Depends which scheme the parking system is operated under. If it's the old criminal system which contains a right to have your case heard at Court then they can because you commit an ofence by not parking according to the Council rules which are made with a bylaw. If it is one of the newer decriminalsied scheme, then I still think you can be made to pay the fine as it's still not a contractual breach on your part and still a criminal system but the human rights problem comes in that, as far as I'm aware, you do not have recourse to the Courts to adjudicate your ticket and any appeal against it is made to the parking tribunal who are not independant as they are funded by parking charges. Not that familliar with these scemes so I'm willing to be corrected. P.

That's the thing though - DVLA aren't playing by the rules. DVLA are only allowed to give out your information to people who have "reasonable cause" to have it. I cannot accept that a company or person who wants the information to pursue an unlawful, unenforcible and unfair penalty charge could in any way be considered as having anything remotely cloase to "reasonable cause" P.

If it's outside of the acual car park then there is no contract. The signs detailing the terms of the parking contract should be posted at the enterance of the car park. If you are outside the car park gates then you haven't accepted he contract and you probably won't be on the car park owners land anyway. If you are in the actual car park but outside a marked bay then you will probably be in breach of contract (assuming that parking within as bay is one of the terms) and the other party will be allowed to claim back what your breach has cost him. In this case nothing, or nest to nothing. The land owner can do as he pleases in relation to his land. You would still accept a parking contract if there were signs posted on the private road containing the terms. The land owner can charge whatever he likes for you to park or otherwise use his land but he cannot issue penalties. If the price in the contract for parking your car was £200 then he is perfectly justified in collecting that sum from you. If the price is £1 and he tried to charge you £200 for overstaying then he would fail as the £200 would clearly be an unlawful penalty. I think that clamping is highly dubious from a legal perspective, unless it's done by a Council or the Police. By placing a clamp on a vehicle you are effectively impounding someones property and by demanding payment from them to release it you are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems whitch could include being charged with blackmail, decpetion offences, etc. Also, if you clamp a vehicle and there is no way that the occupants can get home you could even be looking a a alse imprisonment charge. The fines handed out by local councils are enforcible because it's a criminal matter and statute allows them to collect such fines. How do you mean? P. GHM PS Just read the Parkforce thread and don't think the above got covered there, so...phew. No egg on face just yet.

Never happen. The issue of the unlawfulness of panalties is well established case law that has been before the House of Lords on numerous occasions. The lower corts MUST follow the decisions of the Lords. P.

They are not allowed to make a penalty charge. The existance of a properly worded sign only goes to show that a valid contract was in force. The party not in breach could sue the party in breach for his losses due to the breach but cannot impose an arbitrary penalty for that breach. P.

Im not aware of any Court cases. However, a "fine, "penalty carge", "Excess charge", or whatever they want to call it is not enforcible, in exsctly the same way that a bank charge isn't, if it is given in a private car park. When you enter a private car park you accept the terms of the contract offered to you - as long as there are signs posted containing the terms. If you overstay, don't buy a ticket, don't park within the marked bays, etc, then you are in breach of the terms of the contract and the inocent party is entitled in law to recover whatever loss he has sustained due to your breach. The other party cannot simply decide that you owe him £50, £60, £100, £200 and make you pay it. Penalties are seem by the Courts as unjustly enriching the other party because they are doing nothing under the terms of the contract towards getting that money. They are punitive charges intended to punish the other party and punishment is within the realm of the ciminal Courts, not whomever decides to appoint themselvs to the job. I would be reasonably confident in saying that a charge handed out in a private car park has never been successfully upheld in any Court in the Country against a defence of it being a penalty. My thread on the subject. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-wardens/47349-parking-enforcement-agency-parkforce.html P.

You can from me. Frankly, I don't see the problem with someone offering this service. Many people will not want to expend the large amounts of time and effort required to go through all this and will be quite happy to pay someone else to do it for them. Many will not feel competant or confident enough to do it all themselves. P.

