TPS ticket in Halfords Sutton, advice appreciated

maverickpianist84

Hi all, apologies firstly for posting what must be one of a million variants on the same thing, but I need some advice on a TPS ticket that was issued to me.

Initial situation:

I parked correctly in a bay at Halfords in Sutton on 18th May which TPS patrol and give customers the benefit of 30 minutes maximum stay. I briefly left the car park to go to the large neighbouring Asda. My intention was to pick up lunch there, then return to Halfords, buy screenwash and leave.

The reason the TPS notice was issued was "the driver was observed leaving site whilst the vehicle remained parked on the premises" on 18th May from 13:35 to 14:07.

I appealed initially on 22nd May:

I am writing to appeal the above penalty charge.

The reason the notice had been issued was that I was "observed leaving the site whilst the vehicle remained parked on the premises".

Whilst this is true, there is nothing in your displayed rules and regulations to say that a customer of Halfords may only shop at Halfords and nowhere else. My intention was to quickly get some items from the nearby Asda, return to put the shopping in the car and then buy the items I needed at Halfords. The alternative was to first go into Halfords, then Asda and return to Halfords which is obviously a less efficient journey.

The only time I left the Halfords car park was on my arrival at 13:35, as the notice says, and therefore I conclude the motive behind issuing the notice wasn't the length of time I stayed in that car park, but rather that I had not bought anything in the Halfords store.

Having returned to find the notice issued less than 30 minutes later, there was no obvious incentive for me to buy anything from Halfords and unless you would consider rescinding the notice, I doubt I would feel compelled to return again.

Probably somewhat foolishly, I wrote to them again after I had heard nothing from them for a while:

I am writing to ask if there has been a decision in respect of the above penalty charge.

The charge was given on 18/05/13 and I appealed by email to this same address on 22/05/13. To date I have not had a reply and would be grateful if this could be followed up.

What happened next:

On 18th June, they responded to my appeal... see below.

On 4th July, they issued a reminder by post increasing the amount from £50 to £90.

On 18th July (received 20th July) they have now issued a Charge Notice (Final Reminder - Legal Action Pending) by post increasing the amount to £110.

What to do next?

This is how they responded to my appeal on 18th June:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your correspondence, the content of which has been noted.

The Terms and Conditions of parking at this location are clearly displayed at the entrance and throughout the site. The onus is with the driver to ensure that when parking on private property they do so in accordance with the Terms and Conditions. Your vehicle was logged by the patrol officer as the vehicle driver was observed leaving site which breaches the Terms and Conditions of this site. Please find attached a copy of our signage which clearly states ‘customer only parking’. (edit: they attached a JPEG which wasn't even of the site I parked at!)

Unfortunately after careful consideration your representation has been rejected, as the vehicle was parked in contravention of the Conditions of Use. It follows therefore, that the PCN was correctly issued and the amount of £50.00 remains outstanding.

To avoid incurring further administration costs please arrange your remittance within 14 days from the date of this letter.

Please find attached a POPLA independent appeal form.

You now have a number of options;

Pay the parking charge at the prevailing price of £50.00 within 14 days. Please note after this time the parking charge notice will rise to £90.00.
2. Make a 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 be £90.00.
If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies due via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with court action against you.

Regards

PARKING CONTROL DEPARTMENT

O| 0845 257 3540 F| 0845 257 3541

Are TPS covered by saying I have the right to shop exclusively at Halfords only? Because that's the first I've ever heard of something like this. Would you play for time and contact POPLA? Or ignore any future letters? Do they have a reasonable case against me? Do I have a reasonable case against them? Help much appreciated!!

bazster

Woohoo, a toothbrush case! I just love these!

Writing to them at all was a mistake, but I guess you realise that now. Still, they've sent you a PoPLA code, so use it!

Have a look around this forum and find some strong PoPLA appeals (there are lots, but you'll need to look for them 'cos we don't get paid for this and we're not very organised!). Find a few, and garner all of the relevant appeal points (hint: you MUST have that there was no loss to the parking company or the landowner, and you must also have that the parking company doesn't own the land and has no right to enter into contracts or issue charges; these two are sure-fire winners at PoPLA).

To your own appeal, you must add something which you will not find in many of the other appeals, which is this: anyone claiming damages for breach of contract must "mitigate their loss" i.e. they must do what they can to reduce their losses. TPS is (somewhat ludicrously) claiming that your little visit to Asda cost them £90, but of course they could have reduced that fanciful loss to zero if the moron who "observed" you leaving the site had simply called after you and warned you of the consequences of leaving. Ergo, they failed to mitigate their losses.

Read and laugh (it's not very long but it is very funny, and you'll see why I call this a "toothbrush" case): http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=16231

And when you've finished drafting your appeal, post it up here so we can have a look at it for you before you send it in to PoPLA.

