ACE Security - you've been Gladstoned!

Kingston upon Thames: 05-10-2016: C7GF642E: Pace Recovery and Storage v Mr Z

According to MSE, ACE Security (AKA Pace Recovery and Storage) are the latest company to find that paying Gladstones Solicitors an estimated £400 to assist with a claim for a £100 parking charge ends up with them £400 worse off, the legal profession £400 better off, and Will Hurley and John Davies laughing all the way to the bank.

The keeper, Mr Z, who was not the driver, received an NTK to which he replied requesting more particulars ACE sent a very dismissive letter claiming that they don't have to answer questions as the letter was from the Internet. They passed the case to their Solicitors, Gladstones.

Mr Z. received a Letter Before Claim to which he replied with the same questions. Gladstones never answer these questions because otherwise it makes the case uneconomic for them. They can only make a profit if they ignore practice directions, refuse to respond to requests for information and do no due diligence before filing claims.

As is their standard operating practice, Gladstones did not respond to the letter and instead filed their usual shoddy claim which failed to provide the information required by Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction 16, paragraphs 7.3 – 7.5. This is a shameful trick used by Gladstones so that defendants have no chance to file a proper defence.

In their direction questionnaire Gladstones requested that the case was dealt with on paper, which Mr Z. opposed. This is another disreputable ploy used by Gladstones. At this point the defendant still has no idea of what the case is about, and will not have until Gladstones file their witness statement. At that point the defendant will be out of time to file more paper, and so is almost guaranteed to lose a paper hearing.

Luckily Mr Z was well aware of the legal tricks Gladstones use and requested a hearing in his home court. Mr Z filed all his evidence and witness statements with the court and Gladstones. Gladstones sent a very lengthy defence giving me all the information requested in his very first letter to ACE. ACE were meant to be represented by their owner and his defence was clearly written by one of the solicitors, being based on a well-known template Gladstones use.

On the hearing day ACE was represented by a rent-a-mouth advocate who had no clue what the case was about and was frantically checking his laptop and mumbling something. According to Mr Z, this advocate and Gladstones' practice were well known to the judge who dismissed the claim within 3 minutes of the hearing.

Gladstones did not file any documents with the court, which is par for the course for their shambolic organisation.

ACE Security - you've been Gladstoned!

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

ParkingEye scammers caught out by canny motorist using dashcam

Long-time scammers ParkingEye have been caught out trying to charge a motorist for a 5 hour stay when in fact they made 3 visits to the car park in question.

ParkingEye use ANPR cameras to monitor car parks and this technology has proved time and again to be unreliable and issue charges when no contravention occurs. The Government has wisely banned Councils from the general use of ANPR, but has not yet extended the ban to private parking companies.

The notomob keep a record of ANPR fails.
http://notomob.co.uk/discussions/index.php?topic=5768

It can therefore be said with some certainty that parking companies are well aware that their ANPR is flawed, and that they therefore knowing scam large numbers of motorists a year by issuing invoices which they have failed in their duty of care to check are valid.

Luckily the motorist in question uses a dashcam. ParkingEye claim the vehicle was parked at ASDA from 14:22 to 19:28. However the dashcam proves the vehicle was outside their home at
19:25, which was just before they set off for ASDA for the third time.

This article from Parking Trend International magazine (2008) explains that ANPR is 90% to 94% accurate in ideal conditions and may fall to 60%-80% with older systems.

The Prankster considers it is time that either parking companies got their act in order, or the government ban the use of flawed ANPR system for control of private parking.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster.

PCM(UK) - you've been Gladstoned

Parking Control Management (UK) Limited are the latest parking company to be Gladstoned.

The judge threw out a claim filed by the hapless solicitor firm, describing it as 'incoherent'.

This is not an isolated incident, and The Prankster is aware of large numbers of other claims filed by Gladstones which have had similar treatment.

Gladstones once explained to The Prankster that they filed claims like this because they could not afford to do a better job. Essentially, it was not cost effective to comply with Practice Directions. The Prankster consider that if they cannot file claims properly, they should not be filing claims at all.

This tweeter explained he would not hire Gladstones with stolen money.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Smart Parking issue possible fraudulent parking invoice

Smart Parking have issued a parking charge to a motorist. However, the motorist has never used the car park in question, and the picture is not of his car.

Unfortunately the picture here is necessarily redacted and not of not very high quality. In the original, it is fairly obvious that the numberplate in the photos has been digitally altered

One possibility is that the plates have been cloned. However, more likely in The Prankster's opinion is that the ANPR software has incorrectly altered the numberplate.

