Parking fine from B&Q car park

MatthewShreddery

Back in August I did some work on my car in B&Q carpark in the Pompey Centre.
My ex has just sent me a letter from Zenith Collections who are a debt company saying I now owe the £144 for a PARKING FINE from overstaying.

I bought items from B&Q that day too - is there anything I can do?

CeeJay

You can contest it, but that could involve court proceedings. Was your car immobile/broken down? Can you prove it was immobile? If so, I think you have a case, otherwise you're stuffed.

MatthewShreddery

Seriously?
I was a bloody customer! I bought things from them, and to be fair, had no idea about the parking restriction

MatthewShreddery

Car was not broken down, just needed to remove the carpets haha

CeeJay

MatthewShreddery said:

Seriously?
I was a bloody customer! I bought things from them, and to be fair, had no idea about the parking restriction

Unfortunately, it's up to you to know before you park. As long as it's clearly signposted in the car park, the parking company hold all the aces here I'm afraid. You can try e mailing B & Q and appealing to their better nature. They may have some sway with the parking company if they own the land.

Fuengi

I think that car park is shared between several retailers, how long were you there for? 

They restrict parking because it's close to Fratton Park, the Lidl up the road makes you put your number plate in on entry to the store. 

MatthewShreddery

Fair one. But, the company is not a government official body, so can I not just fuck them off? 

p90fool

MatthewShreddery said:

Car was not broken down, just needed to remove the carpets haha

I'm not even gonna ask....

MatthewShreddery

I don't remember how long, but I overstayed. 

Milky_Shakey

I had the same in Homebase. Went in and explained that I had to help an elderly friend with their shopping and they cancelled it there and then.

MatthewShreddery

p90fool said:

MatthewShreddery said:

Car was not broken down, just needed to remove the carpets haha

I'm not even gonna ask....

Ahahaha

MatthewShreddery

Milky_Shakey said:

I had the same in Homebase. Went in and explained that I had to help an elderly friend with their shopping and they cancelled it there and then.

Good to know. I'll pop in this morning and see what they can do

EricTheWeary

Used to be that you could ignore these things but there's a high court ruling now that says otherwise. I mention this because that's often the advice given but it's out of date. 
There will be an appeals process and you should follow that. You could also try contacting B and Q. 

I've had three of these in the last couple of years. For the first I was able to produce evidence that I had bought a ticket for a long enough period and it was their mistake in sending me the penalty notice. For the third I contacted the place where I had been ( a hotel) who said sorry you are a valued customer and they contacted the parking people and it was withdrawn.
The middle one was outside Asda and I contacted them saying we ( well, MrsTheWeary) had only just gone over the time limit which is pretty short to do much shopping and stop for a coffee. Asda replied but only just to politely say hard cheese and I paid the money. 
If it's £144 sounds like your ex hung onto it for a bit before passing it on as they usually start at about £80. 

You can fight it in court but there's a risk that'll cost you even more if you lose. 

octatonic

Pay it and get on with your life.

MatthewShreddery

Ok cheers Eric. Thanks for taking the time to detail that

TimmyO

I had one of these automated fines from a Holiday Inn Express where I'd had a meeting in the lounge area but not registered my registration number with reception. 

The letter had an email address for appeals. It got reversed eventually 

Try them 

MatthewShreddery

My only worry is that if I contact them, my other plan of just ignoring them is unworkable 

RandallFlagg

Reminds me of a story from work. Our site Administrator was, well, there's no PC way to say it, she was a big girl and liked her food. She came in one day chuntering as she had received a £150 fine for overstaying at McDonald's car park. 

She claimed to be meeting her sister for for a "coffee" and overran and had no idea there was a time restriction and was adamant there were no signs until we showed her them on Google Maps Street View!

Who meets someone at McDonald's for a coffee? We all suspected she had a load of money off vouchers and one Big Mac lead to another...and another...

fandango

Technically and lawfully, note that private companies can't issue "fines".


https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/parking-tickets-and-fines-explained

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?s=42f37cb2012f6ceead5dfe02fd8df911&showforum=60

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/

EricTheWeary

fandango said:

Technically and lawfully, note that private companies can't issue "fines".


https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/parking-tickets-and-fines-explained

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?s=42f37cb2012f6ceead5dfe02fd8df911&showforum=60

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/

Interesting that it says that in 52% of cases the parking fees are cancelled following an appeals process. In 66% of my cases the parking company were simply not even following their own rules in issuing them so probably not suprising that so many are withdrawn.  

DefaultM

Can't get my head around parking fines at all. My father in law tried the ignore it thing and ended up with a CCJ. Him and his mates all got tickets. They paid theirs straight away but he just ignored it. Thought he got away with it til he realised it had all been going to an old address haha. 

The part I don't get is around my work. We don't have parking so I have to do so 15 minutes away and walk. There's a certain number of people that just pull up on the double yellows and park there every single day. The attendant comes out and issues fines regularly but they just carry on parking there. They're council fines as well, so knowing my father in law got in trouble just from one offence how are they doing it every day?