alcazar

iTrader: (2)

She had to park at the NCP one in Lincoln this morning, put her card in, paid he £10.60 or whatever, got no ticket out.

She didn't want to pay twice, so left a note in her front windscreen to that effect.

When she got back, she's got a £50 fine, which rises to £100 if she doesn't pay it within 14 days

What, if anything, can she/should she do?

ScoobyWon't

Her card statement will show if payment was successfully taken.

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

Private co or LA? If private co just ignore it.

TX.

LostUser

If the ticket says Parking Contravention Charge Notice then just ignore it. Only if the ticket is issued by the police or the council do you have to do anything about it.

If you don't respond then will pay the DVLA £2.50 for the registered keepers name\address and send a letter there saying you must tell us who the driver was. You have no legal obligation to do that to a private company, unlike the police.

They have to prove who it was that parked the car. Then they have to take that person to court and prove that the £100 charge (it's not a fine) is reasonable. Only if they win could they get the £100, and only £100, from you. But NCP won't want to take you to court in case they lost which would affect their whole business. They're happy if 90% of people just pay the charge immediately.

You will get about 8 letters from a debt collection agency, then a solicitor, each one increasing the charge and making pathetic threats which generally aren't true, and then they just drop it. I'm speaking from experience. They even called a couple of times, left a message on my voicemail which I didn't reply to.

Definitely don't reply and appeal because then they will know who was driving.

Just ignore it. Even a solicitor on Watchdog gave out the advice to just ignore charges from private parking companies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIcdi9niHA

boomer

Nice summary

mb

...seamus...

I get these all the time as I regularly park in supermarket car parks and bugger off all day

bottom line is that it's an invoice disguised as a pcn asking you to pay - the company has about £2.00 budget per person so after they send 3 or 4 threatening letters they just stop trying

maybe a large percentage of people just pay up but unless as mentioned before the pcn is issued by a representative of the council then it's completely un-enforceable!

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

I had a machine swallow my £1.00 ok I know it's not £10.00 but I called the number on the machine and waited for an attendent to come. It was pissing down and I got soaked waiting for half hour but I got my money back.

If I was her I would have called the number on the machine / car park sign and asked for advice.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Parked in council car park in Nottingham by the station, run by NPC.

Put £5 in and got the ticket, then realised I needed to put in £9 to get all night (or something along those lines)

So called the help line, the guy on the line said to buy another ticket for £4 and display them both.

Next morning I had a ticket, had to phone around repeatedly to get it cancelled, spoke to about 20 people, who wanted my phone bill and everything to prove I called and when I wrote to complain, they replied with NPC does not have a complaints process thanks for the letter.

Norman Dog

iTrader: (1)

At all the NCP car parks round here you have to take a ticket as you drive in, pay at the machine when you return to the car then use the ticket to open the barrier, I believe that lost tickets are charged at the full daily rate.

Some good advice on that watchdog clip. Would this also apply to local authority and NHS car parks?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Her worry is that, since she put her credit card into the machine, they will "have her details" and will charge her the full £100........
Can they do that?

The Zohan

There are 'dumb terminals', do not store info. NCP will not have the 4 digit pin nor security code.

ilogikal1

I didn't know they were dumb-terminals, but even if they did have her details, they can't just take it legally. If they were to make the charge, you simply report it the credit card company as an unauthorised transaction (as, ultimately, that's what it is), credit card company refunds you in the usual manner for such transactions.

The Zohan

By 'dumb' i mean checks the cards details but does not store info otherwise they would be a prime target for card fraudsters.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Cheers guys.

She was quite happy to pay the parking charge, may now have got away with both.

Teach them to make more money by dumping people out of jobs.

ilogikal1

I understand what you mean, I'd just never thought about them storing any details or not at all so didn't know that they didn't. Until you mentioned it that is. Certainly makes sense (to me anyway) that they not store such details.

PaulC72

As said they will be dumb terminals, however they will have some record of use for audit purposes so this alone could proove she used and paid if it was ever needed.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I think I'll do what we did when the young'un got one after he fell asleep in his car on a motrorway services after pulling an 18 hour shift and having driven 6 hours to get to it..........

We ignored it, but I DID have fun with the solicitors who sent it, all anonymously, of course...