Parking Eye - Too late to dispute?

myironlung

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to read my predicament. I received a parking notice back in December claiming we parked for over 11 hours at a local retail park. In fact we visited the car park twice on the same day, both trips were short stays of around 10 minutes and there was 10 hours between the visits.

Somewhat stupidly, we did a little research on google and decided to ignore the letter rather than get into a debate with what seem like wholly unreasonable people. We now know this was probably foolish and that we were following outdated advice.

The letter has now escalated to a letter from Debt Recovery Plus and we are putting together an appeal letter. We have found whatever evidence we can to show we were elsewhere on the day in question but are worried that our lateness in replying has scuppered our chances getting this sorted out. Is this the case? Should we ask for a POPLA code when appealing?

Any advice would be most appreciated. Thanks again.
Lung

The_Slithy_Tove

Too late to appeal now. Just ignore everything, but keep your evidence safe just in case they are stupid enough to issue court papers.

Stroma

Please understand that any appeal to a debt collector is just to entrap you into dialogue, they can't and won't do anything beyond we will knock a few quid off but we still want money !

Just ignore them and Zenith Collections when they write to you, they are in fact the same company just different letter headings.

atilla

Nothing at all to worry about. Just continue to ignore and let them waste their money sends junk mail.
Every little helps.

lloydyd

Hi All

I have read various posts on this but to clear it up for my wife who is driving me mad to pay this "fine"....

I am now at the debt recovery stage with these clowns. The letter this morning says NOTICE OF INTENDED LITIGATION.

Can you lovely folks please confirm for my wife, that we dont have to pay, and have nothing to worry about from these nasty Bstards....

Thanks guys

fisherjim

lloydyd wrote: »

Hi All

I have read various posts on this but to clear it up for my wife who is driving me mad to pay this "fine"....

I am now at the debt recovery stage with these clowns. The letter this morning says NOTICE OF INTENDED LITIGATION.

Can you lovely folks please confirm for my wife, that we dont have to pay, and have nothing to worry about from these nasty Bstards....

Thanks guys

I had three letters from Debt Recovery plus, and yes I had the very colourful "NOTICE OF INTENDED LITIGATION" one too.
These did not work so they used their other template letters (2 more) but from Zenith Collections.
They get more desperate as they continue trying to frighten you into paying them something, anything, please please give us some money, look, next we'll reduce the scam charge a bit but please give us something! Then they will give up.
They are just scamming, lying scumbags, please tell your wife also you have not been "fined" they are not an authority.

Coupon-mad

myironlung wrote: »

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to read my predicament. I received a parking notice back in December claiming we parked for over 11 hours at a local retail park. In fact we visited the car park twice on the same day, both trips were short stays of around 10 minutes and there was 10 hours between the visits.

Somewhat stupidly, we did a little research on google and decided to ignore the letter rather than get into a debate with what seem like wholly unreasonable people. We now know this was probably foolish and that we were following outdated advice.

The letter has now escalated to a letter from Debt Recovery Plus and we are putting together an appeal letter. We have found whatever evidence we can to show we were elsewhere on the day in question but are worried that our lateness in replying has scuppered our chances getting this sorted out. Is this the case? Should we ask for a POPLA code when appealing?

Any advice would be most appreciated. Thanks again.
Lung

lloydyd wrote: »

Hi All

I have read various posts on this but to clear it up for my wife who is driving me mad to pay this "fine"....

I am now at the debt recovery stage with these clowns. The letter this morning says NOTICE OF INTENDED LITIGATION.

Can you lovely folks please confirm for my wife, that we dont have to pay, and have nothing to worry about from these nasty Bstards....

Thanks guys

Please, please, not again:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4593957

Please get a grip, this is ONLY the standard threatogram computerised template letter chain from Debt Recovery Plus/Zenith, which we tell you about on the forum!

I take it you missed the letter chains sticky thread then, at the top of this forum, which tells people that they will get these well-known Debt Recovery Plus standard computerised threats? This is what people have been getting and ignoring for YEARS!

Debt Recovery/Zenith can't do anything except write letters when it comes to fake parking tickets because there is no debt, no defaulted credit agreement or anything owed at all.

This is no biggie so please calm down. I have ignored 2 fake PCNs myself and laughed at the debt recovery letters. You can't appeal now, it's too late.

Simply file all the letters and only take seriously real Court papers (= very rare and very defendable!).

Here's a thread from pepipoo forum with the newer letters shown in pictures. On pepipoo I post as SchoolRunMum and I linked quite a few other threads for that person as you'll see from all the links:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78495

See how commonly your question about this pathetic letter is asked...:)

Having said all of the above, I am now just adding a new suggestion if posters wish to try it!

