Car clamped in error - need urgent help

[Wishy Washy]

My wife and I bought a new car on Thursday. We taxed it straight away at Marlow Post Office in Bucks at 11.16 am on Friday 08.06.12. We have the receipt from the Post Office. We put the tax disc on the screen. We then set off home to Aberdeenshire. We stayed overnight at the Ramada Encore in Barnsley Junction 37 M1.

In the morning we found our vehicle clamped in the Hotel Car Park. There was a message from the DVLA agents VEAS to call them. Thinking it was a genuine mistake, we called presuming they would just send someone out to release the clamp. However, they insisted the car was not taxed. I told them the tax disc was on the Windscreen but they said it was too dark to see, or take a photo at the time. We even called the Post Office at Marlow to make sure there was nothing amiss with their reporting to the DVLA of cars they'd taxed. Eventually we decided we'd pay the fine and claim it back.

However, when we called we were told we had to wait until Monday for the car to be released. After many calls, including several to South Yorks police, we were advised there was nothing we could do to get it resolved, so we didn't pay the fine.

My wife had to be at work today, she works for an oil company as a chef and there is no one to cover for her at such short notice as the only other chef was coming off shift as my wife started her shift. After buying the car we are skint, but we managed to get enough money for a taxi to a car rental company in Leeds and get a vehicle to get us home, we arrived early this morning. My wife has gone to work tonight. Our new car is still at the Hotel in Barnsley. Where do I go from here, I need to sort this out in the morning, and I have no idea where I stand. I'm not working myself as I have been in hospital with pneumonia, and I don't know if I can handle these crooks. I know I will be unable to sleep tonight.

I have now read the DVLA website and VEAS's website and it looks as though we pay the fine and try to claim it back. Surely as we have done nothing wrong we shouldn't have to do this and they should re-imburse our expenses? Will they pay to have our car delivered here to Aberdeenshire, our taxi fare and our car rental charge?

Please, any advice would be welcome, I'm at a loose end.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Hello WW and welcome to Legal Beagles!

I'm not a DVLA specialist, but we do have experts here, and I will mail them for you and point them in your direction I live in South Yorks so i feel your pain with SYP.

Messaging the specialists now hun, hold in there

Meanwhile, sit back recover from your illness, dont stress and let us do the legal stuff as i used to tell my passengers, your not paid to get stressed, i am!!

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Thanks so much Puffrose, I've been looking up contact details for MP's in Barnsley and local Newspapers, I'm not really thinking straight. You just presume that if you've done nothing wrong everything is going to be all right, but having read the DVLA and VEAS websites which I couldn't do when I was at the Hotel yesterday, I'm honestly feeling I'm up against what feels like a juggernaut driven by cowboys. You should have heard some of the things they said to us on the phone yesterday. Its just not right.

[Bill-K]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I think Bluebottle will be the man to see about this, but Puff has mentioned this thread to me, too, so here's my two penn'orth.

From what I can see, your perfectly 'legit' car was parked quite legally in the Hotel car park. If this was genuinely private ground, then this bunch of cowboys were trespassing, surely. However, if the hotel actually 'employed' an outside 'agency' to police their car park, then they need to be told that this will 'not look very good on their CV.' Either way, I think they need to be told, as this could become bad publicity for them.

Sure - you were under pressure from the moment you discovered the clamp, but from now on, please try and get everything done in writing. If these jerks were patrolling a hotel car park at night clamping vehicles, and they weren't even carrying a torch, then they are clearly not going properly equipped to do the job they were supposed to be doing. Presumably, the car park was in total darkness, then ? ...as a tax disc can be read in street lighting. If it was in total darkness, and they had NO means of establishing if a tax disc was being displayed, then why didn't they clamp every other car in the car park ?

There is deffo summat here that stinks. I think the hotel need to be made aware that the security of their car park was compromised by vandals who were quite possibly causing criminal damage by attaching devices to vehicles without the proper authorisation and/or tools and equipment to do so.

But - we need Bluebottle's opinion, for sure.

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

On the websites, everything points to writing in by post, which I'm sure will take days. There is no email contact, although there is a phone number.

I'm worried now that the car will be moved to their pound in Sheffield, which adds another £400, and then destroyed after 7 days.

I still can't imagine the car will be crushed, but the £400 pound release fee which I then have to claim back from them if my claim is upheld, is just beyond us right now. We sold my wife's Jeep and bought a Smart car (the clamped one) just to cut back on running costs.

I cannot believe they cannot check out the facts, release the car and cover our expenses when the mistake they made was pointed out within 2 minutes of us reaching hotel reception.

At first, I also thought the Hotel was guilty of calling the clampers, but the DVLA website says these people have number plate recognition in their vans. Definitely our car was parked on private property (in the Hotel Car Park right in front of a very light & bright large reception area), but hadn't bothered looking in to that as I just thought it was a big mistake they'd made and would be easily rectified when we called to tell them.

I know I sound like a flapper but I drove all the way home to Aberdeenshire and just haven't slept at all, I just can't get beyond this being at the front of my mind.

They open at 7am, I need to know what to say to them beyond what we said on Saturday during several increasingly fraught phone calls.

