Parking Eye - New Response - Letter Before County Court Claim

MothballsWallet

trisontana wrote: »

You could reply to them "please explain why you are a load of d***heads."

Or: "Please explain why you are best friends with the Conservative Party?" :rotfl: *evil grin*

worlds_end1

i seem to be following you - received same letter...
rather than bother daisy can you help with her educated response- genuine as i know they are watching (or have been)

How does it work to send offline - via email acct?

Thanks

Umkomaas

worlds_end1 wrote: »

i seem to be following you - received same letter...
rather than bother daisy can you help with her educated response- genuine as i know they are watching (or have been)

How does it work to send offline - via email acct?

Thanks

Please see my signature below. It does make sense, otherwise advice gets confused as to whom it is aimed.

In Nike's famous words - Just do it!

worlds_end1

Ok thanks - set up new thread - just seeking similar help

stuart153

OK, so I've had a response from PE. Letter is below:


Dear Sir/Madam,

LETTER BEFORE COUNTY COURT CLAIM

On the Date Removed we notified you that, as the registered keeper of this vehicle, you had become liable for this Parking Charge Notice (see above reference), which concerned a breach of the terms and conditions at Booths Windermere, on the Date Removed . This was because the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 required for keeper liability had been satisfied. Further to this, we advised you that the amount payable was £80.00 for the Parking Charge Notice and that you were required to make this payment or further action would be taken.

ParkingEye is still not in receipt of this payment. As such, we must inform you that unless payment of £80.00 is made within the next 14 days further action will be taken and court proceedings will be issued, which will incur further costs. These costs will include, but are not limited to £50.00 solicitor's costs and £15.00 court claim issue fee.

Yours faithfully

ParkingEye Legal Department.

..................
Page.2
..................
1) Please be aware this Letter Before County Court Claim is fully compliant with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct. We must draw attention to the practice direction at 'link to PD' and in particular paragraph 4 concerning the court's powers to impose sanctions for failure to comply with the Practice Direction.

2) It should also be noted that we are unable to use the POPLA service as Alternative Dispute Resolution at this stage. This is because POPLA will only accept an appeal after the motorist has made their appeal ('representations') to the operator who issued the Parking Charge Notice and that the operator has rejected these and issued a POPLA appeal form. You have not made representations to ParkingEye in the timescale required (i.e. 28 days from the date of our initial correspondence). You have been made aware of these timescales in our correspondence, which has stated;

"All appeals and complaints must be put in writing and should be forwarded to one of the addresses below. All appeals must be received within 28 days from the date of our initial correspondence. Please include all information to assist with the appeal. This may include: a store receipt from the day in qquestion; proof of purchases via a bank statement etc. If the appeal is unsuccessful, you will be advised in writing and you will also be provided with details of the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), their contact details and a unique appeal reference. Please note: The POPLA service is only available for parking events dated from 1st October 2012 and POPLA will not accept an appeal, if you have not appealed to ParkingEye in the first instance."

3) The loss claimed in this Letter Before County Court Claim is in line with guidelines set out by the British Parking Association. ParkingEye have also ensured that their Parking Charge amount is not punitive and set on the basis of a strong commercial justification for charges of this nature.

4) As court proceedings have not begun, and as no defence has been filed, it is impossible for ParkingEye to state exactly what documents will be relied on in court. These could include, but are not limited to; Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, British Parking Association Code of Practice, any defence submitted by you, any reply to defence submitted by us, any document proving ParkingEye's authorisation to operate on site and any signage plan or images of signage from the site in question. These will be provided at this stage and not sooner. Any commercially sensitive documentation will be provided if requested by the court, should this matter reach this stage.



Any thoughts on what my response to this should be?

Thank you all for your help and comments.

guernica

stuart153 wrote: »

OK, so I've had a response from PE. Letter is below:


Dear Sir/Madam,

LETTER BEFORE COUNTY COURT CLAIM

On the Date Removed we notified you that, as the registered keeper of this vehicle, you had become liable for this Parking Charge Notice (see above reference), which concerned a breach of the terms and conditions at Booths Windermere, on the Date Removed . This was because the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 required for keeper liability had been satisfied. Further to this, we advised you that the amount payable was £80.00 for the Parking Charge Notice and that you were required to make this payment or further action would be taken.

ParkingEye is still not in receipt of this payment. As such, we must inform you that unless payment of £80.00 is made within the next 14 days further action will be taken and court proceedings will be issued, which will incur further costs. These costs will include, but are not limited to £50.00 solicitor's costs and £15.00 court claim issue fee.