Wow - quicker than I expected!!! http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/53162-battle-capquest-over-final.html#post436347 P.

If this is the wrong place for this can a Mod please move it? This is an account of a battle I've been engaged in on behalf of my other half and some points may be hdlpful to others. In August Mrs Phantom and I arranged a small mortgage on our house, reason being to pay off some debt she had and to free up some money of mine I'd used to buy it the year before which was going back into my business. Some of the debts she was paying off were paid with pre-printed cheques sent to us by the lender which we were to then send on to her creditors. One of the cheques was for a debt that was being collected by CapQuest on behalf of Egg Plc. The account was being paid at a set amount vis CCCS at that point. The cheque was in the amount of £2,100 which was a full and final settlement amount on an account of circa £3,300. The story is as follows; On 4th August Mrs Phantom phoned Capquest and made an agreement with them for a full and final settlement figure of £2,100 on the account. Amount to be paid by "the end of August". Our mortgage took a bit longer than expected and the cheque for the money was not recieved by us until 1st Sept. We posted it that day to Capquest, they recieved it and banked it on the 4th Sept. Heard nothing from Capquest over the next few weeks so we took that as meaning that, although late, the cheque was still acceptable as a full and final settlement and that the account had been closed according to the terms of the agreement made on the phone on the 4th August. On 9th November (over 2 months after having banked the cheque) CapQuest wrote to Mrs P saying, "...your current payment arrangement has defaulted as we have not recieved any communication or payments from CCCS in relation to your account...we would therefore advise you that the above account with Egg Plc remains outstanding and payment of the full balance is required immediately." Obviously, this yanked my chain somewhat! I penned her the following letter in retaliation which was sent on the 13th November on which datew she also recieved a barely inteligible letter from CapQuests solicitors; "Dear Sir/Madam, With reference to your recent demand in the sum of £1280.86 on behalf of Egg PLC. As you are aware on the 4th August 2006 we agreed a contract for a payment from me of £2,100 in full and final settlement of the amount owed to your client. This contract was made by telephone. I subsequently paid the amount mentioned by cheque which, according to you, was received late, on the 4th September. On the 10th November (over 2 months later) I received your letter, dated 9th November, informing me that the sum of £1280.86 was still outstanding. On telephoning your office I was informed that due to my cheque having been received after the end of August the balance mentioned above was still outstanding. You were fully aware that the cheque sent to you in the amount of £2,100.00 was the sum that we agreed was to constitute a full and final settlement of this matter and that such an amount was far in excess of my regular monthly payments. I contend that by your conduct in acceptance of the cheque, and the presenting of it for payment - along with your having made no attempt to contact me regarding the alleged outstanding balance for over 2 months - you have chosen to positively affirm the contract we made on the telephone on the 4th August, not withstanding your claim of my having breached it's terms as to the date on which the payment was due. Breach of a term of a contract does not automatically void the contract, the innocent party to the contract may rescind the contract but must formally rescind it by giving notice of such to the party in breach. I have received no such notice and so have relied on your conduct in keeping the money and making no further demands for a considerable time as your affirmation that you intend that it should continue in force according to the terms originally agreed by us. You have informed me on the telephone today that every letter that arrives at your offices is logged on to your system by 2pm on the day it arrives. That being the case you had every opportunity to either issue a notice by post on the 31st of August formally rescinding the contract, or to return the cheque on the 4th when you received it. You did neither and, as mentioned above, made no attempt what so ever to contact me for in excess of two months, resulting in my having relied upon the account in question being paid in full and settled to your clients satisfaction. It should have been obvious to you that the payment of an amount so far in excess of the regular monthly payment plan we had previously agreed, and in an amount that we had agreed would represent a full and final settlement figure, would not have been paid by me otherwise than in full and final settlement. Especially as it was clearly only posted one day late, a delay which only happened due to the cheque itself, which was made out from a third party, being delayed on its delivery to me. Further, I have today received a letter from your solicitors regarding this matter. This letter is factually incorrect in relation to several points. Firstly, it states that I made a payment arrangement in the sum of £25 on the 4th August, an arrangement I have allegedly failed to meet. I made no such arrangement for this amount on the 4 August. On that date I made the previously mentioned payment arrangement of £2,100. The letter goes on to mention something in relation to a minus figure I apparently owe you – it says, “...if you fail to repay the arrears on the arrangements you have made of £-1798.23 by 19th November...”