parking eye and popla, help please...

RedcarYellowcar

Hi,
hope your sitting comfortable, this may take a while-
Have received Parking Eye parking notice charges and I would be greatful for some advice.
Jan 13 received a £70 notice for parking in a supermarket 1.5 hr free car park, appealed via PE(enclosing receipt for store bought goods) and received a reply that "evidence of purhase did not meet the discretionary criteria set by the landlord in this case" and that the charge had been placed on hold for 14days in order for me to provide additional/further evidence.
At this stage I stumbled across this forum after trying to source internet information re PE, read numerous threads and chose to have no further communication with PE(as I had no further evidence)
This week I received a new PCN from PE for the same car park from early May(£70 charge for staying over 1.5hr in a free car park). Next day(PE have been busy) I receive another letter from PE regarding the PCN in January stating,
"The 14 days have now passed and we are yet to receive any further evidence, we are therefore writing to advise you that your recent appeal has now been unsuccessful." They also sent a POPLA ref and information.

So, having read the most recent threads, which are now advising not to ignore(as I chose to back in January 2013), I need help.
In regards to the Jan 13 PCN, I now have a popla ref so I can appeal, knowing their ruling is not binding and its costs PE but I am unsure if I meet any of the criteria they state for appeal.
I have seen some POPLA appeal letters but am slightly unsure of what information I should use, if any.

I will appeal to PE tomorrow, with receipt for over £40 for the May PCN and await result but I would really appreciate some help with the January POPLA appeal letter-should I go ahead? wording? etc.
I have spent a good couple of hours reading through the PE threads, as advised by Coupon mad and others(Thank You) and think I'm in PE PCN overload so be gentle with replies:) but seriously any and all help is greatly received,thanks.

nigelbb

This is a good summary on what needs to be included when you submit a case to POPLA. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=61491645&postcount=17

PE claim that by reading their signs you entered into a contract for parking & that the charge is for breaching the T&Cs of that contract. In your case there is a very strong argument that you cannot have entered into a contract as there is evidently a secret clause of which you were unaware that if you spend a certain amount that then there is no charge. I haven't actually seen a case before where PE have actually admitted this secret clause but then said that you didn't spend enough & have still kept the clause secret. BTW how much were your receipts for? That point alone should assure a win at POPLA.

Stroma

Bleeding heck I was just talking about that so parking eye are saying that because you haven't spent enough you are not a customer! Go to the retailer in question and complain like hell to them with your receipt and the scam letter. Whilst there take images of the signage, if it doesn't say a minimum amount must be spent for free parking you're landed.

The guys at https://www.pepipoo.com can help you with a popla appeal as well as some on here, I will grab some links for you to get a general idea what is needed. You need to appeal both scam tickets

trisontana

Once again PE have demonstrated that they don't live in the real world, and that when people go "shopping" they don't always spend money. There is such a thing as "browsing" or "shopping around". What next, they won't let you leave the shop unless you buy something ?

bargepole

Suggested wording for your POPLA appeal for the Jan. ticket:

1. On the material date, the Appellant was a bona fide customer of the <INSERT NAME> Supermarket, and spent more than 1.5 hours browsing and purchasing items from the retailer. The Operator has already been provided with copies of receipts to establish this, and the Appellant asserts that the imposition of such a short time limit is arbitrary and unrealistic.

2. The Operator is a member of the British Parking Association, and the BPA Code of Practice states, in section 7.1, that the Operator must have written authority from the landowner to recover parking charges, including pursuing through court action. The Appellant puts the Operator to strict proof that they have the necessary authorisation at the location.

3. The Operator states, in their letter of rejection, that the parking charge represents a contractual breach. Under established contract law, a party can only claim for their actual, or pre-estimated losses arising directly from a breach of contract. The Operator has not supplied any evidence or breakdown of such losses, which, the Appellant submits, would in reality be a vanishingly small sum, and nowhere near the amount demanded by the Operator.

