MPS Windscreen PCN - St Davids Road Industrial Estate, Enterprise Park, Swansea, Llansamlet, Swansea, SA6 8QL

[Swansea1912]

Hi, hoping someone can help me with this.

The driver of the vehicle received a PCN on their windscreen.

MPS want £100 or £60 within 14 days.

This is extortionate and completely unreasonable for the following reasons:

 

- There are NO signs upon entering the car park stating there is restricted parking

 

- The private land apparently belongs to a company called "Atlantic Cladding" which is joined onto a building called "Simply Gym" where the driver was training

 

- The PCN was issued at 06:13AM. Atlantic Cladding does not open until 8AM resulting in no loss of earnings or obstruction to their business

 

- Having re-visited the premises in daylight, there are two signs either side of Atlantic Cladding stating that the area is under 24 hour management and is for Atlantic Cladding customers only. These are not visible at 6AM as there is no lighting surrounding the signs

 

- I have since learned there is a private car park for Atlantic, one for Simply Gym and a public land parking area.

There are no clear instruction or signs to differentiate between these 3 areas

 

I have attached photos to support my argument.

 

The red car in the photo is where the driver was parked.

 

You can see the sign on the building in the background, there are no lights around it.

 

The bollards you can see in the photo come up to the red car, after that it is all open so the areas are not really sectioned differently.

 

1 The date of infringement? 31/08/2018

 

2 Have you yet appealed to the parking company yet? [Y/N?] NO

 

If you haven't appealed yet - ,.........

 

have you received a Notice To Keeper? (NTK) [must be received by you between 29-56 days]

what date is on it

Did the NTK provide photographic evidence? NO NTK RECEIVED AS OF 10/2/2018

 

5 Who is the parking company? MILLENIUM PARKING SERVICE

 

6. where exactly [Carpark name and town] did you park? St Davids Road Industrial Estate, Enterprise Park, Swansea, Llansamlet, Swansea, SA6 8QL

 

Please let me know what you think.

 

Thanks in advance

pix.pdf

Edited February 11, 2018 by dx100uk
attachment rotated and merged to one pdf - dx

[shamrocker]

The signage is a prohibition notice, so no contract is being offered or, therefore, breached.

 

The resident experts will be along shortly to rip it to shreds, but I think you'll be safe enough at the end of it all. I've got a similar case ongoing with these con-artists.

[Bazooka Boo]

Await the NTK, then you can play around with them have some fun, and tell them to take a long walk off a short cliff.

[Swansea1912]

Should I not send them an appeal first stating the reasons above? I feel like I have more than enough for them to drop the ticket. Thanks

[dx100uk]

not until the ntk no

[DragonFly1967]

Should I not send them an appeal first stating the reasons above? I feel like I have more than enough for them to drop the ticket. Thanks

 

You may feel that, you might even be right, but I 100% guarantee that MPS won't agree with you and if you appeal at this stage you identify yourself as the driver. You do not want to be in that position!

 

Sit on your hands until that NtK arrives. Give them a chance to scupper their own claim, they often do

[silverfox1961]

Hi

I agree with everyone. Wait until the Notice to Keeper arrives then if you wish, you can appeal however MPS are members of the IPC so never expect a fair appeal and even when you get rejected (and you will) there is little point taking it to the 'Independant' Appeal Service (IAS) as they are totally biased in favour of the parking company. The IAS do not release figures of appeals allowed or refused, they never identify who the appeal adjudicator is and the owners of the IPC (and the IAS) are also the owners of Gladstones solicitors so bias follows all the way up to to a court claim.

 

As it stands, the notice is prohibitive in nature, fails in that it does not contain a full UK address and the amount of signs are surely insufficient to form any sort of contract. As it stands, it is the landowner that can take court action purely for trespass and certainly cannot claim £100 or anywhere near that.

 

As you will not get a fair hearing, ignoring is the better option. IF MPS did file a court claim, they will do it on the (flawed) assumption that the driver at the time was also the keeper. You do not at any time have to name the driver-even in the courtroom due to the fact that the IPC and it's members rarely rely on PoFA 2012 so only the driver can be held liable. To MPS and the IPC, it is a numbers game. Court papers land on the mat. People panic and pay.

 

Please don't fall into that trap.

[Bazooka Boo]

Should I not send them an appeal first stating the reasons above? I feel like I have more than enough for them to drop the ticket. Thanks

 

Please don't confuse your morals and ethics with that of cowboy parking companies, they really couldn't care less, PPC's are simply the old cowboy clamping companies who were outlawed, they've just renamed themselves, and set up another little racket to con drivers out of money they don't owe.

[ericsbrother]

no, NEVER appeal the screen notice, it identifies the persion appealing as the driver whether they were or werent.

 

Also, it makes Millenium pay to get the details from the DVLA and as they dont have a "reasonable cause" for doing so that leave them open to legal action for breach of the DPA if the keeper is so minded.

