CARRY ON CLAMPING TONIGHT

Carry on clamping

Published: Monday, 18 August 2008, 4:17PM

CLAMPERS HAVE LICENCE TO PRINT MONEY

The government’s licensing of the private parking industry is “a nonsense” that has done nothing to stop cowboy operators from charging outrageous fees for clamping and towing motorists for the tiniest infractions, according to the AA.

In a Tonight programme investigating the private parking industry, the AA said that private parking clamping should now be banned as it was done in Scotland in 1992.

Carry on Clamping: Tonight reveals that some private parking enforcers are happy to:

*Clamp and tow a motorist within THREE minutes of running past the pay and display meter

*Clamp a vehicle in a restaurant parking lot while a customer has gone to an ATM across the road and a passenger is still seated inside

* Charge £350 to clamp and tow a vehicle nine minutes after the parking ticket ran out and refuse to accept credit card payment over the phone thereby stranding an 18-year-old girl overnight in Birmingham

CASE STUDIES

An estimated 520,000 motorists had their cars clamped on private land across Britain last year and are believed to have paid more than £770 million pounds in fines to the clampers. And according to the AA, there has been a shocking rise in towing with an estimated 20,000 cars towed away every year. And Tonight has shown that in most cases there is nothing motorists can do to challenge these fines.

The Home Office established the SIA (Security Industry Authority) to licence security staff, the nightclub industry and private clampers and towers in a bid to rid the industry of criminal elements. But the licence sets out very few rules that should be followed, two of which include not clamping a motorist with a disabled badge and not clamping an emergency vehicle in use.

And as Tonight discovers motorists have almost no one to turn to complain about unfair private parking fines or charges that don’t fall into the few rules covered by the SIA licence.

The SIA say local Trading Standards offices should deal with these complaints. However a survey by Tonight of 170 trading standard offices in England and Wales revealed that 64 per cent said they can only offer advice on the telephone but can not take any action and that 19 per cent said they can not even offer advice on the telephone.

When asked who people should contact if they have complaints about private parking operators, 52 per cent of the offices said to contact the SIA and 40 per cent said to pay under protest and appeal in small claims court.

When asked if more regulation was needed, 42 per cent of the 117 offices that agreed to comment said yes and 58 per cent said no.

King says that no one is taking responsibility for the clamping industry.

He tells Tonight: “If the government can not get its act together, to fully regulate the industry with maximum fines, the guidelines on signs with codes of practice that are enforceable then I think we should look to Scotland where in 1992 clamping on private land was outlawed as extortion and theft. We could do the same here and then for land owners there are other ways to stop people parking on your land. Put up a fence, put up a gate, there are other ways to do it.”

In a statement to Tonight, the SIA said that it had revoked over 40 licences over the last three years and issued a range of warnings and improvement notices to operators who have not complied with the conditions of their licence. It has also passed on intelligence to the police and local authorities about apparently unreasonable or criminal activity that is not covered by the Private Security Industry Act.

However, it acknowledged that it has become clear since 2005 that the powers of the SIA do not address the concerns felt by some regarding the behaviour of vehicle immobilisers. For this reason the Home Office has asked the SIA to consider various options for the regulation of vehicle immobilisation companies in the private sector, including a company registration scheme. The study will report to Ministers by the end of the year, with recommendations on the way forward.

CASE STUDIES

EMILY RITSON
Eighteen-year-old Emily Ritson was left stranded in Birmingham late at night with no money after her vehicle was clamped AND towed just nine minutes after her pay and display ticket expired. Ritson feared her car had been stolen but after phoning the police it was discovered that it was towed away by Midway Parks. The private parking company demanded £350 in cash before they would return the vehicle.

Emily, who had been attending a concert and lived 80 miles away in Saint Neots in Cambridgeshire did not have the cash on her but the parking company refused to accept a credit card payment from her father Nigel over the phone.

Nigel Ritson says: “Oh I was absolutely fuming. I couldn’t believe that someone could do this to my daughter. I was just enraged. I’m normally a very, very calm person but this really did get me going.

“What made it worse was I actually spoke to Midway Parks and explained to them over the phone that she was only 18 years old, she was in a city eighty miles from home and she had ten pounds in her pocket. Would they give her the car back now I’d pay it there and then with the credit card. They said absolutely no way…they said she’d have to get the car tomorrow morning. I said to them well what should she do just walk the streets of Birmingham, go and sleep in a bus stop. They said sorry sir I’m not going to continue this conversation and he hung up on me…unbelievable.”

