Parking court hearings are an increasing burden on the court service, and today saw a new record high in England and Wales with the number of hearings beating 50 for the first time. for a total of 51.
Another 8 cases were heard in Scotland.
Manchester was the busiest court with 14 hearings. Birmingham was next, with 7.
The Roboclaims business has made it viable to take out speculative claims, regardless of merit, on the basis that most people are scared of the courts system so will pay up. However, as more and more people use the internet for research, the scam nature of large numbers of these claims are exposed, and with the facts available motorists can file a robust defence and proceed to a hearing.
The maths is simple. Suppose a motorist folds on receiving the claim, paying the parking company £175. After court costs, they clear £150. If a motorist defends and wins, the parking company pay £50 court costs £150 advocate costs and £100 motorist costs, losing £300.
If 9 out of 10 motorist fold, the parking company clears £1350, for a cost of £300. The overall profit is £1050.
A number of pressure, information and help groups are springing up on the internet. This dramatically changes the picture. In some areas 9 of 10 cases will now go to a hearing, and courts are reporting huge backlogs.
The maths now becomes £150 taken by the parking company and £2700 lost. With a counterclaim of £250 (and £25 court fee), the losses could rise by another £2475.
Only time will tell how this pans out as more self-help groups spring up.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Putting the fun back into parking
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Membership on the Fight your private parking invoice had risen drastically! Over 16000 now!
ReplyDeleteExcept that's not a self help group. It's some running a (probably illegitimate) business. Offering to write popla appeals for a fee. Something anyone could do for free with 5 mins research on MSE or Pepipoo.
DeleteThe massive increase is all thanks to a certain Mr Beavis, well done mate; a round of aplause please.
ReplyDeleteHere is a different way of looking at it.... the PPCs were satisfied with the percentage of payments without court action until the cat lady and devorcee bed room solicitors started encouraging people not to pay. The PPC percentages dropped, forcing them to start taking people to court..... be careful what you wish for
That is a different way of looking at it, and certainly one which has zero grounding in reality. I am surprised you think Beavis was overall favorable to parking companies. It certainly is in some cases, but in the majority of court cases reported to me nowadays judges are applying the Beavis case law and finding in favour of the motorist.
DeleteYour response comes as no surprise, given the fact that you rarely report the PPC wins; which far out way the losses.. and you know it.
ReplyDeleteI challenge you to provide a balanced report in relation to these matters moving forward, rather than give people a false representation of what is actually occurring.
In any case, it frankly amazes me how much people dedicate to this so called cause, when there are much more deserving causes e.g. homelessness, animal cruelty, child abuse etc etc etc etc
The reason PPCs get more court wins than losses, is because of clueless defendants who go to court with rubbish defences, eg 'I didn't see the signs', 'I wasn't driving', or 'I was only 15 minutes over the time', etc.
DeleteWhere people have sought advice from the Prankster, BMPA, PPA, MSE or Pepipoo and filed a properly pleaded Defence, motorists win the cases over 80% of the time, and even higher when one of our Lay Reps is involved.
The more this is publicised on this blog and elsewhere, the more people will seek proper advice, and going to court will start to become a drain on cashflow for the PPCs, especially as they get hit for subsequent DPA breach claims.
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DeleteAnd when exactly did VCS make a donation to the homeless?
DeleteI have read many successes on here and many failures. And quite balanced views on how few people actually defend their cases in court. I just doing see how parking prankster is not balanced. It's all about how to win what to do and how to use the system to your advantage when the odds are totally against you.
DeleteFor example the rights of audience of Ms kausier makes a rally interesting read and without it being reported on here we would never have thought to use that point In court
Who ever spotted the Right of Audience thing must have been proper college educated I reckon
DeleteYou are still living in PPC fantasy land. I hardly ever get court losses reported to me, but do report them, as you will know if you read the blog. If you think PPCs are winning more cases, feel free to send me in court reports or start your own blog. The fact is that when Wilkie/Bargepole/Prankster turn up in court, they hardly ever lose, which would not suggest that they have magic hypnotic powers over judges, but that the charges were never valid in the first place.
DeleteHere's an idea: give us a car park that you, ahem, 'manage', Pranky can get himself a sPeCulative iNvoice, and then we can all enjoy the penis measuring contest that follows.
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DeleteAnd perhaps underhand tactics of issuing claims to the wrong addresses resulting in default judgments.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have heard personally and other places, PPCs don't seem to take a commonsense approach in certain circumstances, so they only have themselves to blame.
In PPC's ideal world the poor defendant would be left on their own to fight their case, with no help from outside, while the PPC goes in mob-handed with a qualified legal bod and lots of back-office support. How unfair is that? It seems to me to be a perversion of the Small Claims process.
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