 

Generally we recommend ignoring most of their demands up to the point where legal action is threatened and then send a very strongly worded letter to tell them that you know they are just a bunch of shysters attempting to defraud etc.

 

generally if you use the right points as well as strong language it is the end of the matter because they know that they have been rumbled and their lies arent going to win the cash.

 

Should I not send them an appeal first stating the reasons above? I feel like I have more than enough for them to drop the ticket. Thanks

 

Millenium are just a company that supplied doormen to pubs but dont have a SIA licence so cant operate a legit company and do this instead. It also explains why they are members of the IPC

[silverfox1961]

Millenium are just a company that supplied doormen to pubs but dont have a SIA licence so cant operate a legit company and do this instead. It also explains why they are members of the IPC

 

Absolutely spot on. It seems that members of the IPC feature quite heavily on forums. A lot of these companies were members of the BPA and as they didn't like the rules, defected to the IPC.

 

The BPA still have some rogue members and Parking Eye, UKPC plus a couple of others come to mind but I have noticed over time that it is the same companies chasing. We rarely hear negative reviews from an awful lot of other companies who must be doing things right. All you need to do is check the 2017 report from POPLA to illustrate this. Once a truly independant appeals service is created, I can see thee amount of appeals dropping.

[shamrocker]

Hope this is ok to post,

 

but scroll down to the post on 17th Sept from the Facebook profile below

- they ticketed a load of DIY SOS vans while they were undertaking a project in Swansea.

 

Besides being MD for MPS, it looks like the guy has an involvement in several new Swansea central pubs/restaurants too.

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156697996062942&set=pcb.10156697996142942&type=3&theater

[dx100uk]

you'd think mr Knowles would know better

they are not fines!!

[DragonFly1967]

LOL, I bet that only happened because Mr B̶e̶l̶l̶e̶n̶d̶, oops, Bellis knew that ticketing people from one BBC programme was likely to get him torn to shreds on another. Either Watchdog or Panorama

 

As for not cancelling but paying them himself... Yeah, whatever

[shamrocker]

Here's the official document from the winding up of one of his other companies - https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08979788/filing-history

 

Outstanding VAT to the tune of £29k was left owing, plus £8k to another creditor. I wonder if the VAT collected from his victims under the current entity is being paid to HMRC. Time will tell.

 

I know of one particular landlord of several well known Swansea city centre pubs who used to do the same thing with the pubs - basically wind up with huge (much bigger than £29k) VAT bills owing and then move on to another one. I've been told that certain measures now exist to prevent this sort of practice, but I can't help but wonder how the involvement in these new flagship food & drink premises will end up.

 

What ever happened to earning an honest living?

 

P.S. This is only one company. I'll check others too, just out of curiosity.

[ericsbrother]

som people cant help themselves but to keep repeating the same abuses of the law of limited liability. Ask Ashley Cohen for details

[Swansea1912]

Hi

 

Thanks for your help so far.

 

The NTK has arrived today, 20th March - the letter is dated 15th March. Not sure if it makes a difference or helps matters but the keeper of the vehicle was actually out of the country at the time and this can be proven.

 

Please find the NTK attached.

 

Please advise. Thanks

 

Apologies, unable to edit my original post now. NTK attached as PDF here:

MPSNTK.pdf

[Bazooka Boo]

Wow, a car park you can't park in....how dim!

[ericsbrother]

Interesting, they' say unauthorised parking but there isnt a clause about that on the signage.

 

A simple argument would be that the driver was waiting for the place to open and thus IS a potential customer and the wording is "intended" so i would love to see them showing a breach of intention rather than a breach of contract.

 

Advice for the moment is boringly similar to the advice for most cases, do nothing and wait and see what they do next.

You will get more letters but this costs them money they arent going to get back

[Swansea1912]

I have just looked at PoFA 2012. Seems to me that the NTK abides by all the requirements and therefore they can and will recover charges from the keeper through court?

 

At what point does the keeper send a letter stating they won't be paying and the reasons why?

[dx100uk]

when you get a letter of claim or a letter before action from their fake/tame solicitors

[ericsbrother]

you clearly havent looked a other threads where "unauthorised parking " is used as a reason for a breach so get on with your homework. It means that you arent supposed to be there so you cant be offered a contract that is inviting you to break it as the only way of forming it

 

You dont write to them to say you arent paying, you let them waste their money and when they ahve paid a solicitor to send you a nasty letter you respond to that in a forthright manner so they know they will lose even more money of they decide to take you to court.

 

.

I have just looked at PoFA 2012. Seems to me that the NTK abides by all the requirements and therefore they can and will recover charges from the keeper through court?

 

At what point does the keeper send a letter stating they won't be paying and the reasons why?

Edited March 23, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[DragonFly1967]

Although this is for a different cowboy outfit, the principle is the same. Forbidding signage. Have a read. http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/court-report-uk-cpm-lose-on-pofa-and.html