Cool - I thought as much.
I did write to the clampers yesterday to start the appeal process for the exact same reason that you have mentioned - to prove that I have done my upmost to get this money back before any court action.
After writing to the clampers I then wrote to the property manager of the building where I got clamped to update him to what was happening, and that I wasn't expecting a positive outcome due to it not being from a neutral point of view.
Anyway, to my amazement this morning the clampers did write back agreeing to my offer of a reasonable fee of £138 for the clamping offense as per a previous e-mail I sent in which I stated the Vine case as an example of a reasonable fee.
However, I have made an error in my communications with the property owners which has since left me totally powerless. The error was mentioning the Vine case, as an example... purely because in an oversight by myself this case does not include any towing. My case does... so they said they would accept a £138 clamping fee as long as I would accept a £120 towing fee on top.
Overall it means a refund of £102. I was contemplating the offer all morning. Then I got a
phone call from the local guardian (I had contacted numerous national newspapers, all the local newspapers, watchdog, trading standards, columnists and my local MP). They called asking for further details, and as soon as I mentioned there were sign posts in the car park they simply weren't interested. They said they get loads of letters of such things and they simply don't offer enough drama to publish...
So this fact on top of the fact that should I go to court having offered £138 for clamping as a reasonable fee (which involves a bit of metal and a bolt being attached together) then I guess it would be unreasonable for me to petition for a much lesser amount for a towing (which would involve lifting of vehicle and transport - much more work than a bit of metal and a bolt (though still only about £5 worth of work!)).
All of this added together gave me the conclusion that I was in a very weak position and that £102 off the full amount is better than nothing, and at the very least I can put closure to this stressful ordeal.
Overall I'm pretty dissapointed with the outcome as I still feel as though I've been robbed of a lot of money, and more to the point the unethical practises of these low life towers will continue.
This last twist was unexpected and I'm a little gutted that I couldn't take this any further as I was actually, in a very warped way, looking forward to confronting these low lifes in court. I had even been to the doctors and managed to get myself a certificate saying I was suffering from "acute stress" with the intention of making these guys pay through their noses in compensation... I had also drafted a number of e-mails of other cards I could play in future negotiations. I hadn't even got to the stage of mentioning how far it was going with the papers, or the examples of young women being stranded in the middle of a dangerous area late at night.
It had been crossing my mind much of the day as to why the clampers had offered a settlement so quickly. My only assumption is that the land in which I parked on is owned by a professional, multi-million pound turnover company which simply was not interested in their cut of the clamping and so had requested the clampers to finish this situation before it went any further. The clampers would have much more to loose than the land owners if the land owners decided the didn't want the stress of people complaining to them all the time and pulled the plug on the clampers.
Anyways, my advice to people in the future is to make a real fuss inundating the owner of the property, or manager of the property, with many many e-mails of threatening further action for unreasonable charges - make them believe you are deadly serious and simply just will not disappear until you are compensated. Be very firm yet always polite. Say you are being reasonable and are simply requesting the same reason to be recipricated.
Anyway, thanks for everyone's advice and help on this site... I honestly wouldn't have known where to start with all this had I not come accross the guides and advice on this forum.
I may headover to the council ticket appealing part of the site now as I have one of those in dispute also! Makes me sound like a serial traffic offender which isn't the case... all I can say is these things come in threes. Isn't that a depressing thought!
Re: Car Towing Injustice 
