Wilson's Car Park - When Free is not free

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Wilson's Car Park - When Free is not free

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ajobbins

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#1684624 8-Dec-2016 13:29

richms:

MikeB4:

No I am not kidding, an opinion of a suitably trained legal professional would be very useful. If any one has links to a court case where the legal position has been ruled on would also be useful

They are not going to let it get to that.

If it goes to court and there is a ruling then their whole business model for casual parking turns to crap.

Correct. They have withdrawn every notice where legal action has been taken (excluding tribunals), because they know that they cannot win, and the precedent would destroy their business. Once they withdraw the notice, as far as the court is concerned the matter is settled, so you can even pursue it to push the point even if you wanted to.

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ajobbins

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#1684625 8-Dec-2016 13:31

richms:

MikeB4:

Wilson T&C's for parking refers the 'you' or 'the car' or words to like that from memory so given that my totally untrained mind tells me they can charge the car owner for loss.

The car owner has not entered into any contract. The car owner is not under any obligation to provide details of who they think _may_ have been operating the car at the time.

Its up to wilson to identify the correct person and try to get money out of them. How they do that is up to them, but from past views of grabs of their CCTV I dont think that will be much help to them.

Even if they have a nice high res CCTV photo of my face - who do they know who that face belongs to? They might get the car owners name, and look up their Facebook page and suggest it's the same person, but they have no legal avenue to prove it is. Could be your identical twin or your similar looking brother or cousin or whatever.

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debo

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#1684976 8-Dec-2016 23:01

ajobbins:

Even if they have a nice high res CCTV photo of my face - who do they know who that face belongs to? They might get the car owners name, and look up their Facebook page and suggest it's the same person, but they have no legal avenue to prove it is. Could be your identical twin or your similar looking brother or cousin or whatever.

Wouldn't they have exactly the same legal avenues as the police do with regards to speed cameras?

networkn

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#1685020 9-Dec-2016 07:58

debo:

ajobbins:

Even if they have a nice high res CCTV photo of my face - who do they know who that face belongs to? They might get the car owners name, and look up their Facebook page and suggest it's the same person, but they have no legal avenue to prove it is. Could be your identical twin or your similar looking brother or cousin or whatever.

Wouldn't they have exactly the same legal avenues as the police do with regards to speed cameras?

The police are enforcing the *law*, these parking companies are trying to enforce a private contract.

sbiddle

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#1685022 9-Dec-2016 08:03

debo:

ajobbins:

Even if they have a nice high res CCTV photo of my face - who do they know who that face belongs to? They might get the car owners name, and look up their Facebook page and suggest it's the same person, but they have no legal avenue to prove it is. Could be your identical twin or your similar looking brother or cousin or whatever.

Wouldn't they have exactly the same legal avenues as the police do with regards to speed cameras?

It's interesting you should bring speed cameras into it. From the 90's until the introduction of the new RedFlex digital cameras there were a number of cases involving AutoPatrol cameras that never made it to court simply because the Police did not want to have to defend these in court. They lost a court case in the late 90's in Dunedin where the integrity of an AutoPatrol fixed camera was challenged and the defendant won. Since then they've wanted to avoid court cases which has meant letting people off tickets rather than letting the case get to court. There have however been a number of cases that did make it to court that they have lost, including one in Wellington a few years ago where the actual speed camera photo was ruled inadmissible as evidence by the judge which resulted in the case being thrown out.

cr250bromo

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#1685048 9-Dec-2016 09:30

I'm certainly no fan of Wilson's Parking (probably noone is!), but in most cases they are operating the carpark and enforcing the conditions on behalf of the building owner. If the building owner has a problem with how Wilson's operate they can either terminate the contract or direct Wilson's as needed - most likely the contracts vary but the building I am requires Wilson's to be given 6 months notice of termination.

I know if I ran cr250bromo corporation in a building that had a large carpark I'd probably get Wilson's to manage it for me - why would I put up with all of the flack when Wilson's can do it for me and be the bad guy, while extracting as much money as possible from the public?

cadman

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#1699586 6-Jan-2017 20:40

sbiddle: There have however been a number of cases that did make it to court that they have lost, including one in Wellington a few years ago where the actual speed camera photo was ruled inadmissible as evidence by the judge which resulted in the case being thrown out.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/10405333/Lawyer-gets-speed-camera-ticket-thrown-out

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chingy

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#1699598 6-Jan-2017 21:12

I would definitely write in a complaint stating what happened. Especially as they admitted it was an error they should definitely at least refund your $10!

kingjj

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#1699904 7-Jan-2017 16:06

Perhaps I got lucky and found the one Wilson's employee who isn't out to ruin all the fun as I recently got a parking ticket waved that was issued correctly and reasonably.

Just before NY's I went to visit my wife in hospital and parked in a Wilson's carpark on Oxford Tce in Chch. I paid for 12 hours using their app as I usually do (use it often for work parking). I returned 3 hours later (had to go home and change as the baby peed on me...) and found a parking ticket. Queue the usual curse words and thoughts of revenge. As it turned out I happened to be driving my wife's car that day instead of me own. Of course in my rush I had paid for my car and not hers.

My own fault I thought but worth a challenge none the less. I used their website to write a challenge and not 10 minutes later I got an email to say they had waved it and no further was due. To be fair I would probably have challenged it through the civil process if they had declined it (after all they had suffered no loss as I had paid for a carpark) but I was amazed that they didn't at least try and get me to pay up or string me along for a few weeks.

Certainly warmed up my opinion of Wilson's that day...

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