. I do not have the faintest idea what this relates to – do you? To conclude. I do not accept that any balance is currently outstanding on this account. I believe that, although you consider me to be in breach of the contract we concluded by telephone on the 4th August, your acceptance and presenting for payment of the cheque in the exact amount as agreed in our contract of the 4th August, along with your failure to pursue any further payments from me for over two months, amounts to your affirmation by conduct of the aforementioned contract. Should you choose to pursue this matter in Court I will vigorously defend myself." Lo and behold, a few days later she recieved a latter dated 18th Nov from CapQuest advising that as the agreed full and final payment had been received late the settlement had become invalid. Presumably then, they agreed with my opinion that they should have rescinded the contract in writing - pity they were two and a half months late at this point and clearly only did it after having ot have it poited out to them. Recieved a phone call from CQ's automated system on 28th November and on calling back straight away Mrs P was put through to a guy who continued to demand the payment - rudely - and who had obviusly not read the previous letter and would not listen to anything she had to say regarding it. Handed the phone to me and I ended up makign a wager with the guy to the tune of £100 that this argument woudl never see the inside of a Court. Got another call the next day which I answered as Mrs P was at work. Guy still demanding payment and discussing details of her account with me!!!!! These calls ilicited the following response; "28th November 2006 Dear Sir/Madam, I was contacted by your automated system at 19:59 yesterday evening which left a message on my home voice mail system requesting that I telephone your office. This message, however, did not identify your company, it was not addressed to me by name and gave the reference number of my account to be quoted upon returning the call. Capquest has no business leaving anonymous messages relating to me on a service that can be accessed by anyone who happens to be at my address, especially, as the message was not addressed to me personally so the call may have been returned by anyone. My personal finances and correspondence are none of anyone else's business so I would like you to kindly refrain from misusing my personal information by not doing anything similar again. Upon telephoning your office I was put through to someone who attempted to collect the alleged balance of the above mentioned account. This person had obviously not read my letter dated 13th November so had no knowledge of the issues raised in it and completely ignored anything I had to say to him in relation to it. I also found him rather rude in constantly attempting to talk over me. I am not prepared to discuss this account any further over the telephone. I will only communicate with you in writing and only with someone who has actually read my letter of the 13th and understands the issues raised in it. If you attempt to contact me by telephone after receipt of this letter then I will consider this harassment and will report you to the police and OFCOM. I will not respond to any communication from you unless it relates to the issues contained in my letter of the 13th. Any further communication should, preferably, be from your legal representatives. Should you not wish to discuss the details of my letter of the 13th any further then the only form of communication from you that I will acknowledge will be a claim issued at Court whereupon, I will vigorously defend myself. I will bring the matters relating to your misuse of my personal information to the attention of the Court along with any further harassment by telephone I might receive from you. Whilst writing this letter I have been informed that you have contacted my home address by telephone (after having been told specifically that my file would be passed to your solicitors only last night!) and have discussed my account at length with the person who happened to answer the phone. In doing this you are clearly in serious breach of the Data Protection rules and I will now be passing this information on to the Information Commissioner. Also, you told the person you spoke to that you had contacted me on several occasions since the date on which you received the payment of £2,100 (4th Sept) and prior to the letter you sent on 9th November. You stated that you have recorded phone call evidence as proof of such communications. I have no recollection of any communication by telephone with you and you have certainly sent nothing by post. The person on the phone said that he would be seeking authorisation from a superior to release this information to me. Should this information not be forthcoming I will conclude that I have been lied to in relation to this matter in an obvious attempt by you to obtain payment of this money from me. Should this be the case then I will pass on the information I have to the police as I believe that you may have attempted to commit a deception offence. Not only will this have serious implications for your company but also for the individual concerned. This is my final communication with you on this matter unless you furnish me, in writing, with a properly reasoned legal argument in rebuttal of the issues raised in my letter of the 13th November; or until such time as I receive a claim issued by a Court. As mentioned previously, any other communication will be regarded as unlawful harassment on your part. Further, I will charge you a fee of £5 for every unnecessary letter from you that I have to waste my time reading and, should I have to write to you again, I will charge £25 for every letter sent. All phone calls to me will be timed and charged at £1 per minute or part thereof." **************Letter end here, can't seem to swsith off the italics for some reason************** Received letter dated 6th Dec saying that the account was under investigation. Recieved letter today saying that as a "goodwill gesture" the balance was not going to be pursued and that the matter was closed:D Now, I don't know what it was that made them decide not to pursue it. I'd love to think that it was my legal theory but I think the deciding factor may been the dear of having their rampant law breaking and unethical practices aired in public. Still, a wins a win. Now, I think some bloke at CapQuest owes me a ton! P.