The Prankster questions whether this is legal or whether an offence has been caused. ANPR is known to be inaccurate and there have been previous complaints about Smart Parking. they have a duty of care not to randomly harass car owners for parking charges which have not been incurred, so if their technology is not up to scratch, than it simply should not be used.

Three government has wisely banned councils from using ANPR technology, but so far has not extended this to private parking companies.

The Notomob keep an ever growing record of instances where ANPR technology has failed.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Nicola Mullany resigns as chair of ISPA

The Prankster can confirm that Nicola Mullany, chair of ISPA  resigned with immediate effect on Friday 16 September 2016.

The Prankster wishes Ms Mullany all the best. We have not always seen eye to eye, but this is to be expected. The Prankster was impressed by the way ISPA was run and accepts that the environment was challenging.

The Prankster expects that a lot of this will be going on:

lines

reading

lines

and suggests that everyone waits for the official announcement before concocting too many conspiracy theories, some of which already appear to have been aired on MoneySavingExpert.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

All Park With Ease ANPR tickets suspect

Park With Ease this week confirmed they are not competent to run a parking management company as they are issuing tickets even when motorists have paid the correct amount.

This is occurring at least at Brockholes Nature Reserve in Preston but may well be happening at all of theor car parks.

On the 2nd September 2016 a motorist received a charge from PWE (dated 24th August) for non payment of parking at Brockholes Nature Reserve Preston on 9th August:

The motorist appealed on the grounds she had paid her £6 charge. On the 4th September she received a reply stating that PWE had checked their records and that no record of her registration was found.

The motorist then contacted Brockholes who checked their records and found someone had paid £6 for a very similar registration at the time in question. The motorist contacted PWE again on 5th September who stated the number was not similar but as a gesture of goodwill they would cancel the charge anyway.

On the 12 September PWE contacted the motorist again and stated that having checked the payments made again they found the payment of the correct amount against the right registration. They blamed the problem on a system communication error.

Prankster Note

How many other motorists have paid the correct amount and still been charged? This problem is not limited to Park With Ease and The Prankster has received large numbers of similar complaints from motorists who say they have paid their charge at the time. A sizable number of these complaints come from car parks run by Excel/Vehicle Control Services, but companies such as ParkingEye are involved as well. 

Excel refuse to accept there is any fault with their machines and have started several court claims despite being informed the motorist paid.

The Prankster is aware of a number of faults with the Metric Parking ticket machines used by Excel and ParkingEye. 

a. If a motorist pays but the machine failed to issue the ticket due to a fault, or thought it had failed to issue a ticket (even if it had) the machine would not refund the amount paid and would remove the transaction from the local store. Thus, the motorist has paid, but the operator has no record of this .

b. Another problem occurs if there is a communication fault when the machine tries to send data back to the central office. In this case the machine sometimes overwrites all or part of the data. This means it is never sent back to the operator, who therefore record one or more motorists as not having paid.

In addition to these known flaws with Metric Parking machines there may also be unknown flaws in Metric Parking’s machines, as well as flaws in the operators back-office software.

Sadly operators stick their head in the sand and refuse to admit these errors. ParkingEye, for instance, are well aware of both of these flaws with the Metric Parking machines but still continue to use them and refuse to declare these problems in relevant POPLA appeals or court claims.

The Prankster calls on companies like Metric Parking to make publically available any known faults with their machines so that motorists are fully informed, and for operators to declare these faults in appeals and court claims.

The Prankster has contacted Metric Parking and awaits their response.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

British Parking Association Settles Part of Debt to London Councils

The British Parking Association has a long-standing debt to London Councils for running the POPLA service.

The Prankster has now learnt that the BPA has settled around £511k of the debt, leaving around £200k still outstanding.

It is not immediately apparent where this money was found from. The 2014/15 accounts showed there were reserves of around £936k at 31 March 2015, so it is likely the monies came from the reserves.

The Prankster first predicted that the POPLA costs would cause the BPA serious financial problems in October 2013. However, it does not seem that this will be terminal for the BPA; only very painful.

The BPA have avoided this problem with their new contract with the Consumer Ombudsman by going for a fixed price contract. However, this has caused a different kind of problem. The new POPLA has issued a large number of shoddy decisions cause by poorly trained assessors who have not properly considered the issues raised. The new assessors churn out template responses without apparently giving much thought to the particular circumstances of each appeal.

The Prankster therefore considers the time has come for the Government to step in and run a fair and independent appeals service staffed by competent assessors who have enough time to properly asses and rule on each case.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster