Just stumbled across the National Parking Control website. They are providing DIY parking control kits that you can use to issue parking tickets to people who park 'illegally' on your property. I place these bastards in the same league as Claims Direct and other companies that literally make a business out of other people's misfortune.

Parking enforcement has always been a particularly sensitive topic for me - probably due to the fact that I seem to be particularly susceptible to getting tickets on a more than regular basis. The last was a few weeks ago at 11:23pm just of Haymarket. A week after that I seem to remember being involved in a 2 hour negotiation at the car pound in delightful East India Docks in an attempt to get back a friend's car that she clearly owned but did not have 'correct' documentation for.

Anyway, back to NPC. They issue you with a kit which includes a bunch of signs, stickers, leaflets and then the parking tickets themselves. Tickets are for £60 (if paid within 14 days) and NPC takes £15 per ticket issued. Now you might ask - why bother using NPC when you could just issue your own tickets and take all the money yourself? Well, here's the clever part. If you did that, then you are hardly likely to take someone to court for non-payment of a ticket - it's only £60 after all and you might not even win. Instead NPC promises to do this on your behalf, in effect working as an insurer for you - the ticketer and the enforcer (by way of threat) to the ticketee. 

So how can these guys even operate? You might think that you need some kind of license to be able to issue parking tickets. Apparently not. 

"If the land owner can prove the trespass, then he or she is entitled to recover nominal damages, even if he or she has not suffered any actual loss or damage. If the trespass has caused the land owner to suffer loss or damage, then he or she is entitled to an amount to compensate for that loss or damage."

Thus the circle is complete demonstrating NPC's clever business model which makes money out of the misery of others. To make matters worse, NPC will give you £5 per ticket "for life" if you recommend a friend or neighbour. Yeah, great.