Anybody come across LDK Security?

[Sidewinder]

One of my staff came into work fuming this afternoon having just received a 'fine' in Lidl's car park as she had overstayed by a few minutes and got a £100 ticket. Great I thought.......I began to tell her how she could fight it and she said "well it's a fine so I had to pay it - there is no arguing with these people...". She went on to explain that she had phoned them straight away to take advantage of the offer to reduce the amount by £50 for early settlement and how she was cross as she wouldn't have parked there if she had seen that they had put warning signs up since she last went there . As I explained how she had been basically conned into paying up she became quite angry at how she had fallen into the trap of believing that the payment had to be made to avoid 'prosection' as stated on the PCN, that photographic proof exists (which as stated on the ticket members of the public are not entitled to see and which may be used as evidence in a 'prosecution') and that an appeal would lead to costs increasing whilst the dispute was being investigated.

 

 

Having seen the ticket, I too am angry! This would have been a no-brainer to ignore, wait for letter to RK (colleague's husband) who would then have been able to deny that he was the driver and have absolutely no obligation to pay the fee.

 

The fact is that she has now paid the charge, therefore I suppose admission of contract, agreement to pay etc etc.

 

Has anybody ever managed to get money refunded do you know or would the only available route be small claims court? The lady will be writing to the store to express her disgust but no doubt they have nothing to do with the company managing the car park.

 

I have a good mind to type up some advice leaflets and hand them out in the car park!

[petej2811]

This sounds right up my alley!

 

Ok what you do is this, and it's going to be so much fun it's unbelievable!

 

Write to the vultures. Inform them that you require am immediate refund of the sum paid.

 

Inform them that under contract law they are entitled ONLY to damages and not to a penalty as this notice requested. Consumers can reclaim unfair penalties from banks after paying them. This is absolutely no different at all.

 

Look at my article on this forum for a wealth of background information. If you understand this and the law surrounding it then you will find preparing your case easy.

 

Your authority or requiring the funds back is contractual penalties and the Unfair Terms and Conditions in Consumer Contracts Regs, there is good caselaw in my document.

 

Furthermore inform them that the notice commits an offence under S.40(d) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970. Tell them that should they not repay you will complain to the Police, Trading Standards and the OFT and pursue criminal allegations against them.

 

Give them SEVEN days to pay ONLY (more than enough time, this is some scabby security firm not a multinational bank). At the end of the seven days send them another letter, demmand payment within another seven days, tell them the'll be liable for the court costs etc etc.

 

If they don't pay you then get back to me by email (it's on my advice document now giving you an incentive to have a read of it). I'll help you work up a particulars of claim and provide you with a case outline.

 

The Court Costs to sue for this will be £30 but that £30 is a worthy initial outlay to enforce what will be a fine principle.

 

Now tell me that you're up for it.....

 

Pete

[petej2811]

And if you had a set of balls big enough to type out advice leaflets and hand them out in the car park I would salute you!

 

Pete

[Sidewinder]

And if you had a set of balls big enough to type out advice leaflets and hand them out in the car park I would salute you!

 

Pete

 

I got balls

 

Are there any legality issues with regard to putting leaflets under the wipers of cars which have had PCNs affixed?

 

Have been working on a suitable letter to get in the post asap. Any advice welcome......

 

Dear Sirs,

I write with regard to a recently issued ‘Penalty Charge Notice’ received following a visit to the Lidl store in XXXX, Kent on Thursday 16th February 2007. The Invoice to which I refer is LDK XXXX issued by your Patrol Officer XXX against vehicle registration number XXXX XXX. I understand that their car parking contracts are regulated by yourselves.

