Paid but still had a ticket

I have now completed my appeal, I have a photographs taken by PPS showing my ticket on the dashboard plus copies of my ticket and the charge notice.
I would appreciate your comments before I send it to POPLA.

Dear POPLA
Premier Parking Solutions issued a parking charge notice of £100 on their usual excuse, i.e. 'no valid ticket or permit was displayed'. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle and this parking event as described did not occur and I am not liable for this PCN which also exceeds the appropriate amount.
These are my appeal grounds:

1. The intention of PPS' charge prior to this parking event was not based on any genuine pre-estimate of loss, rather they always intended it to be a tariff and told POPLA that as a fact just six months ago.They have now massaged their POPLA evidence now to manufacture a 'loss' statement.

2. The parking company has no contract with the landowner that permits them to pursue these charges through the courts in their own name.

3. The ticket was purchased and displayed at 08:40 but no parking charge was issued until 1800, over 9 hours later. Can PPS prove that no attendant visited the car park earlier that day.

4. The upright signage at the entrance and around the car park created no contract with the driver to 'continuously display' parking tickets.

5. The amount required to park on the day had been paid and tickets had been displayed on the dashboard as required. PPS did not mitigate any 'loss'.

6. The contravention as described did not occur.

Here are my detailed appeal points:

1. The intention of PPS' charge prior to this parking event was not based on any genuine pre-estimate of loss, rather they intended it to be a tariff. They have massaged their POPLA evidence now to manufacture a 'loss' statement.
To quote Assessor Chris Adamson, from a POPLA decision v PPS:
''Reasons for the Assessor’s Determination
It is the Operator’s case that a parking charge notice was correctly issued, giving the reason as: ‘No valid ticket or permit displayed’... The Operator submits that the charge is not a sum sought as damages, rather it is ‘an excess charge not a breach or a sum for damages’. Accordingly the Operator submits that it need not reflect the loss caused by the breach. In this case, I am not minded to accept this submission.

The charge must either be one for damages as submitted by the Appellant, or consideration - the price paid for parking. The Operator has submitted in the alternative that the sum, ‘if considered genuine pre-estimation of losses’ is based on a number heading related to direct loss. I do not accept this submission. Whether or not the charge represents a genuine pre-estimate of loss is to be ascertained by an objective assessment of the intentions of the parties at the time the contract was made.Accordingly, the Operator must be able to say what its intentions actually were, and cannot rely on the charge being either a tariff, or a charge for damages, depending on which suits.

...It seems clear from the Operator evidence that, whilst its intentions were actually to charge a tariff, the signage displayed did not indicate this. It has not demonstrated that anything was being offered in return. Instead the wording of the sign indicates damages, although it does not appear that the Operator’s intentions when setting the level of the charge were to compensate for the loss estimated.Accordingly, I must allow the appeal.'' Chris Adamson, Assessor (Feb 2014).

The point I am making is that the suggestion that their charges are based on any loss is untrue because this was not their stated intention. But recently PPS have taken heed of the above decision, suddenly deciding to try their luck by pretending that their intention all along was to charge for loss. Even worse, this approach has fooled POPLA recently.

Their behaviour in misleading POPLA to try to gain pecuniary advantage against motorists who have paid the tariff is disingenuous, as is the ridiculously massaged 'loss statement' that they now suddenly use to try to magically meet the amount of the PCN. For example, staff wages/NI contributions are all tax-deductible costs of running a business and PPS staff are involved in other work, such as dealing with clients and permits. I put PPS to strict proof otherwise as regards these imaginary staff - including senior management - spending hours only on POPLA appeals. To suggest that managers and directors would spend even an hour on each POPLA case is simply not realistic, there would not be enough hours in the day for the business to operate this way. There are too many layers of repeated checks to be credible. In 1771674002 on 18/8/14, POPLA Assessor Shehla Pirwany commented when upholding an appeal:

''The Operator has submitted a breakdown of the losses incurred as a result of the breach and a large percentage of the amount comes from staff costs. Whilst staff costs may fall within a genuine pre estimate of loss, in this case, there appear to be several layers of checks on the work of other staff members. There appear to be an unnecessary amount of checks and on balance, I am not satisfied that the Operator has sufficiently shown that the items referred to are substantially linked to the loss incurred by the breach. As a result, I need not decide any other issues raised by the Appellant. Accordingly, this appeal must be allowed.''

Further, POPLA related 'work' cannot apply to each PCN as a 'genuine pre-estimate', because only 2% of cases ever get to POPLA stage. Such heads of cost cannot flow as a genuine pre-estimate of loss to work out the charge for every PCN when the vast majority will never to go to POPLA. This is the same situation as cases where Operators add 'debt collection' costs which POPLA routinely dismiss on the basis that 'cases may never get to debt collection stage so this is not applicable'. The other 'business costs' (including over £70 in Management wages and a fiver for the DVLA look-up that in fact costs £2.50) cannot be added on as they are not consequential to any genuine initial loss flowing from all typical PCNs.

