Firemanbill's Advice - A Possible troll, please treat his advice with extreme caution

Guys_Dad

That is a start anyway.

If you could be serious for just a couple of posts, all of us here are not at odds with what you claim to be trying to achieve. The contributors have as much anger at PPC's as you do.

Not every poster has the resources to take a chance on losing at court and some are not strong enough to face such an imagined ordeal.

That is why we advise appealing through POPLA as it is all done in writing and as c-m says, since we and the adjudicators have gained experience of the mistakes or procedural clangers that PPC's make, we genuinely have a great track record of wins that any law firm would be proud of.

In addition it costs the PPC money and I believe the BPA over £100 for each case. That is why they try to avoid giving out POPLA codes. And of course adjudications are only binding on the PPC. If people lose, then they still can have their day in court if the PPC goes that far.

As I and others have said, we do seem to be helping people get these monkeys off their backs. Ignore is currently safe for many PPC's who settle for debt collector letters, but others do issue court papers. That is when a lot of people give in and pay up as not all are as resolute or we'll funded as you are.

So, if you are genuine then please consider this approach and remember that the enemy is the Parking Industry, not us on here.

esmerobbo

Firemanbill your assumption that a CCJ damaging your credit history is easy to deal with as "you just don't buy anything you can't afford". May I ask if you have ever tried buying or renting a house, or applied for some jobs, with a poor credit history?

Your advice to ignore and not use popla suited you, it is my opinion that it is best to use popla and then if you wish then ignore them.

I would estimate the bulk of Parking eyes claims issued are against those who chose to ignore completely, or went about a poor mitigating appeal. I am sure there possibly are some but I haven't seen one yet were it is against someone who lost at popla!

Even if after an appeal they did issue a claim it would work in your favour if a Judge believes you had taken a reasonable approach to dealing with the issue before it got too court.

I have never had a charge as a driver, but I had a fleet of vehicle and had possibly 15 over the years never paid one ignored most had fun with others, and even got paid of one for my time.

However if I got one now I would definitely use popla and given the small chance I lost then the courts.

Firemanbill

OK, fair point.

What I find offensive is that this threat was made in a letter plastered with bold type and red ink designed to intimidate. We should remind the naive that it doesn't follow that losing a county court hearing results automatically in the destruction of ones credit rating. To suggest otherwise in a threatening letter is just lying to cow the timid into submission.

I believe that that is wrong and should be dealt with firmly. On another post, someone said they were "in tears" because of the threat of legal action and this is what will continue to happen until these cowboys are reined in. POPLA will not do that for us. Out of 15,000 cases, according to the ITV report less than 50% are now being decided in favour of the motorist.

You don't know anything about my case and that's because I don't fully trust this site. You might not want to acknowledge it but the scammers do come here and they do take notes so I'll keep my powder dry on that one, thank you. But let's image for a moment that I believe that I have a cast iron defence. If I play the game their way (BPA funds POPLA, remember) statistically I still have a less than 50% chance of winning - and after I lose, I am still at risk of being taken to court. The difference now though is that they have all my defence points in front of them and all the time they need to prepare their assault.

If I ignore them completely, they'll never know what I am going to say until they send me a properly constituted letter before action. Based on the last full year's statistics there were fewer than 50 prosecutions out of 1,900,000 tickets issued. The odds are heavily stacked in favour of ignoring. I'm sorry to upset the applecart but you can't ignore the maths. You have a less than 50:50 chance of winning at POPLA and a 1 in 380,000 chance of being taken to court if you refuse to play ball. Even if you lose you simply accept defeat gracefully, pay the £150 and £65 in costs and hold your head high knowing that you didn't go down without a fight. And you'll still have your credit rating intact.

FB

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

No your assertion about having less then a 50/50.chance of winning is wrong. It's not a lottery , eacg case is decided on the facts. If you put in the right bits you win

HO87

Firemanbill wrote: »

OK, fair point.

What I find offensive is that this threat was made in a letter plastered with bold type and red ink designed to intimidate. We should remind the naive that it doesn't follow that losing a county court hearing results automatically in the destruction of ones credit rating. To suggest otherwise in a threatening letter is just lying to cow the timid into submission.

I believe that that is wrong and should be dealt with firmly. On another post, someone said they were "in tears" because of the threat of legal action and this is what will continue to happen until these cowboys are reined in. POPLA will not do that for us. Out of 15,000 cases, according to the ITV report less than 50% are now being decided in favour of the motorist.