Like many others on the day, I received your ‘Penalty Charge Notice’ whilst parking in the car park at the rear of the store, and in fear of further action and escalating costs threatened within the document made a payment of £50 over the telephone. I then sought advice with regard to what I felt was an unfairly levied charge and was absolutely astounded to discover that your company are acting completely outside of not only the regulations with regard to enforcement of parking regulations, but also with regard to UK law. I am advised that regulation of car parking restrictions on private land is an issue of Civil Law and relies on the driver entering into a contract with the owner of the land, that access or use of the land may be provided subject to an agreement to provide something in return, normally a reasonable reimbursement of costs or damages due to the landowner representing the actual cost to the landowner incurred as a result of a breach of the contract. As the parking facility is provided free of charge, the maximum ‘damages’ caused by any alleged overstay that you as agents are entitled to claim is ‘reasonable damages’ representing the actual loss by the parking space not becoming free for another shopper – ie Nil. A Penalty Charge as levied by yourselves is unlawful in UK law (determined by Lord Dunedin in the case of Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. v New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd (1915) and still used as the case law relevant to common law in this area). Please note that I entered no contract either with yourselves or with Lidl stores to pay the fee which you have extracted from me, and had nothing explained to me regarding conditions of use of your land or any terms relating to the misuse of your facility. I am advised that your ‘Penalty Charge Notice’ is, in effect, an Invoice inviting me to pay for goods or services, the terms and cost of which to become enforceable must have been individually negotiated with me and clearly understood by myself. It is my intention therefore to rigorously pursue a claim regarding this incident under the following legal authority.

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

5. - (1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

 

(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.

 

(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.

 

(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.

 

(5) Schedule 2 to these Regulations contains an indicative and non-exhaustive list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair.

 

 

Schedule 2 (1)

(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation.

The Administration of Justice Act 1970

Section 40 of the act provides that a person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under contract, he or she:

(a) harasses the other with demands for payment which by their frequency, or the manner or occasion of their making, or any accompanying threat or publicity are calculated to subject him or his family or household to alarm, distress or humiliation.

(b) falsely represents, in relation to the money claimed, that criminal proceedings lie for failure to pay it.

© falsely represent themselves to be authorised in some official capacity to claim or enforce payment.

(d) utters a document falsely represented by him to have some official character or purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not.

 

It is clear from the text of the Penalty Charge Notice issued in respect of this incident that LDK Security Company are guilty most seriously of a criminal offence under the terms of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 namely that you state that:-

“….Any appeal, including a self-addressed envelope must be received in our offices within 14 days of the date of offence as dated on the notice…”

“….Photographs are for internal use only and they will only be passed to specialist debt collecting agents and used as prosecuting evidence in any court case against you…”

Please note that the terms ‘offence’ and ‘prosecution’ relate specifically to criminal law, and there has been no alleged infringement of ‘The Law’, merely an alleged breach of contract under Common Law. You are however in breach of criminal law yourselves under Section 40 (b), © and (d) under the Act in falsely claiming that criminal proceedings could result, that you have some official capacity to claim or enforce payment and that you purport to have some official character which you know not to have.

In the light of these serious breaches of common and criminal law, I fully intend to report this matter to the Police, the Office of Fair Trading, and Trading Standards.

Notwithstanding any action which those agencies may choose to take in investigating this and doubtless other cases involving your unlawful practices in obtaining money, I demand an immediate repayment of the £50 paid to you on 15th February to be made in the light of the manner in which this money was obtained. I am prepared to allow you a period of seven days in which to refund this amount and am assured that in the absence of a return of my money, civil action to recover this amount would be successful on the above grounds and with the addition of costs due in respect of any legal action taken by myself in recovery of this amount.

Yours faithfully,

 

XXXXXX

 

 

Is this too long or is the inclusion of the legal bits unneccessary.

 

A similar letter will be going to the store advising that their appointed agents are acting unlawfully and suggesting that they might wish to take this matter up with them and provide a speedy resolution!

 

Thanks for everything so far

[MrShed]

Lovely stuff...let us know how you get on SW, I wanna see them squirm!!

[petej2811]

Looks good (and familiar).......

 

Let the buggers have it!

 

Pete

[johnnyrotton]

Wheres the advice leaflets pete ?.....

[Sidewinder]

Colleague has today posted letters to Lidl Head Office and to the Parking company, but to add insult to injury.........

 

She got a bank statement online today and was shocked to find that instead of taking the amount of £50 from her card (the amount she is demanding be returned to her for the above reasons) they have actually taken the full £100 in two amounts of £50

 

This really takes the biscuit and surely adds theft to the list of offences? She is going to take it up with the bank in the first instance but doubts that they will do anything but suggests that she contacts the company concerned. Is this a known ruse, a 'mistake' on their part or something more sinister? She doesn't really want to get into a discussion over the phone, but neither does she want them to have the money for too long either!

 

Scandalous!

[johnnyrotton]

seen this, just type lidle clampers inti google, theres somthin goin on there..

