CMS Parking ticket - Merlyn Vaz Walk In Centre Leicester

s79

Ticket received - Wed 10th april
Initial charge - £55 rising to £90

This is a Leicester city council owned building i believe. I parked in what wasn't an official bay although there was car parked in the same spot just movements before so figured it was ok and as far as i could tell there was no sign-age to say parking was prohibited there.

Without reading MSE I hastily appealed on the same day saying no adequate signing using there online form on there website, unfortunately i ticked the boxes saying i was the driver and the registered owner But thankfully i did not give my address or phone number


Via email they rejected my appeal (suprise suprise) yesterday (22nd April)


Here is the email:

Dear S____ P________

Ref: CMS1035906 (Merlyn Vaz Health Centre, Leicester)
Registration No: VU**F**

Thank you for your letter of appeal against the above Parking Charge Notice
issued at the above location. After looking at all the information regarding
this Parking Charge Notice, we are satisfied that the notice was issued
correctly and we have decided to reject your appeal for the following
reason,
1) You had not Parked In A Parking Bay
The private land contains signs from CMS UK LTD confirming the terms and
conditions prevalent in relation to the aforementioned private land in terms
of parking. The terms and conditions of the parking on this private land
were clearly set out on the signs and by parking your vehicle you accept
those terms and conditions which were clearly stated in unambiguous
language.
You now have a number of options

1) Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the prevailing Price of £55.00
within the first 14 days of issue. Please note that after this time the
Parking Charge Notice will rise to £90.00

2) Make an appeal to POPLA – The Independent Appeals Service by
completing the accompanying form. Please be advised that if you opt for the
independent arbitration of your case, the Parking Charge Notice will
increase to £90.00 you will not be able to pay £55.00 if your appeal is
unsuccessful

3) If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies owed
to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with court action
against you.

Yours sincerely

Appeals Department
CAR PARK MANAGEMENT SERVICES UK LIMITED
PO BOX 299, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, FY8 9GB

Registered office: 327 Clifton Drive, Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, FY8 1HN.
Company Registration No 5176903

Its funny how they took 12 days to reject my appeal! But anyway i would really appreciate some advice on how to approach this, if im honest im slightly concerned and agitated by it all.
Thanks in advance.

s79

Apologies - i think i may have posted my post in the wrong place? Will create a new thread instead.

Stroma

I would appeal to popla as they are in breach of the bpa code of practice by not offering a 40% discount for early payment, they are a £1 out and it should be £54 . But please create a new thread about it

Stroma

As mentioned in the other thread I would appeal to popla as they are in breach of the bpa code of practice, they haven't given a full 40% discount they miss by a £1 , basically they are idiots. If you want to do an appeal first port of call is look at the code of practice and see if you can see any other breaches

Crabman

I've moved some posts out of the discussion thread into here.

Coupon-mad

Did the PPC send you a POPLA code then? If so the advice is easy = use it!

But the POPLA appeal is not as easy as just repeating the original soft appeal. You need to word it as a legal challenge to throw down the gauntlet for the PPC to refute your strong points (they will be unlikely to refute everything and so you 'should' win at POPLA if you get the appeal right).

See this simple summary of the sort of points that can make part of your appeal - in this example it was used in the initial appeal and the PPC (Armtrac, which is known to be harsh and try Court on occasions!) gave up before POPLA as they could see they'd be on a hiding to nothing:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=77510&st=60

And then read this:

http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/keeper-liability/

and this template appeal letter; not designed as a POPLA appeal, but it does have the sort of issues covered. Don't copy it but do learn from it and use the points:

http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/appeal-letter/

And to see an actual complete POPLA appeal look here in post #35 near the end:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78026

No decision yet on that one and I know it may be different then your case - but in most cases, bad/unreadable/unlit/too high/missing signage is always a key issue especially if you have photos. Also you will see that the OP started out as a newbie but got the bit between her teeth once she noticed all the PPC's breaches of the BPA Code of Practice and realised she could argue better than they could! Just trying to show you the sort of banana skins to set up, in a row of multiple demands at the end, for the PPC to slip on at POPLA.

You will notice that neither appeal actually talks much about what happened on the day. Not needed, you don't have to defend your actions if you can trip the PPC with their own...:)

Do draft an appeal of your own having read around this forum and pepipoo, and post it here for comments...if you have a POPLA verification code. Do you?

s79

Many thanks for all the replies, much appreciated!

From all the reading I've done, i got the impression simply ignoring correspondence was the way to go, especially if they don't have my address, is this no longer the approach?