If people have got to this stage then clearly no proceedings have commenced (i.e. no legal proceedings).

Therefore, under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (which trumps the BPA Code of course) the registered keeper can STILL NAME THE DRIVER EVEN NOW. Hasn't been tried yet but has been discussed with other knowledgeable posters this week; POFA has no deadline on this 'right to name the driver' save as to saying it must be 'before proceedings have commenced'.

Anyone want to try it, if you have these letters aimed at you but were not driving?

The point being, if you as the registered keeper simply write to the PPC (not the debt collector) and give the name and address of the driver (if different than you - wife/husband?) then under the law (POFA) because 'proceedings' have not commenced, the PPC then has to start again with a Notice to Driver to the new person - who can then appeal and then appeal to POPLA with our help!

myironlung

Thanks all for the reassuring messages. Having dealt with a couple of debt collection agencies in the past I was sure this would go the same way and we'd stop hearing from them eventually.

However, this week we received court papers. There is an section for your defence, are there any good tips on getting out of this situation. Do we need to prove without a doubt that the car visited twice in the same day rather than one 11 hour stay.

spacey2012

You need to log in using the details and select defend whole claim.
A signed affidavit that you visited the site twice in one day as opposed to parking eyes claim of spending 11 hours in a shop should see the claim thrown out.
News is filtering in of them failing to show for the first defended claims so watch this space.
They were never going to get to 20 court hearings a day, so the bubble had to burst.

Coupon-mad

myironlung wrote: »

Thanks all for the reassuring messages. Having dealt with a couple of debt collection agencies in the past I was sure this would go the same way and we'd stop hearing from them eventually.

However, this week we received court papers. There is an section for your defence, are there any good tips on getting out of this situation. Do we need to prove without a doubt that the car visited twice in the same day rather than one 11 hour stay.

Yes you should stick to your guns and in your defence you should include the facts about the 2 short visits, as well as defence points about their camera system not being reliable, bad/unclear signage etc. and the charge being an unenforceable penalty.

If you told the retail store about this 2 visits thing at the time (even verbally) say so in your defence and point out that it is not your problem if their client the retailer did not communicate the situation to PE, their agent, when you told them in store that the charge was unjustified (if you did).

Say that there were two (or more?) people in the car so the information can be corroborated, also if this goes to a Court Hearing you will show the judge that the car was not there the whole 11 hours. Relying on a 'first in, last out' method to just issue fake PCNs without question or checking is unfair and this situation is commonly known to be a failing of these unmanned cameras.

Clearly the suggestion that a car was there for 11 hours is ridiculous and should have prompted them to check their records for visits in between. Because the fake PCN was without any merit whatsoever, you ignored the letter in the same way that anyone would decide not to reply to spurious junk mail. They should have completed a proper manual check as required under the BPA code of practice before sending the letter to the keeper and when they got no response, instead of involving a debt collector they should have double-checked their position and certainly not gone as far as a small claim. As this is clearly 'vexatious and unreasonable' tell them if they drag you to a hearing you will certainly be applying for costs.

Say as PART of your defence that the car was categorically not there the whole time and say that you will put them to proof that their entire records that day do not show the car leaving, then arriving again hours later. Because that is the truth of the matter which you are quite happy to repeat to a judge, with corroborative evidence.

First of all you need to acknowledge the claim (no defence needed at the same time, the online acknowledgement extends the time to 28 days) and then post on pepipoo to see if anyone can help you to word the rest of your defence. As they are so busy on there, see this thread for starters so you can start writing a defence up:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62325927#Comment_62325927

and here I posted some other persuasive cases you should cite to show their charge is nowt but an unfair and unconscionable penalty deterrent and not a genuine pre-estimate of any loss:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62366627#Comment_62366627

and here in post #2, the points I have listed in a suggested strong POPLA appeal against PE could equally be part of a court defence:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4695227

...hopefully the links there will help too even if pepipoo are too busy to help you word it from scratch...it doesn't have to be written in 'legalese' - because the Small Claims track is for ordinary people to resolve disputes - but quoting the law and other cases is persuasive IMHO.

myironlung

This has been super helpful. Ive pulled this together from your suggestions. Its a bit long winded but i wanted to cover as much as possible.

If you could give it quick scan and point out anything glaringly wrong or anything that exposes us we would be eternally grateful.

