Disappointed with MORRISONS, Acton.

VictorW3

As a customer with Morrisons (formerly Safeways) for several decades, I was disappointed to receive a letter today demanding a £70 + £20 Admin after 14 days Parking Charges.

The letter claims to have photographs of my car entering and leaving the store's land 9 days ago at times over two hours apart. No parking ticket was attached to my car on any visit to the supermarket, so I have had to try to remember my comings and goings, which fortunately are fairly routine.

I find the "exit" time given of 8.25pm strange as having completed my shopping 1½ hours earlier (as per my credit card receipt on that day), I cannot imagine where I would have lingered for the next 90 minutes? There is a cafe there but as far as I recall, it closes and the lights go out there at 7pm on weekdays. I always get my shopping after having a meal (cooked meals cease at 6pm) in the cafe. I have found numerous past receipts showing shopping times from about 5.30pm - 7pm. With cold food items, etc I usually go home straight away.

Query on "2 hours" limit: If you visit the supermarket or shop twice a day, say for an early lunch and then back again after work for supper at 6pm or thereabouts, how is the designated two hours of allowed parking counted? Suppose, you park from 12pm to 12.45pm and then you return to the store at say 5.15pm and remain till 7.15pm, this means that you will have notched up 2¾ hours parking time on the same day. Is this considered to be a "breach of an implied contract"?

Grace: I believe the Code of Practice indicates a period of grace should always be given, yet I noticed on the Web that someone was ticketed after an 11 minutes overstay.

Breach of Contract damages: I presume the Parking Charge court action threatened by Parking Eye is for damages for breach of contract. But late in the evening, the car park certainly at Morrisons would normally be deserted, so I am wondering if a car did accidentally overstay for some unforeseen reason, what damages would have been suffered by the supermarket? A parked car in an otherwise near-empty car parking area (being the internal car-park which is in addition to the outdoor one) would not have blocked deliveries which I imagine are made elsewhere and at other times and it's hard to see what the actual loss is to Morrisons?

I would be glad for any comments.

Thank you,
Victor. 17/7/09.

Doodles22

OP

Can you post a copy of this ticket on here?

I would not worry, its a civil fine, its totally unenforceable and therefore, I would just ignore there letters and requests for payment.

They have no powers and I suspect whatever it states they will do, is false.

Throw it in the bin mate

VictorW3

Thank you for writing back. There is a lot of private stuff on the notice (obtained from the DVLA I assume) so I may need to edit it somewhat.

I wonder about my questions - I'd be glad for any views.

Thanks again.

PS. Meantime I will raise the issue with the Manager of Morrisons.

bargepole

VictorW3 wrote: »

I wonder about my questions - I'd be glad for any views.

To answer your questions:

An implied contract can only be formed by the driver at the material time. The driver may, or may not, be the same person as the registered keeper, and if all correspondence from the PPC goes unanswered, they are unlikely to risk going to court only to find out they've got the wrong defendant.

Assuming there was a valid implied contract, the remedy for any breach of said contract is restitution of their losses. A "penalty" charge is unlawful, as has already been ruled in the Banks test case and other well established cases. Their actual losses in a free car park amount to £0.00, unless they can prove that every single parking space was full, and potential customers were being turned away.

A suggestion might be to fill up a couple of trolleys with £2-300 worth of expensive items, take it to the checkout, then abandon it and say you haven't got time to wait for the shopping to be scanned, in case you get a car park ticket. That might concentrate the mind of Morrison's management.

peter_the_piper

Victor, Don't bother posting the ticket on here, just ignore it and file it with all other bits of paper you will get. The PPC are only in it for the money so do not expect that they would ever allow an appeal. It would be extremely unlikely to go to court or anywhere else for that matter, a ppc relies on the general honesty of the public and would make a lot of money out of people who believe they are in the wrong when they are not.

Meadows

Write back and tell them they are wrong.

Several years ago my husband had a warning letter because he allegedly parked at Tesco all day, when in actual fact he had been there once earlier in the day and left after 15 minutes, that evening he entered the car park briefly to pick me up (max 5 minutes) and then left. Some how the cameras did not pick up the car leaving in the morning or arriving in the evening.

They didn’t have much to say after that!

Morrison’s they would need to show you photographic evidence of the times your car entered and left the car park.

You are normally not allowed to return to a car park within 2 hours once you leave, so each visit counts as a separate entry.

oldone_2

At this stage it is important not to enter into correspondence with them. Vast experience on other web sites dedicated to PPC's shows that this will result in them eventually going away and looking for easier money.

Be warned you will get increasingly scary letters including those from debt collectors - just ignore them all. Take comfort from the fact you have done nothing wrong.You shopped in Morrisons and used their car park. You may or may not have stayed longer than allowed, but imagine what a judge would say in the unlikely attempt that the PPC took you to court.

zolablue25

Morrison's obviously don't want your business! Presumably you shop elsewhere now.

pogofish

This is quite unenforcable.

Ignore it and all subesquent threatening and meaningless letters totally. Do not contact them in any way. Simply file the letters as evidence against them should they take you to court - The risk of that is miniscule however.

RobertoMoir

I'd combine oldone's suggestion and meadow's suggestion.

DON'T write to the PPC just as old one says, they're trolling for live'uns and if you reply they'll know they have one.

DO write to Morrissons and tell them that the PPC are mistaken and that you (presumably) are now taking your custom elsewhere due to the unpleasant tone of the letter from their agents.

If we all start telling companies about unacceptable service, whether in something like this or more mundane stuff like rudeness inside the shop then maybe their attitude would improve.

Coblcris

I would recommend:
1) No contact at all with Private Parking Company.
2) Do not throw away any letters or Notices they send you but keep them safe for quite a period. Occasionally one of these companies does try their hand in Court. In the much likelier eventuality that they do not proceed along this line then you will still have accumulated a considerable amount of evidence against the Parking Company. These companies breach many regulations (Acts, Statutory Instruments, various business, Consumer and trading regulations) as part of their standard method. This can and should be used against them at every opportunity in my opinion.