As PPS have since changed their GPEOL calculations from the version presented to the POPLA Assessors just a few months ago, then I contend that the calculation still fails as it is not a genuine PRE-estimate and in fact is a 'post-estimate' after the event, of figures designed to match the charge. Indeed, in the 2014 Annual Report the Lead Adjudicator, Mr Greenslade, stated, “However, genuine pre-estimate of loss means just that. It is an estimate of the loss which might reasonably be suffered, made before the breach occurred, rather than a calculation of the actual loss suffered made afterwards."

2. The parking company has no contract with the landowner that permits them to pursue these charges through the courts in their own name.
I require the parking company to produce an unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner.I believe they have no locus standi to pursue the matter in the courts nor to form contracts with drivers in their own right. I contend that PPS are merely a commercial agent acting on behalf of the true principal and have a bare licence to 'issue tickets' which gives them no standing to pursue this matter. Halsbury (on Agency at 157) says the wording "on behalf of" is "conclusive when qualifying the signature to negative responsibility of the signatory as principal whether the identity of the actual principal is disclosed or not".

I will not accept the usual PPS 'witness statement' as it does not refute the points I have raised and the following issues would also be hidden:

- what the restrictions are as stated in the contract
- whether PPS are an agent acting with negative responsibility and standing
- the site boundary and scope of the operation
- what the charges are for each alleged contravention
- specific dates & details of the contract

I confirm that I will not post their contract on the internet so this Operator cannot justify withholding it. To be clear, I require the contract itself, unredacted, because I am NOT querying the mere right to 'issue tickets' - which anyone could do, even the car park cleaning contractors and obviously they would not have any locus standi either.

3. PPS must keep logs as to which car parks and when their attendants have visited each day, I would require the parking company to produce proof that the car park was not visited between the hours of 0840 and 1800 on the day in question. I submit that there was visit by the attendant who would have seen the ticket with proof that the fee had been paid.


4. The upright signage at the entrance and around the car park created no contract with the driver to 'continuously display' a parking ticket.
The Operator must prove that the driver actually saw, read and accepted terms to 'continuously display' a P&D ticket, even in the driver's absence after parking. My contention is that the signage does not communicate that specific contractual requirement. The wording only mentions placing a ticket on the dashboard - and the driver did comply with the signage in this regard.



5. The amount required to park on the day had been paid and tickets had been displayed on the dashboard as required. PPS did not mitigate any 'loss'.
A payment for parking was made for the time the vehicle was located in the parking bay, and the ticket was displayed on the dashboard. Adverse weather conditions at the time may have caused the ticket to slip, but equally it would have been 'easy' for their operative to have caused the issue when leaning close to the car; PPS and Valley Enforcement being well used to 'moving' cars in the not-too-distant past.
There is no reasonable justification to expect a motorist to be able to - in their absence - continually display for nine hours, a very flimsy ticket on a dashboard and yet provide no means to attach them securely at a very windy site.
Plymouth City Council use tickets with an adhesive label to stick the ticket to the windscreen or dashboard.

It is not enough for PPS to say that these tickets are 'industry standard' when they are clearly not fit for purpose at this particular site.There has been no loss incurred and PPS made no attempt to mitigate their 'loss' by (for example) making the tickets adhesive or for the operative to check the P&D ticket sooner, because when it was left the driver contends it was fully displayed and in fact never fell out of view. The attendant could see the ticket in the car which had apparently mysteriously 'moved a bit' and yet PPS will no doubt claim they 'thought there was an initial loss'(!). PPS know full well there is no loss in a case where they can see the P&D ticket which has a code on it which tallies with that day's tickets issued from the machine. They have an attendant on site so the records are easily checked to ensure there is no 'double use' of the same coded ticket (e.g. by two cars). Such simple checks would immediately show the ticket with that code was valid for that day and would mitigate any loss in pointlessly pursuing another victim.

6. The contravention as described did not occur
It is also a fact - proved by PPS' own photos - that this contravention 'no valid ticket was displayed' did not occur. A valid ticket was displayed, so there cannot have been NO ticket. If PPS wanted to have a contravention for allegedly not being able to read the entire displayed ticket then they needed a Notice to Keeper which said 'pay and display ticket not correctly displayed' or similar clear wording in order to attempt to comply with the POFA which says a ticket has to set out the reason why the charge has arisen and state any unpaid parking fees. The doctrine of contra proferentem applies and the interpretation that most favours the consumer would be that this allegation as described in the document as drafted, did not happen.

This concludes my appeal.

Hi Dee140157
The appeal you suggest is very different to mine. I had no free parking time nor were cameras involved. My ticket was displayed, please advise.

Thankyou Coupon-mad, I should point out that there is only one entrance/exit to this car park and that the large signs are on the left of the park on the perimeter fence

Thankyou driving from the other direction there is no signs that a car park is there at all. I will rewrite my appeal now.