BPA and Losses

trisontana

A couple of days ago if emailed a copy of PE's famous letter which tries to justify their so-called losses by including their day-to-day running costs. This is BPA's reply. As you can see they are confusing costs with losses. They even use the "c" word in their reply. Any ideas what I should say in my reply? I certainly will include recent POPLA decisions, together with the Smith v PE court case. This is their reply:-


Thank you for your e-mail.

Please be advised Parking Eye are within their rights in regards to their parking charge notices and their pre-estimate of loss.

Parking Eye would have calculated the sum as a genuine pre-estimate of their losses as they incur significant costs in managing the parking location to ensure compliance to the stated terms and conditions and to follow up on any breaches of these identified, including but not restricted to the following examples:

· Employment of parking attendants to patrol the parking location to include supervisory staff and vehicles, training, uniforms, etc.

· Ad-hoc mobile patrols of the parking location

· Supply & installation ANPR equipment, monitoring and maintenance

· Erection and maintenance of the site signage

· Parking payment and enforcement equipment to include the pay & display machines, hand held devices, cameras, etc.

· Membership and other fees requiring payment in order to manage the business effectively including those paid to BPA, DVLA and ICO

· General costs including stationery, postage etc

· Employment of office based administrative staff along with systems and software

· Contribution to Head Office overheads

Please note that this sum will be clearly laid out on the signage at the parking location which offers the parking contract to the motorist, and by remaining at the site, Parking Eye will contend that the motorist has accepted all of the prevailing terms and conditions of that contract including the charges for breach of contract, and furthermore accepts that they are reasonable.

We do not feel it is right to seek to change the terms of an established contract after it has been breached. If the motorist was unhappy with the contract terms, then the motorist should not have remained at the location.

Parking Eye’s breakdown of costs does not breach our code of practice and therefore we are unable to investigate the matter further.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

verityboo

It confirms that there would be no 'losses' if PE were not employed and there is no mention of any payment to cover losses suffered by the Land owner?

bazster

Send 'em the transcript of VCS vs. Ibbotson, and the transcripts of several recent PoPLA adjudications.

esmerobbo

So if Parking Eye only caught one transgressor in an accounting year, and their running costs were £1M would the poor sap caught have to pay £1M?

Coupon-mad

I am not sure it's worthy of a reply - and I am quite happy if that is what the industry's Trade Body is advising their members! Long may it continue.

Guys_Dad

bazster wrote: »

Send 'em the transcript of VCS vs. Ibbotson, and the transcripts of several recent PoPLA adjudications.

Actually, joking aside, it would not be a bad idea if tristontanta were to send the relevant extract from that case to the BPA and ask them how they manage to hold diametrically opposed views from the learned judge and would they care to comment.

trisontana

In my reply I have mentioned that, together with the Smith V PE case (where they claimed hundreds of pounds but were given just £15) and several recent POPLA decisons. For good measure I even includede the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "loss".