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

What I still don't understand is why the Police wouldn't help us at all. In the end I got an incident number, but only because I told them we were removing the clamp and therefore committing an offence (we weren't). I did this to make sure the call was recorded and timed.

I asked the Police what I should do, they couldn't come up with any suggestions. I asked the payment line at VEAS for my options given my wife would lose her job if we didn't get home, and they said to stay in the Hotel until Monday, get a train home or get someone to pick us up, preferably a relative. When I asked whether they knew where Aberdeen was, they didn't even know where Scotland was.

You just couldn't make it up.

[Bill-K]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I see your point, WW. Time is of the essence, it seems. Good on you for getting an incident number. Sure, this isn't something the Police would be helpful with - they have far more important things to do, don't they ? D'Oh !

So - it seems that what has to be done is to get the car back ASAP - before it gets crushed, and before Mrs WW loses her job.

In the absence of any better advice, my suggestion is that you whatever you have to do to get the car back, but try and get as much evidence as possible along the way. Get the name and position of everybody you speak to on the phone, and INSIST that they make a recording of the conversation and retain it completely. Tell them that you are ALSO recording it (even if you aren't). Make notes throughout the convo - and THEN expand on those notes immediately afterwards, while your memory is fresh.

I hate to suggest this - I REALLY do - but if you just cannot get the cash needed to release the car and collect it, then maybe consider one of the 'Pay-Day Loan' companies. But - ONLY - if there is no other option.

Once you have the car back, and Mrs WW is back at her job, then you can deal with these scumbags in your own time - and with more expert help than I can offer you.

The way I see it is that getting the car back is priority one. Getting these scammers nailed is priority two - and I'm sure that we WILL !!! HOWEVER - during the priority one exercise, it IS important to acquire as much evidence as possible. AND - dare I say this ? Give these scammers as much rope as they need...

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Thanks Bill K.

Its OK, she's at work right now. The absolute priority was for her get to work, she's the only Chef available for the night shift, its on a MOD secure Oil Terminal up here.

If she loses her job we are sunk, as I can't even get up stairs although I'm getting better each day.

We hired a car at National in Leeds, we told them it was for two days and we'd have it back by 3pm Monday - which isn't going to happen - its cost us £87 so far. With the deposit it came to £335 so we just had that and the taxi fare that got us from Barnsley to Leeds. We had to lie because we hadn't got enough space for the charge & deposit of a one way rental.

There is no train to get here, the taxi fare was going to be £500 plus fuel - we even got a quote, we were running out time to examine any more options because National Car Rental were closing at 4pm, and just had one car left.

We were doing 20 second scans before every decision, its only now I realise they are not going to say 'Sorry we made a mistake, we'll bring your car to your home'

[Bill-K]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Sure, mate. They know this territory, and you don't. they rely on that.

Collect the evidence, EVERY scrap.

Play the gormless victim. THAT's where you pay out the rope.

I'm glad your good lady got to work OK. So - you have physical disability, it seems, but mentally you are all there, I reckon !!!

NOW is the time to show your strength, mate.

Corny, I know. But it still makes sense to me. Keep cool, bud.

We may not be the 'A' team, but we can STILL burn their @$$e$ with our welding tools !!!

[Bill-K]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I have to go now, but I hope PuffRose and I have helped. Look out for Bluebottle tomorrow.

[Galahad]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Cut the damned thing off!

You are taxed, you were taxed before they clamped, their excuses do not wash. Do they not carry a torch??!?!?! If they cannot ascertain if a vehicle should or should not be clamped, they shouldn't be clamping it.

I'd be tempted to get someone over there to cut the thing off, and then worry about non-existant consequences after.

You've got a receipt to say its taxed, when the Post Office tax a vehicle, they scan the barcode from the logbook which then notifies DVLA the car is being taxed, the tax disc was on display.

You have done nothing wrong.

[wales01man]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

i agree with getting it cut off would the idiots who clamped it illegally take you to court ?
if you have receipts proving it was taxed before it was clamped what could they do
Frankly its all beyond me

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

I have to go now, but I hope PuffRose and I have helped. Look out for Bluebottle tomorrow.

The latest.

They are releasing the car free of charge.

They say the DVLA have agreed it was taxed.

They now say we were not displaying the tax disc.

We were.

They have sent a photo to prove their case... it is just black with a reg number shining through. You cannot see the screen apart from their big notice.

Their clamper is saying there was no tax disc at all, they believe him. They say the Hotel Porter backs up his claim.

The clamper is a liar, the tax disc was put on the windscreen minutes after it was taxed the day before.

We are trying to find someone to blow up the photo and make it clearer.

They say they will not transport the car to Aberdeenshire or cover our costs, and will no longer talk to us.

I asked for an appointment for the de clamping so a member of a solicitors can be there, they won't give it.

Any help still required.

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help

Sorry - just read other posts regarding the clamp. We did go to B&Q in Barnsley to get a hack saw. Police told us not to do it as we'd be arrested. It was tempting but my priority was to get my wife to work, we cannot afford for her to lose her job, not many jobs around here, its only part time as it is. So the priority was to get a means to get home - hence the hire car.

Thanks, everyone - I still need help on here, my head is still spinning.

[Wishy Washy]

Re: Car clamped in error - need urgent help