Emily contacted a distant relative in the area to stay with that night. To keep the car overnight, Midway Parks charged another £40. When Nigel drove to Birmingham the next day to pay the cash they asked him to pass it through a padlocked gate before he could even see the vehicle.

Nigel says: “The fact that it was towed and clamped and removed within nine minutes I don’t think it’s physically possible to clamp a car take the clamp off, put it on the back of the lorry, secure it and take it away in nine minutes.”

Midway have done nothing illegal, but Nigel still calls it “extortion and blackmail.” “It’s just a licence to print money,” he says.

After hearing about the case, the AA’s Edmund King says: “I think in this case, it would appear that the car probably was not clamped and we are seeing more and more of this.. that the clampers claim the clamping fee but basically they know that they can get more money if they tow it away. It’s almost impossible to clamp a car, take the clamp off, put it on the tow truck, and get out of the car park in nine minutes. AA Patrols couldn’t do it in that time and I am sure clampers couldn’t.”

Midway Parks say: “We have received several letters from the offender and a duplicate statement that he gave to the court, he has not previously mentioned his daughter being 'stranded' at night 80 miles from their home.”

“His vehicle was clamped nine minutes after his pay and display ticket had expired, we have investigated further with his local council and their position is to give five minutes grace prior to taking enforcement action, in this case he had almost double the recommended 'grace period' before we took action against his now illegally parked vehicle.”

“The reason our payment terms are cash only is to prevent claims that under the consumer credit act 1974, card payments can be stopped, cheques can be stopped so cash is the safest form of payment to protect our business interests, this has been agreed by Birmingham city council trading standards department.”

However, Birmingham City Council told Tonight that it gives a 10 minute grace period before considering issuing a parking ticket and would wait 30 minutes after that before towing a vehicle. In the case of repeat offenders, it could wait 15 minutes after an initial parking ticket has been issued before towing. The council does not employ clamping in any circumstances.

Birmingham Trading Standards also told Tonight that it did not approve of companies accepting cash only. But it agreed with the clamping industry’s interpretation of the law, that if they accepted credit cards it would be possible for members of the public to sue the credit card companies under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act if the consumer thought that the clamping was unfair.

ADRIAN BAILEY
Adrian Bailey’s pay and display ticket at a private parking lot in Birmingham ran out at 1:36pm one Monday this May. According to the receipt he was given by Midway Parks, he was towed away at 1:39pm – just three minutes later. He was charged £150 for clamping fees and £200 for towing fees.

Adrian says: “Well apparently they had managed to clamp the car and take the clamp off and get it on the back of the tow truck in three minutes.”

Adrian tried to complain but go nowhere fast. “Well I spoke to the police and they weren’t interested and I spoke to the owner of Midway and he said that even if I make a complaint and the courts found in my favour they still wouldn’t pay me back.”

Midway Parks says: “We are the largest vehicle immobilisation company in the Birmingham area therefore and we appreciate that a number of our complaints come from bitter offenders, who use the media to gain sympathy. We appreciate that we will never have a good name purely due to the business we conduct, but we conduct it legitimately and we come under investigation from the police, tax office and trading standards, yet they have never found any circumstance where we have not acted fully legally. We will be in business as long as people are parking illegally on private land, we are receiving enquires for new work on a daily basis, we are here to stay.”

TONY MARTINO
Tony Martino trip to a McDonald’s drive-thru in London ended up costing him £95.

Realising he had no cash on him, Martino left his car in the restaurant’s parking lot and crossed the street to go to an ATM.

He was gone for just a few minutes and left his sister in the passenger seat.

But when he returned, two men had managed to clamp his rear tyre without his sister noticing and demanded £95 to remove it.

“By the time I returned, a matter of a couple of minutes, I jumped in the car. I was about to go off to buy something in the restaurant when I had a tap on the window to say the vehicle had been clamped.”

The men, who work for a parking company that patrols for the restaurant, pointed out the signs that said that only customers could park in the lot and as he had crossed the street he had broken the rules.

Tony was outraged by the incident but quickly discovered that there was nothing he could do about it as the clampers had not done anything illegal.

He says: “It was unscrupulous, very opportunistic. I couldn’t believe that McDonald’s would even employ companies that would operate this way.”

