Private Parking Tickets
Got an scary looking bit of paper claiming you owe forty quid, or eighty quid, or whatever-number-they-pulled-out-of-their-arses quid for overstaying at a supermarket or other private car park? Is it called a "Parking Charge Notice" so it has the same initials as a "Penalty Charge Notice"?

You can safely ignore it.

Private companies have absolutely now powers to impose penalties. The very most they could possibly claim from you is their direct losees from your overstay, and if the car park is free to use, that loss is a big, fat zero.

In due course you'll get letters from "Debt Collectors" (a bloke on the other side of the office) and maybe even from Trethowans or Graham White solicitors. All sorts of nasty things will be threatened: CCJs, wrecked credit ratings, the lot.

Ignore them too.

A vanishingly small proportion of actions are actually started by Private Parking Companies. Almost all of those are withdrawn if you make it clear you'll see them in court. Almost all the rest are lost.

So just keep on ignoring, no matter how scary the letters look.

Notes. (1) The CAB invariably tell you to pay. This is spectacularly wrong advice. (2) Don't have a PPC cases (in the spectacularly unlikely event that one gets off the ground against you) heard at Bournemouth as one of the magistrates there runs a PPC.
(ubergeekian, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 12:41, 5 replies)

Alternatively,
Don't park in Sainsburys car park when you're going to Pizza Hut. Go to a proper car park like everyone else.

If you're really stupid enough to get a ticket in a supermarket car park, you shouldn't be fucking driving.
(username failed moderation, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 13:01, closed)

I think you and I have argued before.
But we're in wholehearted fucking agreement this time.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 14:41, closed)

No hard feelings
I start trolling at the slightest provocation, I was almost certainly doing that.
(username failed moderation, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 15:01, closed)

The stupidity isn't in getting the ticket -
it's in paying it afterwards. Well, perhaps "ignorance" is a fairer word than "stupidity".
(ubergeekian, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 18:29, closed)

good job, then
that civil cases are heard in front of a judge in a county court. If you end up in front of a bench of magistrates for a civil matter, then it'll be blank looks all round. Be a dear, and pass them the biscuits.

(If you end up in front of a district judge instead of a lay bench, he'll probably just remand you into custody, just out of principle)
( multijoy, Wed 16 Nov 2011, 18:45, closed)