A letter along the lines of; Ref; Your excess charge ticket number XXXXXXX Dear Crooks, On XX/XX/2006 I was parked in a private car park at XXXXXXXXXXX whereupon I recieved the above mentioned ticket from you. It is my belief that the ticket in question was issued due to circumstances arising from a purported breach of the parking contract I entered into upon entering the car park. If this is not the case then I would be greatful if you would point out to me me statutory provisions which allow you to collect this sum. Having reaserched the legal issues involved it has become clear to me that the issuing of a fine or "penalty" charge in relation to a purported breach of contract is unlawful in English Law and, consequently, is entirely unenforcible. This being the case I wish to inform you that I will not be paying this sum. You must cease from any attempt to collect this sum. Demanding a sum of money that is not lawfully due and backing up that demand with menaces is a criminal offence. Attempting to collect a sum of money by using threats of legal action where no cause of action exists constitutes criminal harassement. Do not contact me again. Should I receive any communication from you - other than to acknowledge that you will not be pursuing this matter further - I will consider this criminal harassement and will contact the police. P.

Personally, I would refuse the partial offer and pursue the full amount. However, and to disagree with Glenn, agreeing to the partial settlement does not preclude you from sueing for the balance. Acceptance of a lower amount in full settlement of a debt cannot erase the balance of the debt. This is a very old principle of English law dating back to Pinnels case in the early 1600's. If they offer you a lesser amount of money and something else then the debt will be deemed satisfied though. That other thing could be literally anything of value, not necessarily of equal value to the balance (in Chappel and Nestle 1960, chocolate wrappers were deemed to be of economic value to Nestle, even though they were essentially worthless to anyone else). If they only offer you an amount of money though then the balance will still be owing. This rule is basically to prevent a creditor who, say, desperately needs the money from being held over a barrel by someone who can well afford to pay but who is taking advantage of the creditors situation.

As Lookingforinfo has said, make sure you send everything recorded delivery so you can prove what has been said. There is no way they can make you talk to them on the phone. As long as you are writing to them then you are certainly not ignoring your debt. Of course the reason they want you on the phone is that they are trained to pressurise payments out of you that way. I don't have figures to hand but I get the impression that companies like Capquest actually pursue very few of their debts to Court, especially in cases where they think the defendants may actually turn up. Having experienced the behavior (lies, threats, harassement, etc) of these companies I very much doubt they want that sort of thing aired in public. I'm dealing with an issue with these weasels for someone at the moment so I may have some interesting news in a few weeks. P.