DEFENCE LETTER

I am not liable for the parking charge and the vehicle was not improperly parked. As such, the parking 'charge' notice exceeds the appropriate amount. Parking Eye is requiring payment from me as the Registered Keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. I say they have not met all the conditions imposed by this Act and so there is no obligation or liability on me at all. In addition they have failed to show that this standard fixed charge in that car park is a genuine pre-estimate of loss, have not formed any fair contract with the driver to justify the amount demanded and have not complied with all aspects of the BPA Code of Practice.!

My defence of the parking charge issued is as follows. The car was categorically not parked for 11 hours in the Bridges Retail Park. Your automated camera system has made a mistake. Two visits were made to the Bridges Retail Park on the day in question by the car. The first at around 13.00 to, to visit the Lidl supermarket and the second at close to midnight on the same day by another driver to visit the McDonald’s restaurant.

Your camera system has picked up the entry from the first visit and the leaving on the second visit. To issue us threatening parking letters for this kind of error cannot be considered to be fair and must be a common fault.

It is obvious to us that your camera system is defective. As the suggestion that we would park for 11 hours is ridiculous, the recipient of the letters chose to ignore the correspondence from Parking Eye as we would from any spurious junk mail sender. Obviously a manual check of the camera records was not undertaken as specified by the BPA Code of Practice as this would have exposed the error.

Extract from BPA Code of Practice

21.2 Quality checks: before you issue a parking charge
notice you must carry out a manual quality check of the
ANPR images to reduce errors and make sure that it is
appropriate to take action. Full details of the items you
should check are listed in the Operators’ Handbook. -

A registered keeper like myself cannot make an informed decision based on a couple of photos of a car driving in and out of the entrance area of a car park at different times and no clear explanation of the alleged contravention.

The Operator is relying simply on pictures taken of a vehicle at first arrival and then when leaving. These pictures show no evidence at all of actual parking time or where the car was after driving in, whether it stayed in the car park or left and then returned within the recorded time-scale.

In response to the lack of response from the recipient, surely the reasonable action to take would have been to do a further check to see if this was sent in error. To take this to court is behaving vexatiously and is unreasonable and as such we will be applying for full costs to be awarded to us if we are called to a hearing.

Both drivers are quite happy to stand before a judge and state the facts of this matter. They have evidence of visiting other supermarkets in the same day some distance from the Lidl/Bridges Retail Park and will ask you to prove that our car was parked for a full 11 hours. The two photos provided do not prove this matter.

Our defence also alleges that the charge is not reasonable but simply an unconscionable penalty deterrent and not a genuine pre-estimate of any loss. As the car park only offers free parking what loss has the car park suffered from the alleged incident? Even if the car had been parked for 11 hours it would not have reduced any profits for the car park as it makes no charges for parking.

Since there was no demonstrable loss/damage and yet a breach of contract has been alleged, this 'charge' can only be an unlawful attempt at dressing up a penalty to impersonate a parking ticket.

Private parking tickets unrelated to any genuine loss are unenforceable penalties, as was found in the Parking Eye v Smith case I have already mentioned and also in!Excel Parking Services v Hetherington-Jakeman (2008),!also!OBServices v Thurlow!(review decision by Circuit Judge, February 2011),!and!UKCPS v Murphy (April 2012).!

In the case of!Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage & Motor Co Ltd, Lord Dunedin offered as tests which might prove "helpful, or even conclusive":!

"(A) It will be held to be penalty if the sum stipulated for is extravagant and unconscionable in amount in comparison with the greatest loss that could conceivably be proved to have followed from the breach..….

(B) It will be held to be a penalty if the breach consists only in not paying a sum of money, and the sum stipulated is a sum greater than the sum which ought to have been paid ….. This though one of the most ancient instances is truly a corollary to the last test. Whether it had its historical origin in the doctrine of the common law that when A. promised to pay B. a sum of money on a certain day and did not do so, B. could only recover the sum with, in certain cases, interest, but could never recover further damages for non-timeous payment, or whether it was a survival of the time when equity reformed unconscionable bargains merely because they were unconscionable ….. is probably more interesting than material.

(C) There is a presumption (but no more) that it is penalty when "a single lump sum is made payable by way of compensation, on the occurrence of one or more or all of several events, some of which may occasion serious and others but trifling damage".!

And from the!Office of Fair Trading, Guidance re Unfair Contract Terms:
''It is unfair to impose disproportionate sanctions for breach of contract. A requirement to pay more in compensation for a breach than a reasonable pre-estimate of the loss caused to the supplier is one kind of excessive penalty. Such a requirement will, in any case, normally be void to the extent that it amounts to a penalty under English common law...''

I feel I need to state now that this matter has already caused me a huge amount of upset and distress as a widowed pensioner on a limited income.