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My wife got one in our hospital car park last November after our wee one's appointment overran by an hour and a half.

Got a letter out asking for £80 (but £40 if it was paid within a fortnight), then £100, then £140 "as it may have to be passed to a debt collection agency". Then a couple of weeks later another one saying that due to goodwill they were going to reduce it to £60 :lol:

Each and every one of them went in the bin.

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A friend :ph34r: got a £100 fine for waiting for 35 minutes in a hotel car park at Glasgow Airport. They didn't actually get out of the car and they stupidly thought if anyone tried to take their details they could just drive away. Didn't realise it was one of these automatic recognition systems (Camera must be hidden away somewhere as it's not at the entrance)

I've always been told to ignore any fines from private companies. The fine came from ParkingEye who have apparently been taking a lot of people to court so I'm just wondering if ignoring it is still the done thing. Google suggests Scots Law may be on my "friends" side here.

If you're very unlucky and they do take it to court you can say you received a phone call as you entered the car park, stopped and took the call. Then you went to find the parking charges information, found it extortionate and left immediately. There is no way a judge would say £100 was reasonable to just to check out the prices. Don't reply to any of their letters though, just with the court. It won't cost you anything but ParkingEye will have to pay for their lawyers, and they'd be highly unlikely take a case like yours to court where the charge is clearly unreasonable.

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Right ok here's how these things work. The supermarkets etc pay these companies to put anpr cameras in their car parks etc and get a cut in return. The NHS use them to try and prevent congestion. They are private companies, this they have absolutely no power to issue a fine, the only people in Scotland who can do so are courts, local authority and police, over any parking matter. They work because they display notices in the car parks that by parking there the 'driver' agrees they are entering a contract. They write to people demanding money, used to get them all the time because I lived near anniesland Morrisons and would drive through the retail park instead of anniesland cross. They argue that a contract had been breached and you as the registered keeper are obliged to give the name of the driver, however they have absolutely no power to demand you do this. Again only a court or a police officer under s165 of the road traffic act can make a requirement to identify a driver. I'm not a lawyer so wouldn't give legal advice but if I received another letter from these people I'd ignore it, they don't take people to court, if they did and won they'd only be entitled to a small amount of money much less than the £60 they demand. It's nothing other than demanding money with menaces in my opinion these companies are scum who pray on decent law abiding people posting out official looking letters to rake in money.

Top man for being honest enough to admit this in your position.

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It's nothing to do with my job btw, these companies I think take advantage of law abiding people by making them think they write these letters with any sort of legal authority. You'll notice the 'lawyers' and 'debt collectors' that write to people are often in the very same building as the parking firms themselves.

I assume 'Smart Parking' are one such company?

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Had one from a morrisons car park which I was using as it is right next to my college. Just ignore it.

I got one in Morrisons too at Granton, Edinburgh. I got a few letters but not had any for ages now.

Last week I got a ticket from Asda at New Haven, I'd parked in the end disabled bay by "mistake", I was only in for a bottle of cheap wine ffs. Anyway the miserable c**t was still sticking it on my screen just when I got there. There was loads of empty disabled bays nearer the entrance than where I'd parked. He said no badge displayed means a ticket. It did look like a real parking ticket in the yellow plastic bag, not sure what it looks like on the inside, it "accidentally" got screwed up & dropped in the car park.

I'll see what comes through the post.

Grimbo

Ps yes I know it's a c**t's trick parking in a disabled bay but there was loads of empty disabled bays much nearer the entrance.

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