Charged £90 for parking in a free car park!

leogirl87

I parked my car at a Retail park in a High Street in West London on the 12/6/13.

• The car park is free and customers are only allowed to stay there for two hours. They don't give you a ticket.

• I overstayed for 28 mins. However, the park had plenty of spaces and there is an ALDI which has free parking, 10 metres away.

• There is a sign that is positioned at the entrance of the car park, but unless you slow down to a crawl you will drive right passit (I have video evidence of another car doing this).

• The "terms and conditions" are posted around the car park but they differ on each sign. Two say the penalty would be £70.00 and two say £90.00. I only noticed this today.

• I don't have a receipt to show I was a customer.

I sent a copy of the militant letter I found on this website, which was rejected. Now I have four hours to submit my claim to POPLA.

I have two options:

1. The parking charge (ticket) exceeded the appropriate amount
2. The vehicle was not improperly parked

I want to argue that the charge is excessive, because there is no way I should pay £90.00, for overstaying for 30 mins in a free car park that was half empty, on a school day.

Alternatively, I could argue the T & C's were easy to miss because drivers usually drive straight past the sign. The other signs have different penalties. and \are very confusing.

This website has been a godsend and any help would be appreciated.

Guys_Dad

You have 4 hours to make your POPLA appeal ?? Just what have you been doing since your rejection from the PPC was received?

The best thing you can do is to quote the signage confusion £70/£90, add the recent POPLA Decisions from the sticky at the top of the forum that cover not real costs and also demanding that they produce a contract.

But to come on here on a Friday night with a 4 hour deadline - like it says your problems doesn't become our emergency.

HappyMJ

leogirl87 wrote: »

I sent a copy of the militant letter I found on this website, which was rejected. Now I have four hours to submit my claim to POPLA.

You don't have to appeal to POPLA. I doubt you are going to get your appeal completed in time so just take the other option and that is to ignore...until the PPC issues you court papers from the county court. If you get them then come back here.

leogirl87

Guys_Dad wrote: »

You have 4 hours to make your POPLA appeal ?? Just what have you been doing since your rejection from the PPC was received?

The best thing you can do is to quote the signage confusion £70/£90, add the recent POPLA Decisions from the sticky at the top of the forum that cover not real costs and also demanding that they produce a contract.

But to come on here on a Friday night with a 4 hour deadline - like it says your problems doesn't become our emergency.

Hi Guys Dad. I've drafted my appeal I am just looking to see what the best argument is.

HappyMJ

leogirl87 wrote: »

Hi Guys Dad. I've drafted my appeal I am just looking to see what the best argument is.

Excessive charges and insufficient signage as you have said will be fine.

You aren't supposed to read all the T's and C's whilst driving in your car. There are too many T's and C's to take it all in. The sign on entry doesn't have to say too much. You are allowed to park up get out of your car and read the signage then decide if you want to stay or not. If you decide to leave there is no charge. They usually give you a 20 minute grace period for this....but anyhow it's a free car park so it doesn't really matter their loss is zero.

You don't need receipts. You don't even have to spend anything at the retail park at all to be able to park there. You're supposed to visit the shops but that isn't essential either.

Guys_Dad

leogirl87 wrote: »

Hi Guys Dad. I've drafted my appeal I am just looking to see what the best argument is.

OK.

Do as I suggested and here is Custard Pie's signature

Search my post " PoPLA evidence - What to submit" on what is a good defense for a PoPLA appeal.

Worth doing and wish you had come on before to give us time to help properly.

leogirl87

HappyMJ wrote: »

You don't have to appeal to POPLA. I doubt you are going to get your appeal completed in time so just take the other option and that is to ignore...until the PPC issues you court papers from the county court. If you get them then come back here.

Ok how does that work. If I ignore them do they eventually drop the issue?
If it goes to court will I be able to appeal? I don't want it to affect my credit rating.

Kite2010

Depends which PPC issued the ticket, sounds a bit like Parking Eye who are doing court.

Easiest way is to appeal to POPLA with a strong case, the PPC will most likely lose and you don't have to worrry.

For it to affect your credit rating, the following must happen.
1 - The PPC takes you to court
2 - The PPC wins in court
3 - You refuse to pay what the judge orders within 28 days

Coupon-mad

leogirl87 wrote: »

Ok how does that work. If I ignore them do they eventually drop the issue?
If it goes to court will I be able to appeal? I don't want it to affect my credit rating.

I seriously hope you stopped faffing about and appealed to POPLA, if not do it first thing in the morning and hope they accept it for a decision:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62180281#Comment_62180281

If you don't want repercussions like court, you need to win at POPLA; right now you are close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...