Upcoming court case

Forensic

Dear all

Following the advice on this site, I recently decided to take the militant approach when dealing with a ParkingEye invoice when I fell asleep at a service station and awoke some hours after their 2hr limit.

I e-mailed them rejecting the claim on account of losses to their client, though did not offer them the £10 I could have done which really was the deficit.

They sent out the routine refusal papers along with a POPLA form which I filled in - only for POPLA to reject it also; not that I care because it was a plain whitewash in favour of ParkingEye. Denying the false penalty factor, neither PE nor POPLA cited the legal clause why which they claim exception in seeking sums beyond losses and so I have dismissed the entire project as a racket and will not be paying unless forced to do so by the court.

ANYHOW, whilst POPLA were examining the "evidence", ParkingEye sent me a "scare file" containing 32 pages, the dialogue between them and me, and photos of their signs and their locations bla bla bla. It was here I saw the information for drivers in other languages.

It appears that in Albanian, a driver is being told that the £100 is a "gjobbë", and that means one thing, fine, a term worse than "penalty" since it is contrived to impersonate authorities.

Please ALL take this into consideration.

Coupon-mad

If you do get a small claim from PE please get pepipoo advice. Sorry to hear that you lost at POPLA but if you just 'filled in' the form and rushed it off the POPLA that's not surprising. You could have won that POPLA appeal you know, if it had been robust enough, like the recent ones shown on the POPLA decisions thread.

Have you posted the details of your lost appeal on the POPLA decisions thread (top of the parking forum)? Can help others to see what sort of appeal not to bother with (no mitigating circumstances or weak appeals about 'what happened' work; no 'normal appeals' work).

Now the stakes could be higher but if PE do now see this as a green light for a small claim, it's defendable if you use a robust defence.

Dave_TH

Coupon-mad wrote: »

If you do get a small claim from PE please get pepipoo advice. Sorry to hear that you lost at POPLA but if you just 'filled in' the form and rushed it off the POPLA that's not surprising. You could have won that POPLA appeal you know, if it had been robust enough, like the recent ones shown on the POPLA decisions thread.

Have you posted the details of your lost appeal on the POPLA decisions thread (top of the parking forum)? Can help others to see what sort of appeal not to bother with (no mitigating circumstances or weak appeals about 'what happened' work; no 'normal appeals' work).

Now the stakes could be higher but if PE do now see this as a green light for a small claim, it's defendable if you use a robust defence.

+1 great...... comments

Forensic

Coupon-mad wrote: »

If you do get a small claim from PE please get pepipoo advice. Sorry to hear that you lost at POPLA but if you just 'filled in' the form and rushed it off the POPLA that's not surprising. You could have won that POPLA appeal you know, if it had been robust enough, like the recent ones shown on the POPLA decisions thread.

Thanks for the full reply Coupon.

Here's what happened, when the PCN landed on the mat, I immediately sought advice without posting - here and at one or two other sites. As the incident was about three months ago, I see that much of the advice being offered here is different to what was flying about then. Basically I sent them on the POPLA ride following their refusal to cancel the charge with the purpose being to make them pay the mandatory fee for what I knew to be fruitless. As such I merely pointed out to POPLA that the figure sought exceeds losses and is therefore an illegal penalty. Nothing more, a rushed job as you said. I didn't regret losing, I even expected it - the assessor's report was nothing more than a whitewash which PE could have scripted themselves.

But this advice I don't see being given now as I see totally different members from those that posted circa March 2013. All seem to mention BPA more than anything else which I in turn was given to take is just a members' club with no authority. Law seems to force PPCs to comply with BPA codes and yet the BPA sets out a maximum charge and this defeats the object. There can be no maximum charge if what is sought really is deficit. At the same time, I thought nobody had the right to go charging their targets for what is not a loss to their client. I realise that should it get to court, the story so far will not be an issue. PE will simply be claiming that I owe them X-amount and I will deny it on those grounds - and of course, I have the evidence to prove that they use the word "fine" which would naturally have to be independently verified.