Yours faithfully

ParkingEye Legal Department.

..................
Page.2
..................
1) Please be aware this Letter Before County Court Claim is fully compliant with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct. We must draw attention to the practice direction at 'link to PD' and in particular paragraph 4 concerning the court's powers to impose sanctions for failure to comply with the Practice Direction.

2) It should also be noted that we are unable to use the POPLA service as Alternative Dispute Resolution at this stage. This is because POPLA will only accept an appeal after the motorist has made their appeal ('representations') to the operator who issued the Parking Charge Notice and that the operator has rejected these and issued a POPLA appeal form. You have not made representations to ParkingEye in the timescale required (i.e. 28 days from the date of our initial correspondence). You have been made aware of these timescales in our correspondence, which has stated;

"All appeals and complaints must be put in writing and should be forwarded to one of the addresses below. All appeals must be received within 28 days from the date of our initial correspondence. Please include all information to assist with the appeal. This may include: a store receipt from the day in qquestion; proof of purchases via a bank statement etc. If the appeal is unsuccessful, you will be advised in writing and you will also be provided with details of the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), their contact details and a unique appeal reference. Please note: The POPLA service is only available for parking events dated from 1st October 2012 and POPLA will not accept an appeal, if you have not appealed to ParkingEye in the first instance."

3) The loss claimed in this Letter Before County Court Claim is in line with guidelines set out by the British Parking Association. ParkingEye have also ensured that their Parking Charge amount is not punitive and set on the basis of a strong commercial justification for charges of this nature.

4) As court proceedings have not begun, and as no defence has been filed, it is impossible for ParkingEye to state exactly what documents will be relied on in court. These could include, but are not limited to; Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, British Parking Association Code of Practice, any defence submitted by you, any reply to defence submitted by us, any document proving ParkingEye's authorisation to operate on site and any signage plan or images of signage from the site in question. These will be provided at this stage and not sooner. Any commercially sensitive documentation will be provided if requested by the court, should this matter reach this stage.



Any thoughts on what my response to this should be?

Thank you all for your help and comments.

I have had the exact same letter through.
Please feel free to read through my thread too
forums. moneysavingexpert. com /showthread. php?p=62913709&posted=1#post62913709

You could reply to them "please explain why you are a load of d***heads."

I was taking a swig of water and choked, thanks for that! :rotfl: I don't think the judge would be too impressed, eh.

stuart153

Cheers, will take a look

Coupon-mad

EDITED to add that zzzLazyDaisy, who is a retired solicitor, suggested this sort of response to a LBCCC in post #27 on Krayzee's thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4730029

And that's a perfect response/acknowledgement to put the ball back in their court. Most of the regulars know I am not legally trained but here's my take on this:

So, my PLAN A:

- if the driver was a different person that the registered keeper who is getting these letters, this is your chance for the registered keeper to simply reply politely by return, denying liability and giving the name and address of the driver.

Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) that means the registered keeper is no longer liable and IMHO gives you a pretty watertight defence point (among others of course!!) if they may be thinking of choosing your case for court.

And then the driver simply has to wait for their own Notice to Driver to arrive in the post (bearing in mind that may be the first they will know about the matter). Then they appeal and they take it to POPLA (as is their right).

Bear in mind this only 'works' if the original fake PCN was a postal one, like Parking Eye's 99% of the time. Do not try this if it was a windscreen ticket at first because the PPC would argue that the driver has had their notice and their chance to appeal. Also it's not a 'magic bullet' as this is PPC World, a notorious industry of ex-clampers and chancers galore! The PPC might ignore it or pretend you are too late to name the driver (but again, that's looking bad for their court claim if it follows because the fact is that you are not too late to name the driver under the POFA, before court action commences).

But don't get silly and make up a driver who lives abroad or something. :cool:

Or my Plan B:



- If the rk cannot give the name & address of the driver as a different person, then the rk will have to reply.

I would say something like BUT PLEASE DON'T JUST COPY IT, EVERYONE CAN WRITE A LETTER!!:



date:

cc: Store Manager, Tesco or Aldi or The Range/OR whoever their client is in that car park {And DO SEND THEM A COPY. AND DO COMPLAIN TO THEM!}



Dear PE,
Re ticket number xxxxxxxxxxx

I am disappointed by your reply but in the interests of dealing with your allegation I have now spoken to {Tesco or Aldi or The Range or whoever} and as I was a customer that day, they are hopeful, as am I, that you will now cancel this unexpected ticket.

