You park up for a few moments and head into town. You return to your car – and as you approach the vehicle, your heart SINKS.
You see the big, yellow clamp – and suddenly realize that your five minute trip into town has just cost you somewhere between £120 and £670.
You’re OUTRAGED.
But there’s NOTHING you can do about it!
Literally, you’re helpless. And if you try playing “tough” with one of these big wheel clamping guys, it won't be long before he calls in his team of clamping thugs for backup. This is incredibly infuriating would you agree?
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Hearse and mourners' limousine clamped as undertakers prepared to take coffin to funeral
The Daily Mail 21st February 2008
A hearse and mourners' limousine were clamped as undertakers prepared to take a coffin to a funeral - and then they were held to ransom for £200.
The undertakers had left their cars for a few moments while they went to a nearby chapel to check on the arrangements for the funeral.
But when they returned, their cars had been clamped and the company responsible was demanding £200.
The hearse was clamped just as it was preparing to leave for a funeral along with the mourners' car
This is not the first time staff at ISTM clamping company have landed themselves in trouble.
Last year, they won the RAC Foundation's Dick Turpin Award for "highway robbery". The undertakers, from Co-op Funerals, had left the vehicles in a car park in Poplar, East London.
"The undertakers couldn't believe their eyes. They thought it was absolutely disgusting," an onlooker said.
"One minute, they were doing their job helping the deceased's family and checking the flowers - the next, they're dealing with this."
ISTM eventually removed the clamps free of charge.
"Fortunately, the undertakers somehow eventually got the coffin to the funeral on time," the onlooker added.
Bosses at Poplar HARCA housing association, which owns the car park and uses ISTM as tow-away contractors, later said they had ordered the removal of the clamps.
But Gavin Powell, general manager of ISTM, said the cars were released as "a goodwill gesture", adding that the undertakers had been warned the day before about leaving vehicles in the private car park.
"We cannot pick and choose which vehicles are clamped," he said.
Sheila Rainger, acting director of the RAC Foundation, said: "If even the dead aren't safe from highway robbery, then it really is time for clampers to be banned."
A Poplar HARCA spokeswoman said ISTM had now been ordered not to clamp undertakers' vehicles.
ISTM is despised by thousands of motorists throughout the East End.
In 2006, great-grandmother Theodora Loizou, 81, was dubbed a hero after she smashed up an ISTM van with a claw hammer.
Her fury had been roused by staff clamping her K-reg Toyota for displaying a tax disc which was two days out of date in Bethnal Green.
Earlier that year, the BBC's Watchdog programme told how ISTM bosses had wound up a previous company owing £200,000 to the taxman before relaunching the same business under a new name.
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