Why the change in direction? Why the sudden importance of the BPA? Would the court accept that if Albanian gjobbë means "fine" that this stuffs PE?

nigelbb

When clamping was made illegal in England & Wales the pursuit of the registered keeper was introduce as a sop to the clampers but as a necessary balance POPLA was introduced as a second level independent appeal. The independence is questionable given that they are playing by rules drawn up by the BPA but as none of the BPA members can even abide by their own made-up rules POPLA are forced to rule in favour of the driver every time these rules are broken and the PPC is called out on their non-compliance. For example the BPA Code of Practice states (my emphasis):-

7 Written authorisation of the landowner
7.1 If you do not own the land on which you are carrying
out parking management, you must have the written
authorisation of the landowner (or their appointed
agent) before you can start operating on the land in
question. The authorisation must give you the authority
to carry out all the aspects of the management and
enforcement of the site that you are responsible for. In
particular, it must say that the landowner requires you
to keep to the Code of Practice, and that you have
the authority to pursue outstanding parking charges,
through the courts if necessary.

As part of a POPLA appeal if you state that you do not believe that the PPC has the necessary written authorisation from the landowner or the authority to pursue through the courts the onus is then on the PPC to produce the contract with the landowner which thus far none of them has dared to do thus the appeal is won by default. The suspicion is that there are nasty secrets hidden in these contracts either the landowner gets a backhander with each charge (PR poison for the likes of Asda) or the PPC is actually forbidden to take offenders to court because it would again be such bad PR for the retailer.

There are many other arguments that can be presented at POPLA that will ensure a successful appeal. The mistake that appellants make is to plead mitigation which is something that POPLA will never consider as it simply isn't part of their remit.

As far as the courts go as the whole PPC business is founded on a lie a properly presented defence that exposes the PPCs for the crooks that they are will also succeed.

Forensic

Thanks a lot NigelBB for the useful information.

It would help for future because I have other issues with ParkingEye, not just the one for which I created this thread. I'm not a bad boy so to speak but just the other day, I overstayed at an ALDI by a sweet 15 minutes! No deliberate breach was intended. I'd like to in future offer the company the amount lost (ie. if I sleep at services, don't forget when your body awakes it may be too late!) but on this occasion, it is a free car park and no way was it full when I parked!

Concerning the points you raised about authorisation. Unfortunately I don't know this nor am I sure how to acquire that information.

nigelbb

Forensic wrote: »

Concerning the points you raised about authorisation. Unfortunately I don't know this nor am I sure how to acquire that information.

You don't need to acquire the information re authorisation. Once you raise the issue at POPLA that you believe that the PPC does not have the necessary authorisation then the onus is on the PPC to prove that they do.

In general this is the way all appeals to POPLA need to be written by going on the offensive e.g. force the PPC into the position of needing to prove something that they are either unwilling or unable to do. To take another common point of failing you raise the issue that the signs in the car park do not comply with what is in the BPA CoP so the PPC must then prove that they do.

Coupon-mad

Forensic wrote: »

Why the change in direction? Why the sudden importance of the BPA? Would the court accept that if Albanian gjobbë means "fine" that this stuffs PE?

Because of two things:

1. We learnt what sort of argument wins at POPLA. We always knew it costs a PPC £27 plus VAT but when we knew we could win, that changed things!

and

2. Some PPCs started to issue small claims like they were going out of fashion.

So it's much less scary for newbies to have to write a POPLA appeal than to possibly have to write a court defence.

Forensic

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Some PPCs started to issue small claims like they were going out of fashion.

All makes sense. So regarding the quoted remark, has the PPC been successful any of the time? If so, what was the basis?

Stroma

Forensic wrote: »

All makes sense. So regarding the quoted remark, has the PPC been successful any of the time? If so, what was the basis?

None of the latest claims have been heard as yet , you'll be looking at July or August I think before the first go there.

Forensic

Fingers crossed then! I could be among the ranks but this is where I intend to use the argument per the thread's OP. Obviously someone they trusted dropped an obscure clanger but the campaign to rewrite the signs would cost them big - not that it will save them where they are concerned for cases prior!