What are the chances of bailiffs, court etc if i do ignore. Can they obtain my address considering i said i was registered owner?

I seem to have misplaced the ticket btw So i don't know if there was a popla code!!! Also i went back to the Merlyn Vaz centre today so took photos, there was no sign-age against the wall i parked against but was one on the opposite wall. I also noticed slightly differing signs, one which mentioned that you had to park in specified bay whilst others didnt. Also on the signs they mention cms are working behalf of the NHS, who i guess use the majority of the building.

If im totally honest though i just feel like paying the £55 today while i still can simply because of the sheer time i have to waste, chasing this up, writing appeals etc, i know this sounds lazy and i should be fighting this on principle but im already fed up with this all

p.s. just out of interest i found this thread on avforums from 2009 where they posted a response letter to CMS - would this work also?

full thread here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/motoring/718216-cms-uk-parking-charge-2.html


************************************************** ********

Dear car park management company,


You have not given me what can legally be defined as a PCN, you have provided me with an invoice for an alleged breach of contract. Any further attempts to inform me you have issued me with a PCN will result in my reporting it to Trading Standards and I shall contact the police explaining how the issue of any PCN by you is unlawful according to the Administration of Justice Act 1970, section 40, paragraph (c), which provides that ‘a person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under contract, he or she falsely represent themselves to be authorised in some official capacity to claim or enforce payment.’


As a consumer of the free car parking facilities, I am in no way legally beholden to your contract according to the clauses on Unreasonable Indemnity in Section 4 of the Unfair Contact Terms Act 1977.


Any debt collection agency which may contact me on your behalf will be informed that the matter is still in dispute and shall be referred back to you, according to my legal rights.


If you threaten me with a CCJ or bailiff, or impart to me any counsel advising me that failure to pay may result in my having adverse credit, your threats shall be understood as empty on the grounds that failure to pay now cannot per se result in anything being registered against me as a debt in the county court and on the grounds that, in order for me to get a CCJ registered against me, your company must issue a claim against me or I do not enter a defence or the judge finds the claim in your favour.


If you do take me to court, I shall notify the court of the latest ruling by the Office of Fair Trading stating that penalty charges must be a reflection of the actual costs incurred. I therefore request a detailed and itemised breakdown of how parking in a free car park reckons up to the sum which you demand.


If and only if I was not seen to be making an effort to pay off the debt within 28 days of the judgement being entered against me would a CCJ which can only be done in the county court by the residing county court judge be entered against me.
A bailiff’s warrant would only be issued if I lost AND only if did not pay the judgement debt as instructed by a judge.


My credit rating would only be affected if I had a CCJ which I did not pay and this would have to go through the county court process beforehand.


Any further contact from you or any agency on behalf of yourselves, or any agency to which you may pass your alleged debt will result in my charging you an administration fee of £25, for each contact. This will cover my time, research costs, and stationary costs, together with postage charges.

Yours sincerely,
Forename Surname.

Guys_Dad

Next step - contact the PPC and ask for a POPLA code and form.

Then, a bit of spade work. Take a few pictures of the signs so we can see if they are compliant.

Next, forget that appeal letter you have just quoted. There is a much better one on a recent thread that puts them on the spot by demanding that they supply proof of their right to charge you. Did around or wait for whoever wrote it to give you the link.

Read the sticky at the top of the forum listing wins and losses at POPLA and you will get the hang of what wins and what loses.

s79

Dont hate me but i decided to pay it Im a firm believer that time is more important than money and more importantly it was just really really bugging me. Although the sound of suprise when i said i wanted to pay kinda made me regret it But its out the way now i guess.

Doing some reading i made the mistake of appealing straight away and then on their online form ticking the box confirming i was the driver and registered owner. I think this would have made the appeal process that bit more difficult.

In future i will not make any contact if i ever get a ticket.

I recorded the call on my using an app and asked them to confirm that this would resolve the matter and i would not be contacted again.

Sorry i folded guys

Stroma

You paid it ? Bloody hell why ? You could have sorted this out in the same amount of time it's taken to write your posts. I don't hate you for paying this as its your money and ultimately up to you. But I'm quite blunt with my posts and I will be here, so forgive me if you think I'm out of order.

But you are a mug !

Steve059

Oh, dear. Some lessons cannot be taught, they can only be learnt.

However, don't be surprised if you now receive a speculative invoice for a late payment fee. If he PPC sits on your payment for long enough, you will have done so.