All of the threads, basically. The amount of the charge is largely beside the point - it's the lawfulness of it that matters. If the bank charges you any amount at all then it is down to them to show that it accurately reflects their costs for your breach. If they refuse to do that, which they will, then the charge cannot be lawful, even if it's only 1p. Ask yourself, does it really costs them £12 to refuse to pay a DD? It simply cannot do. If it did then it would surely cost even more than £12 to actually pay a DD as it involves more work on the part of the bank and if every DD costs £12 to process, or £35 as the banks wil have you believe, then the cost of processing DD's would amount to trillions of pounds a year accross the industry. No banks would be making any money at all if that were the case. P.

Bet they'll reply to a Court form though. P.

The charge is not alowed to be a deterrant - see the point I made above about being charges being used "in terrorem" of the other party. The only lawful reason for a clause like this to be used is to enable one party to recover it's actual losses from another in the case of the others breach of contract. A genuine pre-estimate of loss may also be used but it has to be what it says it is - genuine. On the subject of clampers (and firms who issue "penalty" tickets). If they are operating on private land then the charge is similarly unenforcible, just as the charges levied by the banks are. They are just another charge for your breach of contract which are penalties as they do not represent actual loss. See my thread here; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-wardens/47349-parking-enforcement-agency-parkforce.html They are entitled to ask for them back as they are the banks property. It's very easy to prevent most of the breaches of contract mentioned here without having to use unlawful charges. The most obvious one relates to unauthorised overdrafts. The bank simply should not let you get into that situation at all. If they didn't pay cheques or authorise DD's, etc, beyond your limit it would simply never happen. In all other cases if you are repeatedly breaching the terms of your banking/credit card contract they have, as you correctly point out, the entirely lawful options of cancelling your cheque book and cards and, ultimately, closing your account. They won't though, not because they are conccerned about you but because they want to continue to make money out of you and they shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Also, they could remind customers that it's actually a criminal offence to issue a cheque they know won't be paid. Perhaps cheque books should only be issued to customers of good credit worthiness. P.

Lots to stop them. Firstly, the 6 year bar in the Limitation Act would be running and they wouldn't be able to avail themselves of the Sec.32 defence and claim that the 6 years didn't apply due to fraud or mistake. I know your date of 2012 was just an example but charges would be becoming statute barred straight away. Once a charge has been ruled to be a penalty by a Court you don't get a second go at making it. The charge is either a lawful charge that accurately represents costs, or it isn't. It would be totally inequitable to allow that situation because business would use it as an excuse to get the Courts to write their contracts for them and the Courts don't like doing that. The example is with restraint of trade clauses. There are very limited circumstances in which they can be enforced but the Courts will not seek to substantively rewrite the clause. If it can't be made to work with only very minor adjustments then they will simply kick out the whole clause. There will never be a Court case that sets a blanket charge for the banking industry as different banks will have differeing charges to one another and, although you could determine what, say, a bounced DD costs a bank today, you could not sensibly apply that back over several years because costs would inevitably vary from time to time. The issue put before a Court when you bring a claim such as this is not for them to decide what level of charge is an accurate representation of costs, but to rule on whether the actual charge that has been applied is a penalty, rather than being a sum to compensate for liquidated loss. It's largely irrelevant what the actual loss to the bank is, although, obviously, it may have a bearing on the case if one party can prove what it actually is. The broad rules for deciding whether a charge is a penalty are; (a) is the charge extravagant and unconscionable - which means, does it exceed the greatest loss which could possibly be sustained due to the breach? (b) Does the contract provide for a single lump sum to be payable upon one or more breaches of contract, some of which may cause serious loss, others may cause trivial loss? © Does the charge unduly enrich the party seeking to rely on it? - You are unduly enriched if you are getting something for doing nothing. (d) Is the charge intended to be used "in terorem" against the other party? - Basically means, is it meant to threaten or bully the other party into not comitting the particular breach? The reason why banks are paying out, and why they will loose in Court, is that they refuse to produce their costs. It clearly costs them pennies (if that) to refuse a DD so it's certainly extravagant and unconscionable, by definition then it must cause undue enrichment and I think you can make a good case for it being intended to terrorise you into not being in breach of contract. That being the case it will never happen that they could come back to you for money because a Court will simply say that they had every opportunity to produce the evidence originally but didn't. That wasn't a loophole, it was the effect of the rules of what can be introduced into evidence. No one is saying that the legal system is perfect - guilty people often get off - but just because they do dosen't mean there is some sort of loophole. People refer to Nick Freeman (famous for getting celebs of driving convictions) as "Mr Loophole". In reality all he does is to do his job better than the prosecution does theirs. The fact that, say, a speed camera hasn't been operated within the rules approved by Parliament isn't a loophole, it's a failiure to operate the camera lawfully. P.