In a statement, McDonald's said it regretted the incident that occurred at the Southall restaurant:
“Although the parking policy for that restaurant is clearly displayed it has been agreed that on this occasion Mr Martino should have had the opportunity to use the restaurant after parking. Our local franchisee has therefore apologised to Mr Martino and arranged for his penalty payment to be fully reimbursed. On this occasion, we feel that the parking control company acted in an overzealous manner and this has been addressed with them.”

“The local franchisee of Southall would like to emphasise that the decision to introduce parking controls at this restaurant was a customer-focused one, taken to increase the availability of parking to McDonald's customers when they visit. Southall High Street is very busy and there is limited parking. Prior to the introduction of parking controls at the McDonald's Southall restaurant, non-customers frequently took advantage of the free parking available in order to visit other local shops and restaurants. "

This is the full statement from Midway Parks. ITV cannot vouch for its factual accuracy.
We have received several letters from the offender and a duplicate statement that he gave to the court, he has not previously mentioned his daughter being 'stranded' at night 80 miles from their home, we believe that the differences in statements is to gain needed support for his case and he is doing this through the media, important facts that he has brought to your attention surely should of been raised in his initial letters. His ground that his vehicle was clamped nine minutes after his pay and display ticket had expired, we have investigated further with his local council and their position is to give five minutes grace prior to taking enforcement action, in this case he had almost double the recommended 'grace period' before we took action against his now illegally parked vehicle. you are invited to view photographic evidence to support his claim that signage was inadequate; this wll show his clam to be malicious.

The reason our payment terms are CASH ONLY is to prevent claims that under the consumer credit act 1974, card payments can be stopped, cheques can be stopped so cash is the safest form of payment to protect our business interests, this has been agreed by Birmingham city council trading standards department, this does not conform with the BPA regulations but we are in no way assonated with the BPA, our office opening times are 9am to 6pm this is the same as most high street banks we do not believe our terms would therefore cause a offender difficulty in making payment during r opening times.

The law stipulates that there is not a minimum time that must laps between the vehicle being immobilised and its subsequently recovery, this was highlights recently in the local press when a vehicle was ticketed by the city councils parking enforcement team and within 8 minutes it was recovered, like the citiy council car compound we are not open for vehicle collections 24 hours a day for security and safety reasons.

We have never removed a vehicle before the paid ticket has expired, you are referring to a incident where the offender did not read or maybe did not understand the parking terms correctly, it clearly states that once clamped vehicles will be removed after 1 hour or EARLIER AT THE COMPANIES DISCRETION, not you are free to park for one hour as commented, even though the premises in question was closed, there is a agreement in place that patrons of the social club next door are free to use the parking facility at night. The offender fails to mention that aprox 200 yards from the location is a free car park provided by a supermarket chain and that after 18.00hr parking restrictions along the road change to allow parking.

When offenders collect vehicle that have been towed away, as a responsible employer our first concern is that of the safety of our staff and the vehicles that we have in our position, we have a catalogue of instances where members of our staff have received physical injuries from offenders collecting vehicle, to name a few, a female member of our team received a punch to the face, this broke her nose, we have had offenders climb over the 6ft fence and attack our security with iron bars, we are regularly spat at through the fence, we have had offenders attempt to stab members of our team through the fence, and recently a female offender reached through the fence to strangle the member of staff releasing her vehicle, this was done in front of a uniformed police officer. We have threat of petrol bombs, we have had staffs cars burned out while parked outside our compound, and this is all on a day to day basis while carrying out our legitimate business. We deny all allegations of our members of staff wearing 'hoodies' our site is covered with comprehensive cctv and we invite anybody to view our recordings, we are the largest vehicle immobilisation company in the Birmingham area therefore and we appreciate that a number of our complaints come from bitter offenders, who use the media to gain sympathy . we appreciate that we will never have a good name purely due to the business we conduct, but we conduct it legitimately and we come under investigation from the police, tax office and trading standards, yet they have never found any circumstance where we have not acted fully legally. We will be in business as long as people are parking illegally on private land, we are receiving enquires for new work on a daily basis, we are here to stay."

Website links:

The security industry authority – they are responsible for licensing clampers. You can check if a clamper is licensed with the authority on this website. www.the-sia.org.uk/home

AA - http://www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/clamping-on-private-land.html

RAC - cowboyclampers@racfoundation.co.uk or tel 0207 747 3445

BPA - www.britishparking.co.uk

TRADING STANDARDS - www.tradingstandards.gov.uk

CITIZENS ADVICE - www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/getadvice.htm