Parking fines scrapped after tickets taken
Thursday 4th March 2010, 1:01PM GMT.
All parking tickets handed out by an enforcement firm in Shrewsbury in the last two months have been cancelled. The problem arose after notices were apparently illegally removed from windscreens.
Bosses at Elite Management (Midlands) Ltd, said it had experienced “severe” problems with notices being removed.
The company claim people have been following wardens issuing parking charge notices at the Barker Street car park and on Kingsland Bridge before swiping them off windscreens.
Matthew Key, operations manager, said they had been left with no choice but to void all notices handed out to motorists from the second week of December until the middle of February.
He said in almost all cases drivers had received letters from Roxburghe Debt Collectors demanding £197 in payment for parking fines they did not know they had been given.
Mr Key said the situation was the worst he had ever known and said he believed it was the malicious actions of someone following wardens around. It is not known how many parking tickets have been cancelled by Elite Management.
He said: “We have cancelled the tickets of every single complainant from the second week of December until the middle of February with the debt collectors.
“Normally we only get a small number of people contesting notices but in this period it was very high.”
Caroline Reid, Shropshire Council’s performance and quality manager, said the council had had no problems on the car parks it manages in the town.
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well done to the ticket swipers ;-)
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Private parking companies (such as the above) CANNOT issue ‘FINES’ – only the local authority can. These so called parking charge notices are not legally enforcable so if you ever get one you can just bin & ignore it. These companies use scare tactics to weasle money out of peple. They purchase your details from the DVLA and will send all sorts of threatening letters, all of which are bluffs to extort you hard earned cash. On the one and only occasion where a private car parking firm took a group to court, they were laughed out of the courtroom. The matter is civil not criminal therefore not a matter the courts will even consider. I write this having had run ins with these parasites in the past and I like spreading the good word when I can!
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loophole – from the story above it seems that if everybody who gets a ticket disputes it then there’s no way to prove it wasn’t ‘maliciously removed’ and therefore the charges will be dropped, making the whole parking ticket thing untenable! Yay, glad the company decided to tell us their difficulties so it can be exploited.
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I got one of these demands for £197.00 from Roxburghe claiming a ticket was posted on the car at 16.03 – my car had left the car park at 15.30 and at 15.37 was in a queue of traffic outside the police station on Raven Meadows. By 16.03 it was on my drive in Herongate.
How could they post a ticket and how dare they claim to have done so! I haven’t finished with Elite parking yet!
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David barlow – don’t even communicate with these people. Once they they know you will react they will not leave you alone. Just ignore any and all correspondance from them.
A key issue to remember is that companies like this have no legal right to fine anyone. Let’s just imagine that your case went to court (but it never will) – the firm cannot ‘fine’ the car they can only ‘fine’ the driver – they have to prove that you were driving the car at the time. How would they do that – they need a photo or a confession. Second point – the case isn’t criminal so they could only go for a civil case. In the very unlikely event that they won, civil courts would only be able to award costs incured to the firm -for the so called offence (so that would be about £2 perhaps). These scamming parking companies reley on fear and ignorance and use empty threats to get money out of people. They will never take you to court because they have nothing to gain and they have no rights in law. ADVICE TO EVERYONE – JUST IGNORE THESE SCAMMERS. don’t talk to them don’t write to them – no matter how intimidating their correspondance gets. If you don’t believe me just google it, there are many forums that will tell you the same. – rant over.
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I had one of the debt collection letters through the post and so i called them and paid a charge of £30. They told me that this would put the case on hold as i said i definately wanted it investigated as i had never had a ticket. Now that it has come to light that it was all a scam, how would i go about claiming my £30 back as i feel ive paid money for no reason now. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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