 

Shoppers Are Clamped Before Entering Store (from Barnet Times)

[Planner]

Your arguing you havent entered a contract and then your quoting the Unfair terms in consumer contract regs..... so which is? Are you arguing you have entered a contract and its unfair or that you havent entered a contract so its unenforcable? think it needs to be one or the other.

[patdavies]

think it needs to be one or the other.

 

No, it doesn't.

 

The argument is that no contract exists with the RK. If it did, it would anyway be unfair in that it attempts to charge a penalty, which is unlawful.

 

The third string to the bow is that the 'ticket' puports to be an official PCN. This in itself, is a criminal offence.

[petej2811]

Your arguing you havent entered a contract and then your quoting the Unfair terms in consumer contract regs..... so which is? Are you arguing you have entered a contract and its unfair or that you havent entered a contract so its unenforcable? think it needs to be one or the other.

 

Nah it is a two (or three) pronged defence.

 

The primary argument being that the contract doesn't exist. If it does then the charge is a penalty and or is unlawful per the Unfair T&Cs in CC regs.

 

So instead of relying on one defence you get three bites at the cherry.

 

Pete

[petej2811]

 

 

 

The third string to the bow is that the 'ticket' puports to be an official PCN. This in itself, is a criminal offence.

 

 

Though that cannot be a defence.

[Byron 44]

My sister got a ticket just like yours in Lidl for having one wheel slighty over the white line in a parking bay, she was informed that she was preventing other people from parking even though the car park was practically empty.

Anyway, she went into the store and they said it was nothing to do with them as it was a private car parking company that had issued the ticket and that she should take it up with them.

She wrote them a letter to say how unfair this was; waited a couple of days then phoned. They said they had a backlog of letters to get through, that she should pay the £50 fine and when they got to her letter they would decide if a refund was due.

She then went to the police who advised that if she does send the money she will not get it back for sure. They wanted to know if there was a carbon copy of the ticket, counterfoil etc.

I noticed that the photocopy of your ticket Sidewinder does not show the left hand side. Is this deliberate on your part or is it how the ticket was basically ripped out of the book, my sisters is exactly the same.

Now, has she dropped herself in it by making written contact with this company, i have not seen the contents of the letter that she wrote, i told her i would look on the net to see if anyone else had had this problem and it didn't take long to discover they had.

[Sidewinder]

My picture is an exact scan of what was issued and placed under the wiper of the car.

 

The lesson to be learned is not to contact the company concerned. Wait for them to obtain the RK details from DVLA then respond in words of one syllable to state that no money will be paid on one or more of the grounds available to anybody issued with such an invoice - for example that no contract exists between the RK and the parking company.

 

Even having contacted the company, providing that she hasn't agreed to the contract then she still need not pay 'having taken further advice as to the legality of the charge' when they write to threaten further action. Did she keep a copy of her letter to them? If she was to pay whilst the ticket is in dispute they will always reject the appeal as she will by paying, have accepted that some form of contract exists. The owner of the land is only entitled to claim damages caused by your sister occupying more than one space and therefore the fee which they would have received if another car had been able to use the space - in the case of a free car park the store have lost precisely nothing. Even though they may write increasingly threatening letters, the only recourse they would have is to take civil action, which nobody is aware has ever happened.

 

The colleague I am helping in this case paid immediately in fear of the cost escalating and prosecution resulting, and to be honest she will have a tough job getting the money refunded without taking them to court. To that end, the letter I wrote to LDK has been also sent to Lidl reworded to consider them equally responsible for ensuring that the money is repaid as it is their land and their agents who have acted unlawfully in their name.

[Sidewinder]

By the way - which Lidl branch was it? - 'mine' was issued in Tonbridge.

[Byron 44]

Thanks for that, she is feeling much better knowing that someone is on her side in this. The store she visited was in Crawley, i'm not sure that she has an exact copy of the letter that she wrote. She said that when she phoned the number on the ticket she could hear children playing in the background, gave her the impression that the guy she spoke to was operating from his home address. Just how big is this firm anyway, i mean; anyone can get a PO Box number like they have and setting up a company couldn't be easier, you can go into Brighton, buy the paperwork and set up your own company.

 

The police have recorded her complaint and have advised her to wait for further correspondence from LDK. I'll keep you posted.

[Sidewinder]

Nearly there now........but not quite yet....