I wish they had done as well. I really would have liked to have heard a bit of detail about exactly how these figures were arrierd at. I'm not doubting them it's just that they still seem quite high. £4.50 for returning a cheque, I suppose I can believe but I'm sure it can't be the case in the vast majority of cases. Northern Rock have told me that they don't even get cheques from the bank they are presented to unless they are for more than £5K. So it must only be an automated request. As far as DD's are concerned, I can't understand how it costs more than a tiny, tiny amount to retrun them - if anything at all. Surely it can't involve any more expense than an out of office auto reply on your email? I mean, thr bank computer just has to say "no" and that's the end of it. If it really does cost £2.50 (or £30 as the banks reckon) then surely it must be musch more expensive to actualy pay a DD as you then have to update the acount records and physically move money at some stage. P.

Northern Rock keep telling me that refusing a DD is a "service" they provide and I keep telling them how idiotic they sound. Refusing to pay something isn't a service, in fact, it's a specific refusal to provide a service. You wouldn't expect to be charged by the landlord because the beer you had ordered had run out - him telling you that is not a service he is providing. Anyway, I've told them that if they continue to claim that then next time I'm in the branch and I'm offered a loan, mortgage, credit card, etc. I'm going to refuse and forward them a bill for £30 in respect of the "service" I've provided to them. P.

Different but no less serious. This is not just a straightforward customer/business relationship whereby one party buys from another on a one off or occasional basis. Banks look after, and have a virtually unfettered access to, your money. They operate your mortgage, take your savings, etc. There is a much greater level of trust implicit in this relationship and, in the vast majority of cases, the customer is in a much inferior position as he has basically no barganing power. He, effectely gives up control of all his money to the bank. You cannot shop around effectively as all the banks are basically the same and have the same charges, interest, etc, etc. Like supermarket baked beans, the only real difference is the name on the tin. Unfortunately, unlike supermarket baked beans, you can't choose the equivilent of an "own brand" label when it comes to banking products. P.

You accept the T&C's and accept the charges therein on the belief that they are lawful and that they accurately reflect the banks costs. This is how the banks present them to you and is how you are entitled to take them. They are not lawful though and do not accurately reflect their costs. If someone came into your house and told you he was taking your telly and that he had some lawful authority to do so, and you let him do it on that basis, would you say that you had forgone your right to claim it back from him? Like I said above. No one has any choice in the matter. A bank account is a neccessity these days and if you want one you have to accpept whatever is offered to you. Lots of contracts are like that. Take an employement contract which contains a restraint of trade clause (a clause which prevents you workign for a competitor for a certain period after your employement ends). They are Prima Facie illegal but many firms still use them. If the contract said that the bank manager could punch you in the mouth everytime you bounced a DD it would not mean he had not comitted a violent offence, regardless of what you had signed. I don't think you are and I think some people have gone a bit OTT on you. P.

I have to pull you up on this one. There are no such things as "loopholes" in the law. Something is either lawful or it isn't. There is no middle ground here. P.

