POPLA Decisions

trisontana

This time it's Amtrac:-

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=84865&hl=

I'm really delighted, my appeal to POPLA has been upheld. I was issued a notice in July after allegedly not having a valid ticket in St.Ives - the trouble was I DID have a valid ticket, which I even showed the attendant at the time. Of course my challenge to Armtrac failed, but POPLA have upheld my claim that Armtrac had failed to quantify their loss by my contravention. Interestingly POPLA did not decide on other aspects of my appeal such as having a valid ticket, but hey, who cares!! Just to say thanks to all the posters on here who so freely offer good advice as this helped me construct the right appeal letter. For reference and perhaps to return some help to others in a similar situation, the POPLA wording was:

"The parking charge appears to be a sum sought for liquidated damages, in other words compensation agreed in advance. Accordingly the charge must represent a genuine pre-estimate of the loss any breach may cause. The Appellant has requested that the Operator show a loss of income. The estimate must be based upon loss flowing from a breach of the parking terms.This might be, for example, loss of parking revenue, or even loss of revenue at a shopping centre.

The Operator has failed to address this issue.

I must allow the appeal on this ground.

I need not decide on any other issues."

Thanks again, that's £100 I now don't have to find!

Andy

GermanKeeper

The appeal of @ascot6 has been refused:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4731869

Reasons for the Assessor’s Determination
The Operator submits that the parking charge notice was issued for parking without displaying a valid permit. The Operator submits that a parking charge is now due in accordance with the clearly displayed terms of parking which state, “Permits must be clearly displayed…at all times”.
The Appellant does not dispute that the terms of parking were clearly displayed.

It is the Appellant’s case that he is a lock smith and was attending a customer, locked out of her home, at the site. The Appellant explains that the customer showed them where to park; in the customers own designated parking bay. The Appellant could not have access to the permit for the bay when parking as the permit was inside the customer’s house.

After receiving the PCN the customer submits that they showed the valid permit to the Operator’s employee and also called the helpline number which was closed and went through to an automated pay line only.
Although I sympathise with the Appellant and find no evidence of dishonesty, I am not able to take into account mitigating circumstances. An Appellant feeling that he or she had good reason for breaching the terms of parking is not a reason for which I can allow an appeal. When parking on private land, a motorist freely enters into an agreement to abide by the conditions of parking in return for permission to park. It is the motorist’s responsibility to ensure that he or she abides by any clearly displayed conditions of parking. There is no dispute that the terms of parking required that a permit be displayed.
I note the Appellant’s submission that their customer, who holds a valid permit, advised them they could park in the space in question. However, that a third party, not party to the agreement, mistakenly informs an Appellant that he or she may park contrary to the clearly displayed terms of parking is not a reason for which I can allow an appeal.
I also note the Appellant submits he called the helpline number, this should have been utilised prior to the breach and not after.
Unfortunately, I must find that, by failing to display a valid permit, the appellant became liable for a parking charge notice, in accordance with the terms of parking displayed.
Accordingly, I must refuse the appeal.

Coupon-mad

The appeal of @ascot6 has been refused:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4731869

Yep, another example of an ill-judged POPLA appeal not bothering to find out what will win, nor to ask for advice on it. Daft, particularly when they had a thread running...all they needed were the magic words 'I put the Operator to strict proof that their charge represents a genuine pre-estimate of loss' and/or 'I put the Operator to strict proof that they have (by showing it to POPLA) a contract with the landowner which is BPA CoP compliant and enables them to make contracts with visiting drivers and to pursue their charges in the courts in their own name as creditor'.

Or words to that effect which we would have TOLD them if they had asked!

Aaron_Aadvark

It is becoming even more clear that POPLA is deaf to mitigating circumstances.

Those appeals which are forum assisted and use the "magic" words "genuine pre-estimate of loss" or "contract with the landowner" will win and "ordinary" punters who follow the Lead Adjudicator's advice and say what happened will lose.

That a whole "appeal system" can be based only on "insider knowledge" proves that it is a front for the BPA Ltd's keeper liability demands and does not benefit the "ordinary" motorist.

Whilst POPLA increases the PPC's costs, we must remember that with less than 1% appealing, at around £120 a time, POPLA only costs the industry about £1.00 per ticket issued.

Perhaps it increases the payment rate for tickets so costs are covered.

In any event, we have proved that private parking tickets can be reliably defeated.

We do need to spread that word.

Computersaysno

Aaron_Aadvark wrote: »

That a whole "appeal system" can be based only on "insider knowledge" proves that it is a front for the BPA Ltd's keeper liability demands and does not benefit the "ordinary" motorist.

