No way, G24 Ltd refuse my appeal

Custard_Pie

Dear xxxx

RE: Contractual Parking Charge Notice xxxx

Thank you for your email.

After consideration of the information provided by you, your dispute has been unsuccessful and the Contractual Parking Charge Notice still applies. As we have extensively investigated this Contractual Parking Charge Notice and provided you with the results of our investigation, no further investigation will be undertaken.

You now have a number of options from which to choose:

1. Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the prevailing price of £60.00 within 14 days. Please note that after this time the discounted rate will no longer apply and the Parking Charge Notice will rise to £100.00. Payment of your Contractual Parking Charge Notice can be made via the payment line: 0845 452 7777 or by sending a cheque or postal order to G24 Limited, PO Box 3320, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, SL9 8WT.

2. Make an appeal to POPLA - The Independent Appeals Service by completing the accompanying form or by making your appeal online at (xxx) your POPLA verification code is: xxxxx. Please be advised that if you opt for independent arbitration of your case, the ability to pay the parking charge at the reduced rate of £60.00 will be at end. If you opt to pay the parking charge you will be unable to appeal to POPLA.

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.


Customer Services
G24 Ltd
Tel: + 44 (0) 870 042 7215

I thought the invoice had to arrive after so many days? The original invoice arrived on the 25/6 for the 17/6!

bazster

If there was no Notice to Driver attached to the car at the time, the Notice to Keeper has to arrive in the fourteen days following the day on which the alleged parking event occurred. Did it?

Guys_Dad

Is this the same case as your other thread currently active on here? If so, shame you didn't just add to the original one.

Working on the assumption that it is, is this the reply to the letter you recently sent them asking for a POPLA code if they did not agree your appeal?

If so, they are in the deep doodah for not supplying the POPLA code when asked.

Please confirm so that we can help further.

Personally, although others would then suggest timing them out, I still think your best solution would be via POPLA so I would persevere with demanding the POPLA code but then complaining to BPA. There is a similar complaint hopefully going forward, and with yours as well, they could be suspended on their points going over the top.

Custard_Pie

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Is this the same case as your other thread currently active on here? If so, shame you didn't just add to the original one.

Working on the assumption that it is, is this the reply to the letter you recently sent them asking for a POPLA code if they did not agree your appeal?

If so, they are in the deep doodah for not supplying the POPLA code when asked.

Please confirm so that we can help further.

Personally, although others would then suggest timing them out, I still think your best solution would be via POPLA so I would persevere with demanding the POPLA code but then complaining to BPA. There is a similar complaint hopefully going forward, and with yours as well, they could be suspended on their points going over the top.

The invoice arrived within 8 days of the claimed offence. I told them in my response yesterday that I did not recognise them as having the right to charge, so they came back with appeal failed, pay up, go to POPLA (code supplied) or do nothing and they MAY pursue me through the courts.

Can someone please PM me with a good defence for POPLA?

Guys_Dad

Custard_Pie wrote: »

The invoice arrived within 8 days of the claimed offence. I told them in my response yesterday that I did not recognise them as having the right to charge, so they came back with appeal failed, pay up, go to POPLA (code supplied) or do nothing and they MAY pursue me through the courts.

Can someone please PM me with a good defence for POPLA?

Coupon-mad did a great one yesterday (I have kept it for future reference). I have removed the bits that don't seem to apply to your case

Pick the bones out of this one, plus any other points gleaned from the POPLA Decisions sticky (start with last post there)

Dear POPLA adjudicator,

POPLA appeal re ticket number xxxxxxx POPLA code xxxxxxxxxx

I admit to being the driver of the car at the time of the alleged contravention, but I do not believe that I am liable for this charge for the following reasons

I have researched the matter and would like to point out the following:



''However, we do recognise that motorists may input an incorrect digit(s) of their VR number when purchasing a P&D ticket and as such our processing allows for a manual review/quality check of PCN’s before they are issued. Unfortunately, on this occasion our check failed...''


UNCLEAR AND NON-COMPLIANT SIGNAGE
Due to their high position, bright colours, distracting pictograms and the barely legible size of the small print, the signs in this car park are very hard to read and understand. At no point was I sufficiently informed by any signs that I had to input my entire car registration number in this car park as this is not the norm locally. Neither was the wording on the P&D machines clear in this regard, or I would not have entered just the numbers.

I contend that the signs and any core parking terms G24 are relying upon were too small for any driver to see, read or understand when driving into the car park. I request that POPLA should check the Operator's evidence and signage map/photos on this point and compare the signs to the BPA Code of Practice requirements. I contend that the signs and machines in that car park (wording, position, clarity) do not comply and fail to properly warn/inform the driver of the terms and any consequences for breach, as in the case of Excel Parking Services Ltd v Martin Cutts, 2011.


