ParkingEye demand

drbob

Hello,

I recently received a demand from ParkingEye for £100, reduced to £60 if paid within 2 weeks due to an overstay in a pay&display car park.

I have the pay&display ticket.

I plan to write back rejecting their demand on the following basis:

- their camera evidence is of time spent on the premises, not time spent parked. A grace period of 5 minutes to pay at the machine, plus time to locate a space and park and also to queue to exit the car park can easily add up to the 20-25 minute overstay they allege.

- their demand for £100 cannot in law be considered a parking charge but is rather a claim for damages. As a such it must be a true estimate of their actual loss in relation to the overstay. They have provided no evidence to support £100 as being their actual loss.

Any other tips for things I should mention? I was thinking of including a cheque for £2 (the additional cost for an extra 2 hours per the tariff displayed in the car park) as an offer of full and final settlement without admitting any liability.

Is pepipoo undergoing a ddos attack? I wanted to post this there but I keep getting a forum server overloaded message.

Any help would be much appreciated.

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drbob

Buzby

Much easier to stay silent and treat them with the contempt they deserve. Parking time is calculated from a standard reference point - entry/exit is standard and is also used by councils without issue.

drbob

Thanks for your reply, do you have any personal experience with parkingeye? From reading these forums I was under the impression that they are one of the more aggressive companies, quite ready to issue court proceedings in the hope of an easy default judgement if not properly challenged from the start.

Guys_Dad

drbob wrote: »

Thanks for your reply, do you have any personal experience with parkingeye? From reading these forums I was under the impression that they are one of the more aggressive companies, quite ready to issue court proceedings in the hope of an easy default judgement if not properly challenged from the start.

Yes you are right. Ignore Buzby - he is knowledgeable on mobile phones but that doesn't transfer to here.

he is correct, of course, if you live in Scotland.

But assuming you do not, then you need to do an appeal to Parking Eye saying basically what you have written here. Ask them to cancel or give you POPLA code

It will be rejected, of course (after all your charge is their income)

You may then appeal to POPLA with a decent appeal which will stand a good chance of winning on present form. Or, of course, you can pay up.

zzzLazyDaisy

Just to add to Guys Dad's excellent advice -

The PPCs are finding any excuse to reject appeals without giving a POPLA code - because they know that any forum assisted motorist will win at POPLA. One of their favourites is rejecting what they call 'template' or 'generic' letters. So when writing your appeal, try and say something to tie the appeal into your personal event, if possible.

So, for example, you might say something like,

'the reason for the overstay was that on the day in question the car park was very busy and the driver had to drive round and wait for some time before finding a parking space, the driver then went and obtained a ticket and returned to the car to display it. On returning to the vehicle the driver had to queue for some time to exit the car park' Obviously this is just an example and you need to fit your facts to the situation, but you get the gist.

The appeal almost certainly won't be upheld, but doing it this way might prevent the appeal being rejected out of hand.

Re offering the £2 - if you decide to do this you need to say something like

'for the reasons stated above the driver does not believe any payment is due, however on an entirely without prejudice basis and with no admission of liability, the driver is willing to offer the sum of £2 in full and final settlement of this matter, this being the amount being the cost of purchasing an extra two hours parking, and therefore being the maximum amount of any loss that might have been sustained. Accordingly I enclose a cheque in the sum of £2 in full and final settlement of this matter. If you cash the cheque you are deemed to have cancelled the charge'.

Although to be honest, it is really a waste of time and energy doing that as the PPC is unlikely to accept the £2 as it isn't worth the effort of banking the cheque - they are much more likely to try and bamboozle you into paying up.

Write the appeal letter in the third person - ie referring to 'the registered keeper' and 'the driver' without actually identifying the driver.

Daisy