Annex 1
PARKING SCAMS UNCOVERED BY APPEALNOW.COMTM
(taken from the wwww.appewealnow.com website)
1. The Ghost Ticket or Phantom Ticket—parking
attendants illegally issuing tickets after a vehicle has driven
away and claiming it was put on the vehicle.
2. BT vans targeted by parking attendants
using the double whammy scam (see below on how the scam works).
BT has now set up a special team to deal with these scams!
3. Giving tickets to vehicles legally loading
and unloading or delivering.
4. Clampers parking on yellow lines while
they do personal shopping.
5. Supervisors, managers and parking attendants
cancel tickets for their friends and councillors.
6. Parking attendants do not report parking
meters that are not recording the time correctly. They then issue
parking tickets to vehicles parking there.
7. New parking signs with new times are
hidden behind the old signs.
8. Illegible signs are not replaced or repaired.
9. Parking signs are hidden behind obstructions
including hedges.
10. Councils do not follow the appeals procedure
and automatically send out letters turning down an appeal.
11. Parking attendants know which parking
meters are to be suspended. They allow vehicles to park there,
then suspend the bay and issue a parking ticket.
12. Councils lift up vehicles to paint yellow
lines under them and then issue parking tickets to those cars.
13. Parking tickets are issued to abandoned
vehicles to reach targets.
14. Parking tickets are issued to imaginary
foreign vehicles. As the vehicles are not registered with the
DVLA they are treated as valid tickets.
15. Disabled badges allegedly not displayed
correctly. Disabled vehicles are illegally clamped. Parking attendants
are increasingly claiming that disabled blue badges are not displayed
correctly and issuing parking tickets. Councils spend hundreds
of pounds fighting requests to cancel these tickets. This is now
a national disgrace.
16. Health and emergency visitors get parking
tickets! Parking attendants are increasingly claiming that health
and emergency visitor cards are not displayed correctly and issuing
parking tickets. Just think: that health visitor might just save
your life!!
17. Parking tickets are given to drivers
assisting disabled, infirm or ill passengers into or out of a
vehicle.
18. Parking attendants confirming to a driver
that it's "okay to park here", the driver returns to
find parking ticket issued.
19. The councils who claim they never received
your appeal even when you have their acknowledgement!!!
20. Issuing tickets on vehicles before the
time on the meter has expired.
21. Misleading information on council websites,
eg, at one time Westminster's website on loading and unloading
said, "Loading or unloading should be a continuous operation".
This is not correct!
22. Councils not repainting barely visible
yellow lines and therefore issuing parking tickets to motorists
who cannot see the lines.
23. Issuing parking tickets when correct
pay and display tickets are clearly shown.
24. Councils not replacing faulty pay and
display meters or parking meters—motorists put their money
in—lose it and park with a note saying they put the money
in. They will get a parking ticket.
25. Issuing tickets on residents parking
bays days before the bays are to be suspended.
26. Issuing parking tickets to AA and RAC
patrols attending breakdowns.
27. Issuing parking tickets in areas where
the council knows the parking signs are invalid.
28. Issuing tickets before 8.30 am (councils
dispute this but we have witnesses).
29. Parking attendants adding information
to notebooks after the event to "prove" a ticket was
given correctly.
30. Claiming meters or bays are suspended
and issuing parking tickets, with no evidence that the bays were
suspended (see the famous case in Bury where the photographic
evidence was doctored).
31. Confusing signs so that it is unclear
where pay and display bays situated next to residents bays start
and end. (eg, next to Belgravia police station).
32. Parking attendants refusing to make
notes about an alleged parking offence in their notebooks when
requested to by a motorist or member of the public.
33. When a motorist has received several
parking tickets and pays some but disputes others, councils allocate
the payments as payments on account over all tickets, nullifying
the motorist's ability to appeal.
34. Issuing parking tickets for parking
on a yellow line before the line was painted.
35. A one off—parking attendants issued
a second parking ticket to a motorist who gave them the "v"
sign as he drove away after he was given an initial correct ticket.
The council cancelled both the first and second parking ticket!!
36. Suspending and hooding parking meters
or pay and display bays over the weekend, particularly on Sundays.
Motorists think it is in order to park in the bays as there is
no work or other activity going on—they park and get parking
tickets.
37. Where a street forms the boundary of
two local authorities (particularly where they have different
parking rules) parking attendants issue parking tickets in the
wrong area.
38. Back office staff often give incorrect
information, including sometimes telling motorists to pay the
fine and then appeal—once you pay the fine you cannot legally
appeal.
39. "Seeing" yellow lines in parking
bays when none exist and issuing parking tickets.
40. Removing out of order signs allowing
motorists to park free.
41. Providing false evidence to the parking
adjudicator.
42. Putting suspension notices for residents'
parking bays on the other side of the road!
The Double Whammy, used especially to target
company-owned vehicles, in particular BT vans. Two tickets are
issued to a vehicle by a parking attendant who then destroys the
first one before the driver returns. The result is that many companies
pay the first ticket, before being hit by another demand—and
pay again, thinking the second ticket has been issued because
of a separate offence.
The Double Whammy and the Ghost Ticket are forms
of fraud. Councils know that these are occurring and do little
if anything to curtail these illegal actions. In view of this
widespread abuse, councils should be asked how many parking attendants
they have dismissed for issuing false parking tickets, and if
they have done so, have they reported the matter to the police?
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