Advice please - Parking Eye parking Charge at M-Way services

devonlad

I hope that you dont pay them the £60. have a real good look through the site. there shouldnt be anything confusing about it. I myself had a ticket a while ago, followed the above folks adavice leaving me £100 better of.

Umkomaas

While I wouldn't criticise your decision to maybe pay this - your money, your choice, there is such an easy way to challenge the charge and get it removed.

Just a bit of reading (as suggested by Coupon-mad) a short appeal letter to PE, a bit more reading, a more detailed appeal to POPLA (loads of examples to copy and with support from the forum), appeal upheld, kerching, a hundred notes (still) in your pocket,

Computersaysno

Yeah that's real revenge for you....sending them £60.

Could you pls try and get your revenge on me in the same way.

In fact pls get your revenge on me as many times as you like.

Coupon-mad

Computersaysno wrote: »

Yeah that's real revenge for you....sending them £60.

Could you pls try and get your revenge on me in the same way.

In fact pls get your revenge on me as many times as you like.

And me, can I have £60 too?!

RavSC YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SEND MONEY FOR A PRIVATE PARKING TICKET!

What was so complicated & confusing anyway about advice re 'complaining to Welcome Break' as your first option (we have seen another one cancelled just yesterday like that!). And then sending an appeal which you have been given template examples of, then POPLA appeal (again, examples galore on the forum for you to use).

We win at POPLA, everyone here, every newbie does, against Parking Eye.

RavSC

Coupon-mad wrote: »

And me, can I have £60 too?!

What was so complicated & confusing anyway about advice re 'complaining to Welcome Break' as your first option

Hi. I complained to Welcome Break. They have passed the complaint on to their 'appeals' department. I am not optimistic.

And in terms of why spend £60? Well, I have already spent many hours on this. I would end up spending many more. Yes, it does stick in my throat sending them money but I am not a lawyer and, despite the much appreciated help on here, I am not really confident about what to write. So, although it annoys me (and costs me), it will allow me to (hopefully) close the matter and move on with my life.

But many thanks to all on here for the knowledgable and kind advice.

Rav.

Coupon-mad

Oh you are NOT still reckoning you are going to send them money are you? Two copy & pasted letters and you get it cancelled for Goodness' sake.

Also, payers of this scam always annoy me because YOU ARE THEN FUNDING THE NEXT TICKET AND COURT CASE AGAINST AN ELDERLY/VULNERABLE/POOR PERSON.

Look how simple it is to word a first challenge letter!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63152648#Comment_63152648

You can do it.

RavSC

Coupon-mad wrote: »

YOU ARE THEN FUNDING THE NEXT TICKET AND COURT CASE AGAINST AN ELDERLY/VULNERABLE/POOR PERSON.[/I]

OK. OK. You guys win! That comment about me funding their next court case shamed me into writing an appeal to Parking Eye. So, I will go through the appeal process - although I suspect that I don't have the legal nous to be one of the success stories on here. Well, at least, hopefully, I will make them work a bit harder for their filthy money.

I realise that the information in the 'soft appeal' is pretty irrelevant since they will reject it, anyway, but I put down whatever I could think of in the hope that I can recycle it for the POPLA appeal. For what it is worth, here is what I wrote ....

To Whom it May Concern,
I have received a letter from you containing a parking charge for the amount of £100. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle that you have named in your letter. This letter states that the parking charge is discounted to £60.00 if paid by 07/09/2013.
I register an appeal on the grounds that -:

1. Parking Eye has failed to contact the registered keeper of the vehicle within an acceptable time.
The letter also refers to a “recent parking charge notice” after “which this parking charge remains outstanding”.
I had not received any letter from Parking Eye prior to receiving this first letter. Since the one and only letter that I have received from you arrived AFTER your deadline date of 7/9/2013, this gave no opportunity to meet the specified deadline.

2. Having carried out an inspection of the Welcome Break Birchanger Green service station, it is clear that the signage in the car park is inadequate for the dark conditions at the time (23:49 to 05:55) when you allege the event occurred. It is easy to see how a driver can enter and exit the service car park without realising that a parking charge would be incurred, making it impossible for them to be aware of the terms and conditions and enter into any contract with you. Specifics of the inadequate parking signage include -:
(a) The first parking related sign on exiting the motorway has a street light positioned immediately BEHIND it making the sign impossible to read in the dark from a vehicle travelling at the 30 mph road speed limit. This contravenes the BPA guidelines which state “Signs should be readable and understandable at all times, including during the hours of darkness or at dusk if and when parking enforcement activity takes place at those times.”