CONTRACT WITH THE LANDOWNER - NOT COMPLIANT WITH THE BPA CODE OF PRACTICE AND NO LEGAL STATUS TO OFFER PARKING OR ENFORCE TICKETS
G24 do not own this car park and are acting merely as agents for the owner or legal occupier. In their Notice and in the rejection letters, G24 have not provided me with any evidence that it is lawfully entitled to demand money from a driver or keeper, since they do not own nor have any interest or assignment of title of the land in question.

I do not believe that the Operator has the necessary legal capacity to enter into a contract with a driver of a vehicle parking in the car park, or indeed the legal standing to allege a breach of contract (as evidenced in the Higher Court findings in VCS v HMRC 2012).

I would require POPLA to please check whether G24 have provided a full copy of the actual contemporaneous, signed & dated contract with the landowner/occupier (not just a signed slip of paper saying it exists) and check that it specifically enables this Operator to pursue parking charges in their own name and through the court system. I say that any contract is not compliant with the requirements set out in the BPA Code of Practice.


NO CONTRACT WITH THE DRIVER AND UNFAIR TERMS
There is no contract between G24 and myself but even if there was a contract then it is unfair as defined in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999:

Unfair Terms
5.—(1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.''

Clearly it is patently unfair for a firm to state in a published article that they have a set procedure including manual checks - because they understand a driver can make a mistake with car registration input - and yet they failed to carry out those simple checks in my case. This would seem to me to be a clear breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.


NO BREACH OF CONTRACT AND NO GENUINE PRE-ESTIMATE OF LOSS
G24 are clearly attempting to enforce this charge under paragraph B 19.5 of the BPA Code of Practice as they suggest my emergency constituted a breach of contract. As such, they must be required to validate this argument by providing POPLA with a detailed financial appraisal which evidences the genuine pre-estimated amount of loss or damages in this particular car park for this particular 'contravention'.

Since I paid and displayed and no damage was caused, there can have been no loss arising from this incident. Neither can Excel lawfully include their operational day-to-day running costs in any 'loss' claimed. I contend there can be no loss shown whatsoever; no pre-estimate (prior to starting to 'charge for breaches' at this site) has been prepared or considered in advance.


UNLAWFUL PENALTY CHARGE
Since there was no demonstrable loss/damage and yet a breach of contract has been alleged, it can only remain a fact that this 'charge' is an attempt at dressing up an unlawful penalty to impersonate a parking ticket. This is similar to the decisions in several County Court cases such as Excel Parking Services v Hetherington-Jakeman (2008), also OBServices v Thurlow (review, February 2011), Parking Eye v Smith (Manchester County Court December 2011) and UKCPS v Murphy (April 2012) .



On the basis of all the points I have raised, this 'charge' fails to meet the standards set out in paragraph 19 of the BPA CoP and also fails to comply with the CPUTR 2008, the UTCCR 1999, the Equality Act 2010 and basic contract law.

It is unfair and punitive and, as such, I respectfully request that this appeal be allowed.




Signed:

Dated:

Now don't send that yet until you have some more points from the sticky, if applicable, and some excellent help from others on here.

You might also want to look here too, from a barrister http://timkevan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/challenge-to-private-parking-charge.html

bazster

Generic appeal points can be done easily enough, but we need to see the Notice to Keeper too: there's a strong chance that it will fail to comply with the legal requirements (there's a lot more to it than just the dates). Redact anything that could identify you, including your car's reg, G24 serial numbers/codes etc. You can also redact the dates since we've already established it was "in-time".

Custard_Pie

bazster wrote: »

Generic appeal points can be done easily enough, but we need to see the Notice to Keeper too: there's a strong chance that it will fail to comply with the legal requirements (there's a lot more to it than just the dates). Redact anything that could identify you, including your car's reg, G24 serial numbers/codes etc. You can also redact the dates since we've already established it was "in-time".

Happy to PM to anyone trusted on here :A

Custard_Pie

Here's what I've got so far:

Dear Sir/Madam,

POPLA appeal ref invoice number xxx POPLA code xxxx

I admit to being the driver of the car at the time of the alleged contravention, but I do not believe that I am liable for this charge.

I have researched the matter, have revisited the property and would like to point out the following:

UNCLEAR AND NON-COMPLIANT SIGNAGE

Due to their high position, overall small size and the barely legible size of the small print, the signs in this car park are very hard to read, understand and no notices at all are positioned near the entrance or exists to any of the shops.

I contend that the signs and any core parking terms G24 are relying upon were too small for any driver to see, read or understand. I request that POPLA check the Operator's evidence and signage map/photos on this point and compare the signs to the BPA Code of Practice requirements. I contend that the signs on this land (wording, position, clarity) do not comply and fail to properly warn/inform the driver of the terms and any consequences for breach, as in the case of Excel Parking Services Ltd v Martin Cutts, 2011.

CONTRACT WITH THE LANDOWNER - NOT COMPLIANT WITH THE BPA CODE OF PRACTICE AND NO LEGAL STATUS TO OFFER PARKING OR ENFORCE CHARGES
G24 do not own this car park and are assumed to be merely agents for the owner or legal occupier. In their Notice and in the rejection letters, G24 have not provided me with any evidence that it is lawfully entitled to demand money from a driver or keeper, since they do not own nor have any interest or assignment of title of the land in question. They make reference to being a Creditor of an “agreement”, but nothing regarding a contract.

