A victory is a victory Bertie. Well done!

Indeed. It's them that will have to take you to court if they ever want to see any money. They know full well how difficult it is for the private parking companies to win residential cases,.

The MO of these companies is not exactly sophisticated. Send the invoice. After X days send a reminder saying the amount is now £100. After X days send a final demand. After X days get a DCA to send a letter pretending the amount is now £170. After X days get a DCA to send another letter with another threat. After X days get a third-rate solicitor to send a letter with yet another threat. After X days send a Letter of Claim. Or some variant of the above. Ridicule them now if you want but they will just continue with their bi-monthly (or similar) letters. It only really makes sense to contact them after a Letter of Claim, which is the stage before court, to let them know that if they proceed you will be big trouble for them and will make a big hole in their wallet.

BTW, is this "daughter's fella" the same one involved in the employee loyalty card abuse thread?

Go for it Bertie! Don't worry too much about how you dress. Just remember the arguments we made in your WS.

Yes, it struck me this morning that I'd got it wrong - no involvement of UKPPO in any previous Tesco thread - there would have been an entrance sign to a Tesco car park - CCTV isn't something associated with Tesco car parks. Presumably whoever runs the car park has put CCTV at the electric, and probably BB, areas, done absolutely nothing to stop abuse, and then rubs their hands in glee every time the CCTV catches a motorist out. You can pay £60 and this will go away. Or you can defy UKPPO and rely on their non-respect of POFA, consideration period, etc., should they be daft enough to do court later down the line. We would support you all the way.

Thanks for coming back and letting us know. Obviously we totally disagree with their decision. Their remortgaging could only have gone wrong if they had ended up with a CCJ. And how do you get a CCJ? If you lose in court and then defy the court and don't pay. Even if you lose in court, you don't get a CCJ as long as you pay within the 30 days ordered by the court. Even had they lost in court the judge would have disallowed the interest and the £70 Unicorn Food Tax that PE made up. There was no advantage whatsoever for giving in and paying now. But thanks to you for letting us know - a hell of a lot of users don't.

So you need to get AOS done and a CPR request sent.

Exactly. We've seen this letter countless times.

So what stage is your case at? We have around 130 Caggers who got tickets for this MET scam site. In only six cases have MET dared do court. It's very useful for others in the same position as you to know what is going on.

The EuroGarages strategy is explained on Spiritual Alchemist's thread, post 10 https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/topic/466381-met-cctv-pcn-occupants-left-carpark-appealed-starbucks-closed-346-southgate-park-stansted-cm24-1py/

Well done. In the cold light of day for various reasons I'm beginning to think the manager was probably telling the truth. However, let's see what comes back from your mails today.

OK, you made a bad mistake by outing yourself as the driver. But that's not fatal. It's a case of one argument unfortunately down, but lots of other arguments still standing. Chiefly that this is a scam site with an invisible line separating two car parks in order to entrap motorists. 1. As LFI says, send a SAR to MET so you can get your hands on their original invoice. Invest in a 2nd class stamp and get a free Certificate of Posting from the post office. 2. About six months ago, when the tsunami of cases at this site started, lots of Caggers contacted the CEO of Starbucks https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-82463&c=Starbucks UK-General Manager Starbucks then contacted EuroGarages which seems to be another company in their group, and which runs the Stansted branch, and which got the invoice withdrawn. However, after one, two, 10, 20 of these cases Starbucks seemed to get fed up. However, it's only an e-mail, and surely worth a shot. Lay it on thick about being a regular Starbucks customer but on this occasion you found the branch closed, and it is completely unfair to be charged £100 for briefly stopping in a car park while trying to use Starbucks. The main point here though is that MET are very, very wary of starting court cases for this site. If they don't do court there's no reason to pay them.

Looking at other threads, we have people who received an invoice even though they hadn't overstayed the time shown on the ticket they'd purchased. That's because Alliance want payment to cover the whole period from the ANPR camera showing the car entering the car park to showing the car leaving. So what is printed on your ticket - "expiry time 17:40" - is a lie intended to mislead you. The four-hour payment really expired at 17:26. If you'd left, say, at 17:30, you would still have received their invoice! However, that doesn't really help in your case as you overstayed both their made-up scam time of 17:26 and the real time of 17:40, and by quite a lot. However, remember that Alliance are a small company and so far have never done court. That could change, there are no guarantees, but up till now that have never had the bottle to do court.

Did you get any joy from the Retail Park? Please fill this in for the claim form -

I've had to hide your post. You've left your name, address, registration number as well as MET's reference all showing. Please redact the PCN and upload it again, following our upload guide.

I'd bet that you're being fobbed off by Tesco here. I can't for the life of me think why a landlord would foist parking restrictions on a rent-paying supermarket. Parking is of no interest to the landlord whatsoever. We've never seem such a set up. It 's the supermarket that insists on restrictions. indeed on the PCN it is stated that the car park belongs to Tesco. So e-mail the CEO of Tesco https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-9138&c=Tesco Plc-Group CEO Lay it on thick about being a genuine customer, attach any proof of payment, and point out that the BB bays were being abused by non-BB holders and so you had no choice but to park, briefly, in the wrong bay. Request that they cancel the invoice. Some organ grinders - e.g. Asda - are superb at getting tickets cancelled. Others - e.g. McDonald's - are worse than useless. But it surely has to be worth a try,

Well done on your victory!

Thanks for coming back and letting us know. This is much appreciated because sadly most people don't. We have a new Alliance case which has pushed me to look at old cases. The good news is that, for all their bluster, Alliance have never had the bottle to take a Cagger to court. Please do come back though if they ever send you a Letter of Claim.

Any update here? I ask as we have new VCS/Excel cases.

Yes!

Just to check. Is there an obvious reason why your father didn't get the original letter? Has he moved recently?

What appeal? Private parking companies never, ever, ever accept appeals - ever. And that's if there is a genuine reason to appeal. In your case you did disobey their silly sign so there are no grounds of appeal. Just to check something. This car park is solely for Tesco, right? It's not part of a shopping complex?

No, they have clobbered you with ANPR cameras at the entrance. That's because the time you entered the car park is earlier than the time you purchased a ticket. However. I note you paid till 17:40. You left the car park at 18:01. That's a 21-minute overstay. Yet Alliance reckon you overstayed for 35 minutes! So it seems that even if you had left on time they would still have sent you an invoice! It's up to you what you do,. I've looked through the other eight cases. Alliance's MO is always the same. Design the car park badly (such as hiding signs in undergrowth) to catch motorists out. Next destroy half the Amazon with threats about how they're going to divert a drone from Ukraine to land on your house. Send a formal Letter of Claim threatening court action. But when that is robustly replied to, crawl back under their stone. So far they have never done court on CAG. If you want to continue to fight them we will support your all the way.