Has there been a change in the usual "don't pay" advice?

AntonM

I have now received replies to my emailed letter to British Parking about the two incidents.

They say, re Smart Parking, that "In order to fulfil the requirements of POFA then the operator must send out a parking charge notice/notice to keeper within 14 days. The contravention happened on the 26th May and the letter was sent on the 3rd June. This is within the 14 day period." The time period calculation is obviously correct.

Re TPS, they say "We have investigated your complaint with Total Parking Solutions Ltd and they have advised a ticket was placed on your vehicle at the time of the alleged contravention. When no response was received to this a Notice to Keeper was sent out on the 16th September. This is within the timeframes set out by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012." The alleged contravention was 10th August, as per their own correspondence, and 16th Sept is more than 14 days from that - unless the time period they refer to is from the alleged offence to the ticket being put on the window? In any event, as I mentioned previously, TPS quotes times inconsistently, and indeed actually incorrectly, in their various correspondence.

I'd be very grateful for advice on where to go from here, in both cases, please?

Anton

spacey2012

Indeed and parking Eye have a lot of Spankings in the pipeline as they run in to the people that have filed robust legal defences.
This is not going to be a good next few weeks for parking eye and they know it.
The law on contracts and illicit penalties has not changed nor has the right to sit in audience and act in litigation where you have no interest.

I am ordering popcorn, the parking eye chickens are here to roost.

Umkomaas

spacey2012 wrote: »

Indeed and parking Eye have a lot of Spankings in the pipeline as they run in to the people that have filed robust legal defences.
This is not going to be a good next few weeks for parking eye and they know it.
The law on contracts and illicit penalties has not changed nor has the right to sit in audience and act in litigation where you have no interest.

I am ordering popcorn, the parking eye chickens are here to roost.

Not sure how you've got PE in here spacey, let me in on the brand of sauce .

Coupon-mad

AntonM wrote: »

I have now received replies to my emailed letter to British Parking about the two incidents.

They say, re Smart Parking, that "In order to fulfil the requirements of POFA then the operator must send out a parking charge notice/notice to keeper within 14 days. The contravention happened on the 26th May and the letter was sent on the 3rd June. This is within the 14 day period." The time period calculation is obviously correct.

Re TPS, they say "We have investigated your complaint with Total Parking Solutions Ltd and they have advised a ticket was placed on your vehicle at the time of the alleged contravention. When no response was received to this a Notice to Keeper was sent out on the 16th September. This is within the timeframes set out by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012." The alleged contravention was 10th August, as per their own correspondence, and 16th Sept is more than 14 days from that - unless the time period they refer to is from the alleged offence to the ticket being put on the window? In any event, as I mentioned previously, TPS quotes times inconsistently, and indeed actually incorrectly, in their various correspondence.

I'd be very grateful for advice on where to go from here, in both cases, please?

Anton

Two different timelines apply, depends on whether there was a windscreen ticket:

http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/keeper-liability/

Interesting that the BPA has simply focussed on the time of the NTK/PCN letters whereas your complaint said 'in neither case have Smart nor TPS actually ever sent me a compliant Notice to Keeper within the required timeframe'.

So if you want to pursue the BPA complaint further you'd have to identify non-compliance in the first letters, in both cases. Simply done by comparing the exact wording with that parkingcowboys link. If a Notice misses out words from POFA 2012 then it's worth a follow up to Steve at the BPA.

If you would rather rattle the cages of the Supermarket Head Offices then try that assertively, with proof of purchase if you have a Bank Statement from that time. If no proof of purchase don't let it stop you; people here didn't!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4766249

If you are getting debt collector letters then this thread has suggested 'get lost' robust response letters, written by retired solicitor zzzLazyDaisy:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4814108

HTH with some options of attack for you to get these quashed. Don't pay them!

AntonM

Of the two incidents, the one that I was most concerned about was the one at Asda (Smart Parking), as it looked to me to be the least amenable to a defence. So, having nothing to lose by it, I went to Asda today to ask them to rescind it. It took a lot of talking to the local service manager, along the lines of an earlier post and, to their credit, when the service manager called head office, they agreed to rescind it, and the service manager annotated the original PCN letter to that effect (so I have positive proof).