4. The Appellant refers the Adjudicator to the recent Appeal Court decision in the case of Vehicle Control Services (VCS) v HMRC ( EWCA Civ 186 [2013]): The principal issue in this case was to determine the actual nature of Private Parking Charges. It was stated that: "If those charges are consideration for a supply of goods or services, they will be subject to VAT. If, on the other hand, they are damages they will not be." The ruling of the Court was that "I would hold, therefore, that the monies that VCS collected from motorists by enforcement of parking charges were not consideration moving from the landowner in return for the supply of parking services." In other words, they are not, as the Operator asserts, a contractual term. If they were a contractual term, the Operator would have to provide a VAT invoice, to provide a means of payment at the point of supply, and to account to HMRC for the VAT element of the charge. The Appellant asserts that these requirements have not been met. It must therefore be concluded that the Operator's charges are in fact damages, or penalties, for which the Operator must demonstrate his actual, or pre-estimated, losses, as set out above.

5. The Appellant further refers the Adjudicator to recent decisions made by POPLA, many of which are now in the public domain. These include statements such as “However, I must find as a fact that a term of the contract was that if the vehicle parked without complying with the conditions of the contract, the Appellant agreed to pay a parking charge of £85. The Operator is seeking to enforce the contract, by seeking payment of the charge which the Appellant accepted as a term of the contract by parking his vehicle …” and similar rulings. In light of the evidence of Paragraph 4 above, this interpretation can no longer be considered correct.

6. The Appellant asserts that, for the reasons stated above, no “relevant obligation” has been created, and that the parking charge would not be recoverable by the Operator under common civil law. The Appellant therefore invites the Adjudicator to allow the appeal.

Tilt

Surely if they are quoting "landlord" then they are suggesting that any contact was between you and the landlord and NOT PE. To put it simply, are they relying on their terms and conditions (the ones posted) or the landlords? If the latter, then the landlord's T & C's would need to be posted as well otherwise they cannot use "criteria set by the landlord" as an argument because you have no idea what that 'criteria' is.

RedcarYellowcar

Thank you all for the replies and so speedy too:)
The links are really helpful and the breakdown of wording is reducing my anxiety with the popla appeal.
In terms of money spent in the shop- the Jan receipt was £15, the May receipt £42.

Can I just clarify I am about to appeal the PE PCN from May via their appeal webpage, I am just attatching my £40 receipt and stating I was shopping in their store, at this stage is it advisable to be minimalistic in wording as they generally refuse the appeal and save myself time, energy, brain cells, sanity and my life? Its bank holiday, tis sunny and I wanna go out to play:)...can you say stamp your foot like a little girl??;)

bargepole

Tilt wrote: »

Surely if they are quoting "landlord" then they are suggesting that any contact was between you and the landlord and NOT PE. To put it simply, are they relying on their terms and conditions (the ones posted) or the landlords? If the latter, then the landlord's T & C's would need to be posted as well otherwise they cannot use "criteria set by the landlord" as an argument because you have no idea what that 'criteria' is.

Correct. Which is why p.2 of the appeal above requires them to produce a copy of their contract with the supermarket.

They won't produce one, because a pound to a penny it will say that PE can't pursue customers to court, just like the Somerfield case. And their reluctance to produce the contract has been a winning point for drivers at many previous POPLA appeals.

trisontana

I wonder if poor old Rachel realised what she had let herself in for when she took this job. I bet she though that it would be like shooting fish a a barrel by sending in out the scary-looking paperwork and waiting for the money to roll in. Then some troublesome people started asking questions such as "show us the contract" and "give us a breakdown of the losses suffered" and things have started to go pear-shaped.

The next test for here will be if she actually takes all those cases to court. Or is she hoping that people will just cave in, especially when faced by PE's 50 page meaningless "evidence pack".

Stroma

I think a lot of these contracts say no to a court claim, I can only think of one case where a Sainsbury's ticket eventually landed up in a court, and the parking company lost.

RedcarYellowcar

bargepole wrote: »

Suggested wording for your POPLA appeal for the Jan. ticket:


THANK you so much for this, this really helps and I aim to finalise this letter this week to send and appeal to POPLA for the Jan PCN

If you don't mind-could I just check, on my initial appeal to PE for the May PCN, is there specific wording advised, other than-I am appealing this charge, due to being a paying customer at the store, find my receipt attatched?
Again all help greatly received.