In the unlikely event that a driver could decipher this sign in the dark and wet conditions on the night concerned, the fact that the sign is positioned many hundred yards before the car park and directly opposite a lorry park gives a car driver no reason to think that this sign has any relevance to the services car park, over two hundred yards further ahead, that he may, or may not, visit. This is evidenced by the fact that there are road markings,two hundred yards further ahead,with an arrow pointing to the “Car Park”. Your letter stated that, (as per the BPA code of practice), the signage is “clearly displayed at the entrance to … the car park”. This parking sign is (a) not clearly displayed and (b) is not “at the entrance” to the car park.

(b) The second parking related sign is located approximately 20 yards before the entrance. This sign has “A.N.P.R”. In bold large font. In fainter font, beneath this, it says “Automatic Number Plate Recognition in Operation”. None of the Group 1 Entrance sign information required by the BPA Code of Practice is displayed on this sign.
The BPA code of practice also states that “Your signs at the car park must tell drivers that you are using this [ANPR] technology and what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for”. This is patently not the case, since there is no readable signage that states “what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for”
(If, in fact, the miniscule print at the foot of the signage gives a reason for the ANPR, it would require a driver to stop their car and walk to the sign with a hand torch to read the miniscule font in the dark, so cannot be considered adequate.)
This sign not only breaches the BPA code of practice but as it is also the closest sign, on the roadside, to the entrance, it contradicts your statement that “signage … is clearly displayed at the entrance to … the car park, states that this is private land, the car park is managed by Parking Eye and those parking …. must pay applicable tarrifs for longer”. None of this information is available to the passing motorist.

(c) Opposite the entrance to the car park, there is a parking sign that is on the verge next to the adjacent lorry park. This sign is completely unlit and obscured from the car park entrance by the branches of a tree. In the unlikely event that the sign could be seen by a car driver entering the car park, its position (three feet from the lorry park) and the fact that it is angled AWAY from the car park and towards the lorry park make it logical to assume that this sign relates exclusively to the lorry car park. I am sure that parking Eye cannot consider this to be signage for the car park since it contravenes the BPA guideline that the entrance sign “The sign should be placed so that it is readable by drivers without their needing to look away from the road ahead.” This angle and distance of this sign makes it impossible to safely read this sign while driving.

(d) In addition to the lack of signage at the entrance to the car park, the signage within the car park is also impossible to see in dark conditions from certain bays. All parking signs are locate behind parking bays at a height that makes them completely obscured if a van or high vehicle uses that bay. Furthermore, (having been given no indication of parking charges at the entrance), there are no signs displayed until the eighth bay of each row of parking. This means that any cars parking in the first eight rows, during the hours of darkness, have no notification that there are parking restrictions within the car park.

3. - The charge does not represent any form of loss and as such it is punitive and therefore a PENALTY.

In conclusion, I require that you confirm acceptance of this challenge and cancel the charge, or provide a POPLA verification code, where a challenge will be mounted.

No further correspondence will be entered into with you on this matter. If nothing further is received from you within 35 days of the date of this letter it will be assumed the challenge is accepted and the charge cancelled.

Failure to send a POPLA code would be a breach of the BPA Code of Practice. Be advised that failure to comply with a code of conduct to which you have committed is a prohibited practice under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and I would not hesitate to report such a breach to the BPA, DVLA and Trading Standards.

Yours faithfully, etc.

---

Phew. I would really much rather be reading a book than doing this, but you have shamed me into it!

Rav.

Guys_Dad

That's a decent letter. No half measures there then.!

Can I just say that if you had paid the £60 when they wanted £100 I suspect that the scenario of you sending £60 would be them accepting it but still demanding the rest as the psychology would be that you had already demonstrated you wanted to avoid court and would cough up the rest.

RavSC

You guys were right. I got a letter back from Welcome Break saying that they would accept the £10 parking fee + £10 admin charge.

I know that, some might argue that the fact that the signage wasn't visible on a dark and rainy night means I should pay nothing but I don't mind paying the parking fee and the admin fee is not unreasonable for their quick and polite email responses.

They have said that Parking Eye will be contacting me to say how the money should be paid so it may not be over yet, but, as far as I am concerned, this is a fair result.

Thanks all, for the good advice and support and convincing me that this was a battle worth fighting.

RavSc

Guys_Dad

I would agree that pragmatically that is a reasonable result given that the only extra cost over what you should have paid is £10 and no hassle.