You don't know anything about my case and that's because I don't fully trust this site. You might not want to ackowledge it but the scammers do come here and they do take notes so I'll keep my powder dry on that one, thank you. But let's image for a moment that I believe that I have a cast iron defence. If I play the game their way (BPA funds POPLA, remember) statistically I still have a less than 50% chance of winning - and after I lose, I am still at risk of being taken to court. The difference now though is that they have all my defence points in front of them and all the time they need to prepare their assault.

If I ignore them completely, they'll never know what I am going to say until they send me a properly constituted letter before action. Based on the last full year's statistics there were fewer than 50 prosecutions out of 1,900,000 tickets issued. The odds are heavily stacked in favour of ignoring. I'm sorry to upset the applecart but you can't ignore the maths. You have a less than 50:50 chance of winning at POPLA and a 1 in 380,000 chance of being taken to court if you refuse to play ball. Even if you lose you simply accept defeat gracefully, pay the £150 and £65 in costs and hold your head high knowing that you didn't go down without a fight. And you'll still have your credit rating intact.

FB

I think you are assuming that in a POPLA appeal all potential defence points would be disclosed. That is not the way it works. Again, its horses for courses.

michaelalou

There's also the point of complaining to landlowners/ceo's etc before even considering POPLA...

zzzLazyDaisy

Firemanbill wrote: »

Based on the last full year's statistics there were fewer than 50 prosecutions out of 1,900,000 tickets issued. The odds are heavily stacked in favour of ignoring. I'm sorry to upset the applecart but you can't ignore the maths. You have a less than 50:50 chance of winning at POPLA and a 1 in 380,000 chance of being taken to court if you refuse to play ball
FB

That might be the case if you take an average over the past 12 months. I'm not arguing with that, I can't be bothered to check.

What you are ignoring is that over the past SIX months, forum assisted motorists have won at POPLA 100% of the time (see the LAST six months posts on the POPLA decisions thread, not the first one!)

Also before June of this year court claims by PPCs were comparatively rare, but in the past three months or so PE has been filing hundreds of claims a week, and since then other PPCs that previously had no history of doing court, have also jumped on the bandwagon.

If you prefer to skew the figures over the past 12 months to prove a point, go ahead. But as the financial world is so fond of saying 'past performance is no guarantee of future results'. The next 12 month profile will show a very different picture, but that is academic - people need our UP-TO-DATE assistance now, not in 12 months time.

Daisy

Firemanbill

kirkbyinfurnesslad wrote: »

No your assertion about having less then a 50/50.chance of winning is wrong. It's not a lottery , eacg case is decided on the facts. If you put in the right bits you win

"Figures obtained by ITV News Meridian reveal almost 14,000 drivers have taken cases to an independent appeals panel. Of the cases heard, almost half have been won by drivers."

In their 6 month report signed in June by Henry Michael Greenslade, POPLA claimed a 54% success rate for the motorist. According to the above story that figure has reduced to less than 50%. There a trend there, n'est-ce que pas?

You can't argue with these numbers - at present it's getting worse, rather than better, for the appellant motorist.

Firemanbill

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

But as the financial world is so fond of saying 'past performance is no guarantee of future results'. The next 12 month profile will show a very different picture, but that is academic - people need our UP-TO-DATE assistance now, not in 12 months time.

Daisy

Daisy, what are you going to advise when POPLA collapses?

Folkiedave

The question should not be to Daisy whose track record in these things is immaculate and she should be given a huge vote of thanks.

It should be directed to the BPA LTd. because they HAVE TO HAVE an appeals company!

From the POPLA website:

"The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 was passed by Parliament in order to return to the British public, ‘freedoms’ they feel other legislation has eroded or removed over time.

The Act deals with a wide range of issues and one of those is the ban on immobilising (‘clamping’) or removing (‘towing-away’), without lawful authority, vehicles that are parked private land.

The Act also introduced the concept of 'keeper liability' for vehicles parked on private land. However, for this, there had to be an independent appeals service, provided by funding from the parking industry.

That independent service is known as Parking on Private Land Appeals or POPLA."

The audit taking place at the moment:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk

seems to be about the fact that London Councils cannot go into private business like this outside the London area.

My reading of this is that if it collapses and until there is a replacement - then things revert back to driver's liability. And then they will have to find out who is driving.