Whilst POPLA is useful in increasing the PPC's costs, we must remember that with less than 1% appealing, at around £120 a time, POPLA only costs the industry about £1.00 per ticket issued.

Perhaps it increases the payment rate for tickets so costs are covered.

At the risk of repeating myself......

I think POPLA is a red -herring in the PPC world.

IIRC less than 1% of tickets are appealed, so yes whilst it's correct to say the PPCs lose £27 per loss at POLA, it's hardly going to break them. They only need to have 50% of the 45% of cases that they do win to pay the usual £100 and they are breaking even at POPLA.

In the meantime they can tout POPLA as evidence to the gov that 'there's nothing wrong going on in PPC world, look we have an independent appeals process, how could we possibly be anything other than a respectable industry???'

See, they are in it for the long game....it's not about winning the 1% at POPLA, it's about being allowed to continue to scam for the other 99% of tickets issued.

Look at the figures....losing 0.5% of tickets at POPLA allows you to keep collecting the 35% that do pay up, with no questions asked by the authorities. Simples.

IMO that's why the PPC will not really bother putting too much effort into their POPLA cases.....they are simply buying cheap PR and business as usual 'insurance'.

Computersaysno

POPLA has also 'worked' for the PPC scamming industry in that it is much more difficult for 'anti-PPC-ers' to get their message across.

It used to be that if you met someone down the pub or in a car park and PPC issues arose you could explain what to do in a few short words - 'ignore everything from a PPC'. Nowadays its more difficult - 'soft appeal to PPC, then POPLA appeal mentioning GPEOL, here's the wording you need to use'

nigelbb

POPLA does not & cannot consider mitigation which must always be a matter for the PPC. Mitigation is far too subjective. Inadequate signage or no genuine pre-estimate of loss or not producing a contract can all be viewed objectively. Considering mitigating circumstances would effectively be POPLA telling the PPCs how to run their business.

bargepole

Computersaysno wrote: »

... IIRC less than 1% of tickets are appealed, so yes whilst it's correct to say the PPCs lose £27 per loss at POPLA, it's hardly going to break them. ...

This is true, however each POPLA appeal (allowed or refused) also incurs a charge of £120 to BPA Ltd., who are effectively subsidising their members. See the Parking Prankster's blog about this: http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/will-british-parking-association-ltd-go.html

With the mainstream advice from here, Pepipoo and CAG all pointing people in the direction of POPLA, we will see fewer ignorers, fewer court claims, but an ever growing stream of POPLA appeals with the success rate rising all the time as people cotton on to the correct grounds for appeal, not mitigation.

That balloon has to burst at some point.

Computersaysno

I'm sure that the next firm that BPA brings on board to run POPLA will not cost £147 per appeal. I'll do them for £30 and still make a massive profit.:rotfl::rotfl:

Are you sure that POPLA is totally underwritten by BPA as opposed to a being paid a fixed fee per appeal??? Seems a bizarre arrangement.

You might be right wrt POPLA numbers growing, but there was several years pre-POPLA when it was easier to avoid PPC charges and many, many people still paid up....despite the various fora/fori/forums [cba looking it up] shouting 'ignore'.

IMO BPA will
1. replace the current POPLA provider with a much cheaper one [fixed costs]
2. find a way of killing GPEOL
3. look for their tame 'friends in high places' to help them

Parking-Prankster

Computersaysno wrote: »

Are you sure that POPLA is totally underwritten by BPA as opposed to a being paid a fixed fee per appeal??? Seems a bizarre arrangement.

Through various FoI requests made by different people I have:

1) The BPA minutes of meetings regarding POPLA
2) The draft contract (unsigned!)
3) The invoices London Councils send to the BPA

I'm therefore pretty confident POPLA is underwritten by the BPA. The government requested this in some of the other emails I have sight of. I guess because clampers had a habit of phoenixing then re-emerging, so if anyone was going to be stiffed for the bill it should be the BPA rather than the taxpayer.

The average time per case used to be 3 hours, from figures release by London Council under FoI. My guess is that this has come down now, and they skim though looking for the magic gpeol words, but even then they must still check that the charge is for breach of contract and not as a contractual element, and they need to cut and paste the decision into the pdf. I think this probably still takes at least an hour.

GPEOL cases are therefore a godsend to POPLA. The 'mitigating circumstances' cases need to be read all the way through, signage considered, etc, etc, which probably takes a lot longer.

I haven't seen any recent London Council invoices, or POPLA performance stats against their KPI's, but if anyone wants to make an FoI request and point me to the answer, feel free!