Parking charge companies preying on city residents have ‘vampire zeal’ according to one victim who was ticketed at 4.41am.
Duncan Richmond, who lives on Victoria Dock road only a few yards from Carly Mackie, who was issued with a whopping £18,500 charge after being ticketed for more than a year, was issued the standard penalty before he noticed the time stamp on the ticket.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said.“At times I’ve had a notice on my car, right next to the parking permit.
“If you want to buy a parking permit, that will cost you £40 a month, which is ridiculous.
“My brother stayed in Glasgow and a parking permit was £100 for a year, in the heart of the West End.
“I can sympathise with Carly Mackie’s £18,500 parking fines.The astonishing fact about my latest PCN, which was issued shortly before Christmas, is that the alleged “contravention” was first noted at 4.41 in the morning and the Parking Charge Notice, with a fine of £100, was fixed to the car at 5.06!
“They snoop around so early in the morning because they know they’d get a lot of grief if they handed out tickets during the day.
“There’s no care about handing out tickets. They must be paid by commission or something because they hand out so many.”
Mr Richmond has admitted he did not have his permit displayed at the time the 4.41am ticket was issued.
Vehicle Control Services Limited have claimed they are within their rights to issue tickets.
The revelations come as an ex-fraud squad police officer branded parking charge companies as ‘extortionate’.
Calls have been growing nationally to have parking charges outlawed, with several online groups starting up urging people not to pay private parking charges.
Questions are being asked of the DVLA, and why they allow private parking firms to access their data so readily.
Every parking charge notice placed on a windscreen necessitates a separate inquiry to the DVLA’s Data Sharing team at the cost of £2.50 to the charge company.
These inquiries from private companies made the DVLA almost £7 million in the last year.
Many parking areas in the city have been turned over to parking charge companies, including the patients’ car park at Ninewells Hospital.
* An earlier version of this article said Mr Richmond received a parking charge notice at 4.41am “while he was displaying a valid permit”. We now accept that Mr Richmond was not displaying a parking permit at the time and the ticket was issued correctly by Vehicle Control Services Ltd,who were not contacted prior to publication. We apologise for the error.