Mugged For £200 By The Council!

[Leeky]

Went to Bethnal Green yesterday morning to drop the girlfriend off. Parked just outside and went in her nan's for 5mins to have a cup of tea. Came out and they were lifting the lexus onto the back of a frickin lorry!!!!! :ffs: :censor: :ffs:

Then they tell me its gonna cost me £200 to get it back and i need to go over near the millenium dome to pick it up from the impound!!!

So im now on my own in the centre of London on a Sunday miles from home (Reading) in the poring rain with no coat, no car and no idea where i am!!

Manage to find a tax and get over to the dome. Got really dodgy directions from a bloke on where the impound was and spend 3hrs walking up and down the a14!

Finally got the car back after shelling out £200!!!!!!, then it took me 5hrs to get home because of the god damn marathon!!!

ARGHHHHHHHHH!!

[s.boyd6]

feel 4 u mate . just dont seem right .especially as it was sunday.

[Leeky]

Cheers man, i would have thought seeing as it was a sunday it would have been a tad more laid back but obviously not. I just feel like i was prey'd on by the vultures that are London traffic wardens.

Its really hard to stop thinking about, and its ruined my week.

Im soooo angry that i seriously may NEVER go back to London (or anywhere else within the M25) again for the rest of my life.

When i saw it being lifted into the air i almost fainted and threw up because i couldnt take in what was happening.

But i am going to appeal against it. Im writing a letter to the council to get my money back. :cacker:

[s.boyd6]

i know the law is the law ,but it still makes you angree,.

it,s a shame that the british motorist, in cluding my self dont

protest in numbers to be able to make a stand . good luck with your

protest.

[gus]

That sucks mate. unkucky. the amount the goverment gets through motorists and other charges is rediculous. feel for you mate :o

[+Steve]

man.. that really must have sucked... damn i hate london!!!!

[Dame]

I can sympathise, traffic wardens in London are complete ar**h*les, they get paid on a commmission basis so are very keen to 'do' as many vehicles as they can. I used to work for a post production company in Soho, we had many deliveries of large film/tv equipment which was very heavy. Every time a lorry/van parked outside our office for no more than 30 secs, they got a ticket. I questioned the wardens over this, they said that it was tough and all delivery vehicles had to park at the end of the street. This was was some 1/2 mile away. This stuff weighed lots, was worth tens of thousands of pounds, but it made no difference.... I can see why they get punched from time to time.....

[Rash@R.A.Motors]

lifting the lexus onto the back of a frickin lorry!!!!!   

I'm surprised they didn't just give you a £30 fixed penalty - :ffs:

Rash.

[silver surfer]

If you want a chance to get your money back then when you write

to the council ask them to send you a copy of the TRO (traffic regulation order) for that section of road. If they they cannot find it then chances are it was never done. Then towing your car would have been illegal. You will need to know the exact address from where your car was taken.

If they can find it and send it to you, then read it carefully to make sure that the details of parking restrictions are accurate.

quite often councils make mistakes when issuing TRO.

hope this helps.

[dj_davo]

i've read somewhere that if u arrive at a scene like this, and not all 4 wheels are off the road, ie you arrive and your back wheels are still touching the road - then apparently BY LAW the tow vehicle has to release the vehicle back to you.

im not sure if this is the law or a case of misinformation that i have read, but i would be tempted to look into it - if this was the case in your instance, and base an appeal on that.

hth good luck

p.s dont let the :censor: grind you down :ffs:

[Leeky]

Cheers guys, i will be appealing against it and i will look into getting hold of the TRO you talk about.

[ZeroBlade]

wish i knew about that tro i coulda used it a while bak :/

i feel for ya leeky m8. my car got towed away cos it didnt have a tax disc and was on a public road. i had no choice cos i had no where else to put the damn thing, and the dvla took ages (6weeks) to send me the v5 doc's. as it happened i got the documents only days after it wsa taken away!

i ended up paying 120 for the impound, 30 for a ticket, then 55 for back payment on the road tax from when i'd bought the car!

which i thawt was a bit harsh as i couldnt drive the car, yet they still wanted paying for it ?!!

-Z

[jaxx]

i wouldnt have liked to have stood in your way when that happened!

all the luck on soring it out mate, keep us all posted!

[Dame]

It's definately worth a try, quite often you can get the charges quashed is the council doesn't advertise the restrictions clearly enough. A friend of mine got done in Bath, but she got away with it because the council only marked one side of the road, there was nothing to say the side she parked on was restricted. Also a lot of traffic wardens issues tickets in situation where they shouldn't.