 

The last week saw a flurry of telephone activity between colleague (persistent), Lidl (reviewing parking arrangements and refreshingly quick to respond to our letter) and LDK Security who offered.......

 

no apology, no explanation

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but wait for the fanfare........

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AN ASSURANCE THAT THEY WILL BE REFUNDING THE AMOUNT IN FULL

 

Don't applaud yet though as the cheque was promised to arrive by last weekend but as yet has not appeared

 

Will close the thread when the lady concerned has the money safely in the bank.

[Byron 44]

This is sounding better.

My sister has had no further contact with LDK.

[Zamzara]

Though that cannot be a defence.

 

I think the fact that the ticket purports to be official in several ways is an extremely important aspect. The money has been paid largely because of this misrepresentaion, and the recipient of the ticket has been the victim of what can only be described as a deliberate [problem] intended to cause this result. This makes it very clear that legally, the money must be refunded, in addition to the fact that criminal offences have been committed by the security company.

[Tallaul]

I sympathise with 'anybody come across LDK security' as I've had my one and only parking fine from them in the Tonbridge Lidl, Kent. It was just after they changed the time limit from 2hrs to 90mins, and very dark. The car park was almost empty at the time. I explained in my appeal that I didn't realise they had changed the time limits, but they didn't give me any slack. I've been on the run from them for a year, and they still haven't got their money. I owe them £100 but I wont give up without a fight. They're b'trds and I would be only too pleased to give them as good as I've got. Does anyone know of a good solicitor?!

[pin1onu]

Colleague has today posted letters to Lidl Head Office and to the Parking company, but to add insult to injury.........

 

She got a bank statement online today and was shocked to find that instead of taking the amount of £50 from her card (the amount she is demanding be returned to her for the above reasons) they have actually taken the full £100 in two amounts of £50

 

This really takes the biscuit and surely adds theft to the list of offences? She is going to take it up with the bank in the first instance but doubts that they will do anything but suggests that she contacts the company concerned. Is this a known ruse, a 'mistake' on their part or something more sinister? She doesn't really want to get into a discussion over the phone, but neither does she want them to have the money for too long either!

 

Scandalous!

 

Time to report the matter to the Old Bill. IMO she's got sufficient grounds under the AJA and now taking more money they are "entitled" to. Sounds like obtaining Money by Deception if not "Theft".

 

This is F@*king unbelievable. Sock it to them:wink:

[Sidewinder]

As I said in the earlier threads (this was almost a year ago) - they rolled over and refunded the money straight away after I wrote to them, the store and Lidl Head Office.

 

I sympathise with 'anybody come across LDK security' as I've had my one and only parking fine from them in the Tonbridge Lidl, Kent. It was just after they changed the time limit from 2hrs to 90mins, and very dark. The car park was almost empty at the time. I explained in my appeal that I didn't realise they had changed the time limits, but they didn't give me any slack. I've been on the run from them for a year, and they still haven't got their money. I owe them £100 but I wont give up without a fight. They're b'trds and I would be only too pleased to give them as good as I've got. Does anyone know of a good solicitor?![/Quote]

 

Don't pay them - simple as that. It was dark, and the loation and poor illumination of the signs made it impossible to see them sufficiently to be aware of and accept any alleged contract. If they were going to pursue it through the court then they would have done so by now. If they write again then tell them to sue you.

 

I could almost lean out of the window from here and shout that to them

[pin1onu]

I've just run a check on these clowns and thought I'd add a little fuel to the fire.

 

Looked at the address given on the invoice and their website and they both site a High Wycombe Address.

 

Webcheck on Companies House reveals

 

LDK SECURITY CO. PVT LIMITED

INGLES MANOR, CASTLE HILL AVENUE

FOLKESTONE

KENT

CT20 2RD

Company No. 05560876

Under the Companies Act 2006 an incorporated company must display the address of its registered office on all documents including invoices and also their website.

 

They are non-compliant with the Act. If anyone wants to they can either ring Companies House or write to the Compliance section at companies house and grass them up. I think they can be fined for this. Certainly Companies House take a dim view. It is the responsability of the Company Officers to ensure that they are compliant. It certainly won't hurt to make a little trouble for them. :grin:

[kojo3]

ldk security are doing the best ever good job in these car parks as i am regular customer and use these car parks all the time and people tend to misuse them. please obey the rules and regulations so you dont get a penalty.