I do not believe that the Operator has the necessary legal capacity to enter into a contract with a driver of a vehicle parking in the car park, or indeed the legal standing to allege a breach of contract (as evidenced in the Higher Court findings in VCS v HMRC 2012).

I would require POPLA to please check whether G24 have provided a full copy of the actual contemporaneous, signed & dated contract with the landowner/occupier (not just a signed slip of paper saying it exists) and check that it specifically enables this Operator to pursue parking charges in their own name and through the court system. I say that any contract is not compliant with the requirements set out in the BPA Code of Practice.

NO CONTRACT WITH THE DRIVER AND
There is no contract between G24 and myself but even if there was a contract then it is unfair as defined in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.. So the requirements of forming a contract such as a meeting of minds, agreement, certainty of terms, etc, were not satisfied.

UNFAIR TERMS
The charge that was levied is an unfair term (and therefore not binding) pursuant to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. In particular, Schedule 2 of those Regulations gives an indicative (and non-exhaustive) list of terms which may be regarded as unfair and includes at Schedule 2(1)(e) "Terms which have the object or effect of requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation." Furthermore, Regulation 5(1) states that: "A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer" and 5(2) states: "A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term."

UNREASONABLE
The charge you are levying is an unreasonable indemnity clause pursuant to section 4(1) of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 which provides that: "A person cannot by reference to any contract term be made to indemnify another person (whether a party to the contract or not) in respect of liability that may be incurred by the other for negligence or breach of contract, except in so far as the contract term satisfies the requirement of reasonableness.”

NO BREACH OF CONTRACT AND NO GENUINE PRE-ESTIMATE OF LOSS
G24 are clearly attempting to enforce this charge under paragraph B 19.5 of the BPA Code of Practice as they suggest my emergency constituted a breach of contract. As such, they must be required to validate this argument by providing POPLA with a detailed financial appraisal which evidences the genuine pre-estimated amount of loss or damages in this particular car park for this particular 'contravention'.

There is no charge levied, the car park is “free” , on the date of the claimed loss it was only at 30% capacity and there was no damage was caused. There can have been no loss arising from this incident. Neither can G24 lawfully include their operational day-to-day running costs in any 'loss' claimed. I contend there can be no loss shown whatsoever; no pre-estimate (prior to starting to 'charge for breaches' at this site) has been prepared or considered in advance.

The charge that was levyed is punitive and therefore void (ie unenforceable) against me. The initial charge is arbitrary and in no way proportionate to any alleged breach of contract. Nor does it even equate to local council charges. This is all the more so for the additional charges which operator states accrues after 28 days of non-payment. This would also apply to any mentioned costs incurred through debt recovery unless it followed a court order.

UNLAWFUL PENALTY CHARGE
Since there was no demonstrable loss/damage and yet a breach of contract has been alleged for a free car park, it can only remain a fact that this 'charge' is an attempt at extorting an unlawful charge to impersonate a parking ticket. This is similar to the decisions in several County Court cases such as Excel Parking Services v Hetherington-Jakeman (2008), also OBServices v Thurlow (review, February 2011), Parking Eye v Smith (Manchester County Court December 2011) and UKCPS v Murphy (April 2012) . The operator could state the letter as an invoice for monies, but chooses to use the wording “CONTRACTUAL PARKING CHARGE NOTICE” in an attempt to be deemed an official parking fine similar to what the Police and Council Wardens issue.

FAILED TO COMPLY WITH INITIAL REQUEST FOR A POPLA CODE
I contacted G24 on 1/7/13 and clearly stated that I denied all liability to their company and required a POPLA verification code for me to appeal independently as per the BPA Code of Practice.
I had nothing further to add, and will not respond to any correspondence from your company unless it contains the POPLA code. I would assume the appeal will be deemed accepted if there is no POPLA code on any rejection that you supply within the time frame stipulated above.

G24 ignored this requirement and considered the appeal “on-going” until I provided them information regarding the alleged incident. They therefore failed to comply with the BPA Code of Practice.

On the basis of all the points I have raised, this 'charge' fails to meet the standards set out in paragraph 19 of the BPA CoP and also fails to comply with the CPUTR 2008, the UTCCR 1999, the Equality Act 2010 and basic contract law.

I respectfully request that this appeal be allowed.

Signed:

Dated:

nigelbb

Why on earth are you confessing to being the driver?

Custard_Pie

nigelbb wrote: »

Why on earth are you confessing to being the driver?

Copied and pasted from various POPLA results. I am the RK, but I thought that the FOIA provided a requirement to reveal who the driver is?

Guys_Dad

nigelbb wrote: »

Why on earth are you confessing to being the driver?

It's for POPLA appeal, not appeal to PPC.