Your sudden unsolicited demand, followed by a threat of court, has caused a great deal of shock in our family and I am astonished that {Tesco or Aldi or The Range or whoever} have allowed this sort of thing to happen to customers. I will send them a copy of your reply because the lady on the Customer Service desk was as surprised as us that court was actually being threatened to a customer.

Firstly, I see you are refusing what is, as far as I can now see, the most suitable Alternative Dispute Resolution for this ticket, namely POPLA - which I have only just found out about after your latest letter arrived and I had time to research the matter. You might well be expected to know what POPLA is but I didn't - and nor did the lady in {Tesco or Aldi or The Range or whoever}.

I do now see that in your letter with prominent photos of my car and large lettering demanding money, you had a small sentence about 'POPLA' in a paragraph of small print, the main focus of which was to suggest that I should 'send a copy of my receipt or bank statement'. Even if I had seen that paragraph before now, which I didn't, you must understand that Bank Statements and receipts are documents which no sensible person would ever send to an unknown company. After all, in your letter you state that you will only produce your 'commercially sensitive documents' at court stage so you can hardly expect an ordinary shopper to rush to send you mine.

Of course it's reasonable for me to be able to check who you are before I even consider responding with documents - and as you have written when we were on holiday, we have sound reasons for not being able to reply before now. When I complained at the Customer Service desk the other day, I was told that Parking Eye does have cameras in the car park (who would have thought their car was being covertly filmed in a Supermarket car park?) and that you do issue 'tickets' but that these 'can be cancelled for genuine customers'. I am surprised that this is not mentioned on your signs which I noticed were on lampposts high above car level and as far as I could tell, do not inform customers that there is an exemption for 'genuine customers'. How was the driver supposed to know they were being filmed but that 'genuine customers are exempt' if your signs do not prominently point this out?

But now you suddenly say I am 'unable to use the POPLA service' and that 'this is because POPLA will only accept an appeal after the motorist has made their appeal ('representations') to the operator who issued the Parking Charge Notice and that the operator has rejected these and issued a POPLA appeal form.'

So I would like to do that then, please. Here is my appeal:

.......here you need to put it in your own words saying that the driver was shopping in the car park and had no idea about any time limit, never saw any signs as they were in a free car park at {Tesco or Aldi or The Range or whoever} {If you have receipts or a bank or card statement to prove your spend, then cover up your actual card details of course but take a copy and enclose it}. {If the driver - or a passenger that day - was elderly, disabled, were ill or have any long-term medical condition that would have slowed them down - if this was an overstay allegation - then tell them about it in the appeal even if it wasn't a 'mobility' problem and even if they had no Blue Badge}. {If you are a Mum of a new baby tell them you were delayed when breastfeeding the baby in the car when you first arrived and parked, to settle the baby before your shopping outing}. {If the delay was because the shop was busy, there were long queues, the CS desk was busy and you had to return something first or enquire about something, or if the till roll ran out, or you shopped and had lunch in the store's cafe, then tell them about it because you can say that any delay was caused by the Store themselves and neither they nor their agent should profit from that!}.

Finish the reply/appeal by saying summat like (BUT IN YOUR OWN WORDS!):

'I hope you will consider my appeal under the circumstances because there was an exceptional reason for the delay in replying to you and a reason for the apparent delay in the car park. I understand that the deadlines you refer to can be extended where there are exceptional circumstances or facts to ascertain. In my research I saw that, apparently, Parking Eye were very instrumental in getting the 35-day deadline extended for you to respond to appeals. So I trust you will extend to me the same courtesy because the initial '28 days to appeal' does not appear to be set in stone at all and I have read about situations where you have sent POPLA codes later on.

I will be sending copies of your letters to the Manager at {Tesco or Aldi or The Range or whoever}. And if you reject my appeal then there seems no reason why you should not, after all, send me a POPLA form and code in an attempt to resolve the matter outside of a court room. There is no reason to escalate this matter.

(up) Yours,

PRINT NAME'

stuart153

Thank you for the reply... I'll re-word what you have written and send it to PE



Thanks again

spacey2012

£50 solicitors fee, £325 + vat to pay the agency to represent them at court.
= £275 loss
If they do this 5000 times, they will be bankrupt.

What a bunch of dimwitted no neck ex-clampers.
Take it when they should have been in maths they were in the corridor stealing dinner money.