Let’s Have A Wilson Parking Thread

[Phildo]

I received a very generic-looking parking infringement notice in the mail on Wednesday, 2nd March, 2016. A scan of this letter is attached to the end of this email (with my personal details removed). You are most welcome to forward this email and/or attachment to anyone you wish.

The text read as follows:
“You have been nominated as the driver/owner of vehicle TAXI372 . On the 01-08-2015 at 19:36 the vehicle was parked at PER086 - Seddon Street and this vehicle was issued with a parking breach notice numbered 100385469 . This notice was placed on your vehicle at the time of issue by Parking Enforcement Services.

This Notice is now Overdue and we require payment within 20 days. The outstanding amount is $65.00.

Failure to pay the overdue amount within 20 days will result in further recovery action at additional cost to you. Additionally, dependant on state law, your vehicle may be clamped and or towed if it appears in any of our clients' car parks.

Yours faithfully,
Parking Enforcement Service”

This is a taxi of mine that is driven by different drivers at different times - I don't drive that car at all. That particular driver has since left Australia.

Some observations:

- From the time of the offence to the date on the letter is 212 days (ie seven months). This is extremely excessive. In this particular case the driver has since left Australia and returned to his home country. This time delay will also affect people who have bought a car since the time of any alleged offence.

- There is no signature or name of any individual person to contact.

- There is no provision on the letter to nominate any other driver.

- There is almost no information about the alleged offence. Just a street name - no suburb, car park or photographic details of any kind. There are multiple streets in Perth and various country towns with the same street names. This letter doesn’t even narrow it down to any particular city or town.

- There is no mention of any legislation or legally binding regulation (eg parking by-laws).

- There is no mention of the actual company name, Wilson Parking. A search for the ABN reveals that name (ABN 67 052 475 911).
Link: http://www.abr.business.gov.au/Searc...xt=67052475911

- There is no office or business physical address listed on the letter.

- I rang the number provided - 1300 306 933 and selected 2 to “appeal an infringement”. This resulted in an audio loop that kept repeating itself. I rang again and selected a different option. This put me through to the commercial office. The person that I spoke with was extremely unhelpful, and was unable to put me through to anyone who could assist. Calling the number again and selecting option 1 once again put me in a repeated audio loop, with no option to speak to a live person. A fourth phone call eventually got me speaking with a live person, who made it clear that if they could not recover the money from the driver then I would have to pay the fine.

- I asked the person what legislation this is operating under. She refused to speak any further and when I kept repeating this question she hung up on me.

- The actual driver left Australia in December, three months after the alleged office. If there had not been such a delay in receiving the infringement then it could have been referred to him at the time. The Wilson Parking person had no regard for this, and insisted that I must pay the fine.

- The only option that was given to appeal the fine was to go to a post office, get a statutory declaration form, complete it and post it in. This involves considerable time. Appeals are not considered by phone or email.

- I still don’t know how Wilson Parking got my personal details. The Wilson Parking person claimed that they get this information through a series of court processes, but was very vague in her explanation.

- This vehicle is a taxi. The Wilson Parking person said something on the phone about the car being parked in a disabled bay. If so, then it is possible that the taxi was involved in the transportation of a disabled person, which is very common for taxis.

- There is the claim that the vehicle will be subjected to wheel clamping or towing in the future. Besides once again not specifying any relevant legislation, this will result in future drivers and owners of this car to suffer consequences for something that they had absolutely nothing to do with.

- Basically, this letter is an attempt at bullying people into paying money for alleged offences that may not even have occurred. There is no regard at all for penalising a person who may have committed an alleged offence - it is purely about extorting money from potentially innocent people.
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Something else: There is the option to appeal this via their web site. However, included in their terms and conditions disclaimer is the following:

"Wilson Parking’s Privacy and Disclaimer

The primary purpose of collecting any relevant personal information is to be able to provide you with our goods and services. Names and addresses of our customers may also be provided to a mailing house to mail account statements to each customer, and to debt collection agencies to collect outstanding debts.

We may also use or disclose personal information for other purposes such as helping us to identify products and services that may interest you."

Whoa, hang on there. Wilson Parking retains the right to use, and sell, personal information for basically any reason in the future?

I have elected to not proceed with giving Wilson Parking this permission via their web site, and have emailed them directly instead. However, from what I've seen on various web site forums, Wilson Parking a) take considerable time to respond, and b) basically state that someone has to pay some money, and that they'll hold the vehicle owner responsible no matter what evidence is supplied.
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How the bloody hell are we letting this sort of activity go on? Why is this commercial blackmail being permitted?

Anyone else got any Wilson Parking experiences? What happened? Did you pay? Not pay?