I see this thread is now at 3 pages - only read the first one so apoligies if I'm going over stuff that has been said since. To address some of your points. A lot of people get themselves into trouble, sometimes through their own fault (well, a lot, lets face it) some due to circumstances beyond their control. The problem is, if you are in trouble to begin with, or are on a low wage or on benefits then bank charges can have drastic effects on your financial well being. If you have very little coming in and have little or no surplus each month and your employer pays your wages in to your bank a day or two late casuing loads of DD to bounce then the amount of the charges may be very high in relation to your earnings. This could start a ball rolling that may be impossible to stop because and never get back in to the black. Anyone can encounter finaincial difficulties and excessive charging may make the situation irrecoverable. . You sound a bit like me. The old saying is that a bank will lend you an unbrella when it's fine and snatch it back when the heavens open. Whatever they try to make you believe with their latest fluffy, friendly, "we're your best mate ever" ad campaign a bank is never your friend. You are nothing more than a source of revenue. It goes far beyond charging extortunate fee's. In claiming back my charges every single bank and financial institution I've dealt with has attempted to decieve and blind-side me at every possible opportunity. Not a single S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) has been properly complied with at the outset; "We are only obliged to keep records for 6 years (Northern Rock); "The Data protection Act only allows you acces to 6 years worth of data"(MBNA); "Our charges are not for breach of contract but are for a service" (Northern Rock); "we aren't Governed by English Law as we are an American bank!!!!" (MBNA); "our charges aren't unlawful, do cover costs and we won't refund them" (Intelligent Finance); Capital one produced incomplete data (only back to 1999), Northern Rock initially only produced data back to 2000 but have subsequently provided back to 1995 but accourding to my statement numbers there should be account data going back another four or five years. I've had two Court claims issued against IF, both of which the bank indicated an intention to defend and on neither occasion did they on grounds of cost. They were clearly just stalling for time and abusing the Court system in the process. Cahoot claims never to have had the Court papers - just got off the phone with their legal dept, actually, they are chasing it. The only one that has said they intend to settle in full before Court action was Bank of Scotland and even that was after an initial refusal letter. As you can tell, contempt is the major feeling I harbour towards them How do you mean? Of course not. It's money they are not entitled to and that they must have known from the outset they weren't entitled to. Of course the banks are there to make money, no one is trying to deny them that. They are collectively though, in a position of massive power. It is impossible to run your life these days without a bank account and you do not have the of choice of going to a bank that does not levy these kinds of charges. P.

The problem is that if you start a claim for the charges of £14K it will almost certainly be multi-tracked by the court which means a high Court hearing and you having to pay for a Barrister along with the possibility of having to pay all the oppositions costs if you loose. If at all possible you should probably try and get a part settlement out of them to get the amount outstanding to under £5K then sue them for that as it will be fast tracked and your costs are limited. If you can show that the charges were solely, or largely responsible, for your other debt then you may have a claim against them but it will be a much more complicated procedure. P. EDIT. Sorry, above info is wrong. £15K is the limit for Multi-Tracking. Between 5 and 15K is fast track where your potential costs are limited to £750.

If you've already paid it then reclaim it just like you do with bank charges. Send them a letter saying that you now understand the "fine" to be unenforcible and that you paid it under a mistaken belief that it was. If they don't stump up then start an action in the County Court. Blackmail is a criminal offence. It could be worth a letter to the Chief Constable for the area to see what the police's opinion on the matter is. J.

Penalty charges for breach of contract are unlawful and are totally unenforcible at law. Their bahavior is despicable. I have a plan in case this ever happens to me. I have no intention of paying a private clamping firm a single penny and if there is no other reasonable way to get home then I will get a taxi and bill them for the cost. If there is no other way than to pay them then I will sue them for it back though the Courts. You have to be aware that whether there are signs or not is totally beside the point. A sign does not make such a charge enforcible. A properly worded sign will mean that you conclude a valid contract for parking with the land owner but it cannot legitimise an unlawful penalty charge. P.