Parking Eye notice - NHS walk in centre!

samfan121

I have just received a notice from Parking Eye with photos showing my car arriving and departing a local NHS Walk-In Centre last week

It states there is a fixed charge of £70, reduced to £40 if I pay within 14 days.

I was completely surprised because as far as I was concerned I had done nothing wrong. I had taken change with me because I knew it was pay and display and when I arrived I had parked, walked over to the machine with my wallet in my hand (should be clearly visible on their cameras), read the sign, which had big letters saying "Parking Charges 6am to 6pm" and then a list of the rates. As it was 8.30pm I put away my wallet and went inside the building. I was in there 30 minutes while I waited to see a doctor and received antibiotics for a very uncomfortable bladder infection (sorry tmi!) and I came out and drove I away. I was also the only car in the entire car park.

When I received the notice I phoned the Walk In Centre to ask what their parking charges were at 8.30pm and was told by the receptionist that a fixed charge of £1 is payable after 6pm but 'it's not very obvious on the sign, oh dear'.

A work colleague told me she had received a letter from Parking Eye several months ago and ignored it and never had any more letters from them and told me to look on this forum.

I am scared to ignore it because I hate feeling like I'm in trouble. However, I am positive the sign was very misleading and I was in a lot of discomfort, as I'm sure are most people who use a walk in health centre out of hours. I should be on camera with my wallet obviously intending to pay and £70 seems ridiculous for a £1 late night charge!

What should I do?

Umkomaas

samfan121 wrote: »

I have just received a notice from Parking Eye with photos showing my car arriving and departing a local NHS Walk-In Centre last week

It states there is a fixed charge of £70, reduced to £40 if I pay within 14 days.

I was completely surprised because as far as I was concerned I had done nothing wrong. I had taken change with me because I knew it was pay and display and when I arrived I had parked, walked over to the machine with my wallet in my hand (should be clearly visible on their cameras), read the sign, which had big letters saying "Parking Charges 8am to 6pm" and then a list of the rates. As it was 8.30pm I put away my wallet and went inside the building. I was in there 30 minutes while I waited to see a doctor and received antibiotics for a very uncomfortable bladder infection (sorry tmi!) and I came out and drove I away. I was also the only car in the entire car park.

When I received the notice I phoned the Walk In Centre to ask what their parking charges were at 8.30pm and was told by the receptionist that a fixed charge of £1 is payable after 6pm but 'it's not very obvious on the sign, oh dear'.

A work colleague told me she had received a letter from Parking Eye several months ago and ignored it and never had any more letters from them and told me to look on this forum.

I am scared to ignore it because I hate feeling like I'm in trouble. However, I am positive the sign was very misleading and I was in a lot of discomfort, as I'm sure are most people who use a walk in health centre out of hours. I should be on camera with my wallet obviously intending to pay and £70 seems ridiculous for a £1 late night charge!

What should I do?

First thing I would do is to go back to the Medical Centre and demand they get PE to cancel this charge. After all they have admitted that the sign is far from clear. While you're at the centre take a photo of the sign and keep it for future reference, post it up on here if you like and you'll get some opinions on it. There was a similar case to yours up here a week or so ago, which, after some advice from here and a strong approach to the Practice Manage, the charge was cancelled.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4662853

So after the approach get back to us with an update.

samfan121

So I just drove over to the Health Centre in my lunch break to take a photo of the sign and the forum won't let me post it?!

Anyway. At the top in big letters it says:

Public Paid Parking Car Park

Parking Tariff

Daytime Tariff, Monday - Sunday, 6am - 6pm
List of charges by the hour

To the right is all the ways to register your vehicle. That's as far as I read when I was in pain and a hurry to get medication on a Monday evening.

Now that I've been back to take a photo I can see that lower down, next to the bit about a fixed penalty of £70 if you don't pay, it says Evening Tariff, 6pm - 6am, £1.00

I can see that it is all there in black and white, but I feel really annoyed that it was a genuine mistake and that it's on land where people are seeking out of hours health care and usually in a hurry. All for the sake of £1

Guys_Dad

When you get a photo, see if it meets these criteria on page 11 here http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/AOS_CoP_June_2013_update.pdf

Assuming no help from the Health Centre, you need to write a soft appeal to the PPC , probably expecting it to fail.

Write this to them

Name
Address

Date

Dear PPC,

Your invoice xxxxx dated xxxxx.

The driver believes that your signage is inadequate, misleading and fails to meet the BPA standards, and wishes to appeal on that basis.

If you reject this appeal, I require within 35 days a POPLA verification code for me to appeal independently as per the requirements set out on the POPLA web site, further supported by the BPA Code of Practice.

You have been given the reasons for the appeal above. I have nothing further to add, and will not respond to any correspondence from your company unless it contains the POPLA code.

Be aware that there will be formal complaints to POPLA and to the BPA if there is no POPLA code on any rejection that you supply.

Yours faithfully



Print Name ( don't sign )

Coupon-mad

samfan121 wrote: »

I can see that it is all there in black and white, but I feel really annoyed that it was a genuine mistake and that it's on land where people are seeking out of hours health care and usually in a hurry. All for the sake of £1

You do realise you WILL NOT be paying this so why the ''all for the sake of £1...'' seemingly despondent final sentence (or am I reading it wrong?). You do know this is a scam fake PCN the surgery should have their cage briskly rattled by you, to cancel it. If they are useless then send the challenge letter suggested, to PE. It's deliberately written in a short and sweet style, without saying who was driving (important).

There's a second stage appeal now (POPLA) and we know how to win so don't write a 'normal' POPLA appeal when PE reject your challenge and send you a POPLA code. Come back then.

Ignore is OLD ADVICE - because PE have started to issue some small claims - so do update your colleague. This is still a scam and nowt to worry about.

samfan121

I WON!!!!

After submitting an appeal to parking eye and writing to complain to the local NHS trust and the 'walk in' centre manager.

I just received an email from the building manager:

"I can confirm that, after consideration of your appeal and the circumstances surrounding your visit to the Health Centre, your penalty notice has been cancelled."


Amazing, thanks everyone for their help biggrin.gif

The_Slithy_Tove

And they still think it's a "penalty"