The other one, from TPS, has me slightly less worried, mainly because the times shown on the window ticket are different from those shown on the subsequent letters. The window ticket says "From 13:00 to 13:45", while the subsequent letters say "From 13:30 to 13:45". Would that quite marked discrepancy not invalidate their claim? I did not include a scan of the window ticket in my earlier email to Steve, as I think Coupon-mad said I should not send only the letters and not the window ticket? Should I raise the disparity in times with Steve, and send him a scan of the window ticket now?

The reason given for the penalty by TPS is "The driver was observed leaving site while the vehicle remained parked on the premises", on both the window ticket and the letters. Only the times given are different.

Coupon-mad

You could do, if you say that the driver has passed you the ticket and so there are further discrepancies to report.

AntonM

Please forgive my repeated postings on this topic, but I want to be sure that I don't do something stupid which compromises my position.

I had a reply from AOS, acknowledging the time differences between the ticket and the letter, and asking if I had appealed this with the operator. AOS added that this would be the correct procedure to follow if I am disputing the parking charge notice and are looking to get the charge cancelled.

I presume by "the operator" they mean TPS. I have the impression, though, that this forum's advice is usually along the lines of not writing to the operator, but rather to go "over their heads", as I have been doing in following Coupon-mad's good advice.

Should I write to TPS, or revert to Steve/AOS?

Coupon-mad

Say no, neither the driver nor keeper 'appealed' because these are invoices not PCNs in the real (Council) sense and were not worth a response at the time; there is no statute behind them so no-one is obliged to appeal an invoice. Unlike a member of the public, an AOS member is however, obliged to follow 'correct procedure' and neither of these companies did, hence the complaint to the BPA Ltd, as is your right whether or not any appeal was ever submitted.

In any case, when you got the letters you researched POFA 2012 and found the NTK letters were non-compliant and there was (and still is) no case to answer as registered keeper. In the case of the Smart Parking one, the principal - Asda - has cancelled it of course as the allegation and threats had no merit and the driver was a genuine customer.

Now you are left annoyed by the harassment of the TPS one, which alleges that the driver 'left the site' but TPS never produced any evidence of that allegation whatsoever - clearly if they are going to claim the driver and all passengers were off-site then much will depend on evidence (and compliance with the BOA CoP). They've failed, and as you are the keeper they've failed to establish keeper liability too, due to the flawed Notice to Keeper which followed.

And the driver denies leaving the site and there was no defined boundary on the signage anyway. The driver (who will remain unnamed) has shown you the original ticket now, which was ignored because the driver knows it was wrong - a spurious allegation. And you have now noticed a further discrepancy - the timings are different from the info posted to you as keeper - which is a fundamental breach of the POFA2012 paragraph 8 because a Notice to Keeper MUST re-state the period of parking which was on the original 'ticket'. Frankly, this vital error and other flaws in the NTK wording makes this continued contact with you nothing more than harassment. Say that the only letter you intend to send TPS is a 'cease and desist' letter to stop the harassment of a registered keeper where there is no keeper liability, due to their own failures of procedure. But as the BPA Ltd are keen to 'drive up standards' in this industry you were hoping a complaint & full investigation of this matter would be enough to quash it without you having to waste any more time over the matter.

AntonM

Thanks for that, Coupon-mad.

I sent a letter along those lines to Steve, which he forwarded to AOS. In their reply to me, AOS remain adamant that I "do need to send in an appeal" if I want to get the ticket cancelled. AOS add that the correct procedure would be to appeal to the operator and if this is rejected they will then provide me with details of how to appeal to POPLA. Also, AOS say they do not have the authority to ask the operator to cancel the ticket and can only investigate breaches of their Code of Practice, and consequently strongly suggest that I appeal the parking charge notice. AOS also says they will be contacting the operator in regards to the code breach.

Should I just go straight to the cease and desist letter? I've just recently had a demand for payment from Debt Recovery Plus.

Coupon-mad

It's up to you, whatever sort of fightback works for you really. You could even send an 'appeal' as keeper to TPS now saying the BPA told you that you still could!