Stroma

This is a winner at popla , they can't rely on T&Cs that doesn't exist on their signs. And if you were observed leaving the site, why didn't the person observing say to you if you leave the site and you are in breach of the T&Cs , why didn't they mitigate the supposed losses incurred ? The answer of course is to give this unlawful penalty.

Did they give you the popla code?

maverickpianist84

bazster, stroma, thank you very much for your help.

It seems I have missed the POPLA cut-off by a few days, all my own fault of course.

TPS responded to my appeal on 18/06/13, so 28 day limit is 16/07/13.

Worse, whilst rushing around like a chicken and before your replies to my thread came in, I fired off a virtual carbon copy of my TPS appeal to POPLA but amended the last few sentences:

Dear POPLA

The reason the TPS notice had been issued was that I was "observed leaving the site whilst the vehicle remained parked on the premises" and that "the vehicle was parked between 13:35 and 14:07".

Whilst I did leave the site, albeit briefly, there is nothing in their displayed rules and regulations to say that a customer of Halfords may only shop at Halfords and nowhere else. My intention was to quickly get some items from the nearby Asda, return to put the shopping in the car and then buy the items I needed at Halfords. The alternative was to first drive to Halfords, then Asda and return to Halfords which is obviously a less efficient journey.

The only time I left the Halfords car park was on my arrival at 13:35, as the notice says, and therefore I conclude the motive behind issuing the notice wasn't the length of time I stayed in that car park per se, but rather that I had not bought anything in the Halfords store.

I am suspicious of this notice for two main reasons: (1) I returned to the Halfords car park before 14:07 to find the notice issued. (2) When I left the car park, there was nobody walking around. So how could a parking attendant possibly know that I had left the car park?

I acknowledge that my appeal is a couple of days over the 28 day limit and I apologise for this as I had been away on business. I would be grateful if you could still consider my case.

Sincerely

...

Presumably now they either
(1) ask TPS to prove the notice was issued before 14:07, which would be relatively easy to contest as that would prove TPS had denied me the rightful maximum stay of 30 minutes, or
(2) notice the implication that TPS wilfully failed to mitigate their losses

Sorry for being such a wally, guys, I should've stopped and waited for your valuable help. Any chance you can edit a POPLA appeal?

Stroma

You can still add to the popla appeal even now, I suggest you do just that as what you've given is mitigation and they don't do that. As for being a couple of days over I think there are plenty of reasons why they shouldn't reject, the fact that they are running 4-5 months behind schedule is one of them.

bazster

Good grief, that is a terrible PoPLA appeal. Could you really not have waited 20 minutes? The only point there that might work (if they hear it at all) is the signage. PoPLA will not imply anything, if you didn't say it, they will not see it.

Given that it's late anyway I'm not sure it's worth the effort of following it up with a more substantive appeal, although some of the regulars here might have a different view.

Just ignore anything else you get from TPS. In the unlikely event that they send you a formal "Letter Before Action" or "Letter Before Claim" (and I don't mean just some letter vaguely threatening court action) let us know and we'll help you see them off. Legally they haven't a leg to stand on.

maverickpianist84

I could very well contest that there was no loss to TPS, at least not in the order of £90, but I can't say for certain they don't have authorisation from Halfords to patrol that car park. Because if I did, and TPS produced a contract or similar, I'd lose my case immediately. Will it be sufficient to contend the former point only?

Stroma

They won't produce a contract as that would put in the public domain their nefarious business! And as you have no idea what is involved in a popla appeal how do you know you'd lose immediately ?

I can tell you something though, on what you have gone to popla with, you will lose 100%, they do not do mitigation only, you have to take apart their whole business. We are running at a 100% success rate for people who follow our advice.

maverickpianist84

I have emailed them separately and included, in my own words, Bazster's superb point in post #2 about TPS mitigating their losses.

Guys, thanks for all your help again, sorry I hadn't the sense to at least wait and see what you had to say. If anything else threatening comes through the post I will let you know here...

Stroma

Bleeding heck man, this is not a simple appeal you are doing you need to add a lot more to the popla appeal than what has been given. This is not a race

bazster

maverickpianist84 wrote: »

I could very well contest that there was no loss to TPS, at least not in the order of £90, but I can't say for certain they don't have authorisation from Halfords to patrol that car park. Because if I did, and TPS produced a contract or similar, I'd lose my case immediately. Will it be sufficient to contend the former point only?

No, contend on both points. And don't concede that there might have been some loss, there was no loss.

You cannot lose by saying something that is disproved. All that happens is that the point in question will then be discounted, they can't refuse your whole case as a punishment! Anyway, the parking company almost always refuses to produce its contract, if one exists, and they lose case after case after case as a result.

You are taking this entire scam far too seriously.