Euro Parking Collection

Chipboard

Good article in the Sunday Times 'Drive' Section yesterday about a company in London called Euro Parking Collection who have been sending parking tickets to innocent motorists in error. Of course thats how they make their money and the recipient usually has no way of proving their innocence because lets face it, if you appear in court with a speeding/parking ticket your guilty until proven innocent and the chances are you wont be able to prove your innocence unless you can remember nevermind prove what your movements were 7 months earlier.

I got a ticket from EPC in June 2003 for the offence of parking more than 50cm from the kerb in the UK the previous November - only problem was my car had never been in the UK so I appealed and told them I could prove it wasn't, as I had travelled to meetings with colleagues in it that week in Ireland. They demand for payment was dropped but its too bad that people who obviously aren't up to the task can set themselves up as bounty hunters and the UK DVLA gives them access to the licencing database.

Good news is, the threats they make to pursue you are nothing but a bluff and according to the Times article no one has been pursued. The company state that many people pay up without protest - what a shakedown.

The following story illustrates how ridiculous the situation is;

Snowmobile gets UK parking ticket

A Swedish man has been issued with a £90 (1,211 kronor) ticket for illegally parking his snowmobile in Warwick.
But Krister Nylander, who lives on a farm in Bollstabruk, 205 miles north of Stockholm, said he had never been to the town and would not be paying up.

Mr Nylander said the ticket was issued by Euro Parking Collection showing his snowmobile was parked illegally for three hours in Warwick on 22 June.

"The snowmobile is in my barn. It has never left Sweden," the mechanic said.

Mr Nylander said all the information on the ticket was correct, including the make of the snowmobile and the licence plate number.

Euro Parking Collection, a London-based company which collects parking fines issued to foreign registered vehicles, was unavailable for comment.

SeanW

The answer, IMO is simple - "photo evidence"

John R

The answer is even more simple; Fukk Off.
The whole thing is just a scam to get money from the ignorant, people are so used to rolling over and handing cash to anyone capable of generating any semi-official looking document that it obviously works in a high enough percent of attempts to be profitable.

A UK parking fine is effectively unenforceable on non-residents in the UK.
A UK court judgement is not legally valid here, or in any other juristiction. The only course of action that could be taken to enforce it would be an application for extradition. For a parking fine, I don't think so.
The same goes for speed cameras, the fine can be processed and issued against the car owner but cannot be enforced in a different country. If the police catch you while you are in the country it is a different matter, you can be detained on remand and brought before a court. You'd want to be doing something very stupid or give the copper serious attitude for them to bother with all that though.

cdebru

Thats while all the Northern cars pass you out on the motorway here

And vice versa with the Southern cars in the North

gerrydublin

cdebru wrote:

Thats while all the Northern cars pass you out on the motorway here

And vice versa with the Southern cars in the North

It's also believed to be one of the reasons why the MAJORITY of road deaths occur between Dublin- Belfast, Dublin-Derry and Monaghan-Armagh.

If only the European Parliament were as active in reforming international criminal law as they are in international anti-money laundering legislation, we might have a few more people alive in this country and far less widows and orphans!

Would it happen in the US?