suspect firms hired to police their car parks.

Some offer a limited free parking period while others charge. But the parking firms often issue tickets safe in the knowledge that many drivers will simply pay up even though they often have an excellent chance of winning an appeal.

If tickets are ignored, firms often follow them up with threatening letters – sometimes purporting to be from baliffs. But the notices are not backed by criminal law and cannot be enforced without a County Court order.
 
The Daily Mail can reveal that McDonald’s has a contract with MET Parking Services – which has links to an ‘unfit’ debt collection agency and a firm of solicitors which was shut down because of staff dishonesty.

MET is contracted to make sure vehicles do not stay beyond a permitted time at 104 of the fast food giant’s car parks.

But there have been claims that its wardens are placing £100 penalty notices on cars even when families are simply eating inside the restaurant.

MET also polices 21 car parks belonging to Chiltern Railways, which runs services through Buckinghamshire to the West Midlands.

Last night Marc Gander, of the Consumer Action Group, said: ‘Private parking companies are part of a bounty hunting fad which has risen up over the past few years and is making an industry of penalising people without good reason or for their simple human mistakes.

‘Big brands like McDonald’s don’t seem to appreciate how this new industry operates or the sense of anger and injustice that it produces in its victims and who are also their own customers.’

Often motorists know that they are in the right but when they get a letter that looks like an official fixed penalty notice, followed by a letter that looks like an official bailiff’s letter, they pay up because they are scared

AA president Edmund King said that ‘cowboy tactics, scaremongering and bullying’ were being used by many private parking companies.

‘Often motorists know that they are in the right but when they get a letter that looks like an official fixed penalty notice, followed by a letter that looks like an official bailiff’s letter, they pay up because they are scared.’

He said that the British Parking Association is paid for by the car parking industry, a situation akin to ‘inmates guarding the jail’.

Retired Scotland Yard superintendent Bernie Gravett said: ‘MET Parking do not have staff on site. Rather they operate mobile patrols to rotate around a group of car parks. Their operative will walk into the car park and issue a Parking Charge Notice or PCN.

‘The PCN has all the appearance of a lawful Penalty Charge Notice issued by the authorities.’

In 2012, MET Parking was one of six firms that had their access to the DVLA database of number plates, names and addresses suspended for a period for issuing misleading information to motorists.

If people refuse to pay the penalty fee, the company passes the case on to a debt recovery firm such as Roxburghe Debt Collection, of West Byfleet in Surrey.

Earlier this year, Roxburghe was declared ‘unfit’ to hold a credit licence by the Office of Fair Trading. Its tactics include arranging for a solicitor’s letter to be sent to the driver, generally adding more than £200 in charges.

Some of these were issued under the name of GPB Solicitors in Stratford-upon-Avon. Last October, the Solicitors Regulatory Authority looked into the firm’s practices and closed it down. It found there was ‘reason to suspect dishonesty’ on the part of an employee.

Roxburghe is appealing against the OFT’s decision that it is ‘unfit’. Incredibly, its managing director is Gary Osner, who sits on the board of the British Parking Association, which, in theory, is responsible for policing parking companies.

McDonald’s said: ‘All parking contractors that we work with are approved by the British Parking Association and are required to meet strict standards which address appropriate levels of charges and behaviours demanded from staff.’

MET Parking insisted its staff issue penalty notices only when they have good evidence that a driver has stayed beyond the permitted time.

Chief executive David Marks said: ‘When we receive an appeal in respect of a charge notice that has been issued, we consider all the evidence provided, any mitigating circumstances and the decision process agreed in respect of each individual site with our clients.

‘Should the motorist’s appeal be unsuccessful we offer them the opportunity to appeal to POPLA, the independent appeals service.’

Roxburghe did not respond to requests for a comment. However, it issued a statement earlier this year saying: ‘We have consistently provided the highest levels of service to our clients and their customers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2707810/Menace-new-parking-cowboys-Drivers-fined-100-overstaying-minutes-fast-food-chains-shops.html

Offline Ewan Hoosami

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Re: Menace of the new parking cowboys
« Reply #1 on: 28 July, 2014, 04:20:34 PM »
It's nice that Roxburghe "have consistently provided the highest levels of service to our clients and their customers." Some examples of their "highest levels of service" include,
  • sending debt collection letters which misrepresented debtors' legal position
  • misleading and otherwise inappropriate behaviour by HFO and Roxburghe agents during phone calls to debtors
  • failing to properly investigate disputed debts
  • failure to respond appropriately to the concerns of regulators, including the OFT.

OFT press release,

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140402142426/http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2014/08-14

Roxburghe, of course, see things a little differently,

http://www.roxburghe.com/index.php

:pmsl: "Clients like dealing with us because of our considerate manner with their customers." :pmsl:
Appealing to the council is like playing chess with a pigeon. You might be a chess grand master but the pigeon will always knock all the pieces over, shit on the board and then strut around triumphantly.

 


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