Parking Eye fine at Membury services, M4

Absolutely_Fuming

So have I completely blown my chances of a successful appeal now by writing to the CEO? I still have until January 1st to appeal to Parking Eye to get a POPLA code (or pay £60 by tomorrow). I was intending to phone the regional manager today, as I've not heard from either of them, to try and get it cancelled but from what you say he'll more than likely have received 'directions' from the CEO by now.

Half_way

the complaint to the store is just another angle to go on, and from your end is separate to the complaint to the parking contractor.

Umkomaas

Absolutely_Fuming wrote: »

So have I completely blown my chances of a successful appeal now by writing to the CEO? I still have until January 1st to appeal to Parking Eye to get a POPLA code (or pay £60 by tomorrow). I was intending to phone the regional manager today, as I've not heard from either of them, to try and get it cancelled but from what you say he'll more than likely have received 'directions' from the CEO by now.

No, you haven't 'blown your chances of a successful appeal'; your dealing with Welcome Break is in parallel with following the PE appeal process. One should not be ignored in favour of the other, so you need to get in your soft appeal to PE - soft appeals are covered in Coupon's NEWBIES - READ THIS FIRST sticky.

So please don't take your eye off the ball in just pursuing WB; miss the PE appeal date and you're making more hoops for yourself to jump through.

android26

Frankly, from what I've read recently, you have more chance of winning at POPLA than getting WB to quash it, so concentrate equally on putting in an initial appeal to PE.

If you can get WB to overturn it, that's great as it saves you hassle. I would still advise you to learn a bit about how this scam works, just so you may be aware next time or to pass a little knowledge on to friends and relatives. For instance, most peoples gut reaction if they appeal, is purely on mitigating circumstances, as we expect to appeal to someone's common sense. Who would ever think to argue about contract law?

Good luck.

Coupon-mad

Absolutely_Fuming wrote: »

So have I completely blown my chances of a successful appeal now by writing to the CEO? I still have until January 1st to appeal to Parking Eye to get a POPLA code...

No, another poster who did the same as you simply tried - as well - a quick, ''polite but miffed'' (NOT FUMING!) phone call to the Head office of WB (and didn't mention the email to the CEO). They cancelled it.

You won't be paying PE so I have removed that part of your sentence above! But you should simply be sending an online appeal as registered keeper like everyone else does, then relaxing over the Christmas break knowing you've done all you can so far. A dozen linked examples of 'first appeals' are in the ''NEWBIES READ THIS FIRST'' thread at the top of the parking forum. You seem to have taken your eye off the ball re the necessary appeal - and it can be done in 5 minutes flat.

Absolutely_Fuming

I twice tried phoning the manager at Membury Services yesterday but they wouldn't or couldn't put me through to him. I was told that he didn't have a direct line and so they couldn't put me through so they'd have to get him to phone me back - which he didn't. I'm not going to bother with WB again, instead I'll concentrate on dealing with Parking Eye instead. Below is my "soft" appeal to them so I'd be grateful if someone could check it over for me to make sure it's OK or to suggest how it could be tweaked if necessary.

You will see that I've made reference to the signs they presumably have but since I've never actually seen them I have no idea whether or not my description is correct. Supposing they've actually got huge ones up there now, how would I stand then?

I refer to a Parking Charge Notice, reference number xxxxxx/xxxxxx, which I, as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, have recently received from you regarding to an alleged overstay at the Membury Services M4 car park.

You appear to think that motorists have automatically been entered into some kind of a contract with you simply by driving their cars into the Membury Services car park, but this cannot possibly be the case. First of all you don't own the land that the car park is built upon and therefore you have no legal right to enter into any kind of a contract with anyone regarding how the land is used.

Secondly any contract requires that all parties are a) aware of its existence and b) are fully informed and aware of its terms and conditions. The signs that you have erected to inform motorists of the alleged contract are too small and too high up to be noticed or read by motorists passing by them in moving vehicles particularly in the dark. The characters are too small to be read and properly understood from inside a moving car.

Thirdly a parking charge must be a genuine pre-estimate of loss and may not be set at higher levels than necessary to recover business losses and should not be used to penalise the driver. Moreover the charge can only be used to cover losses due to the alleged breach of contract, which was 34 minutes in this case. Welcome Break certainly wouldn't have incurred any losses whatsoever since at that time of night the car park was only about ten percent full so they wouldn't have lost any custom due to motorists being unable to find parking spaces. As far as I can see the only possible losses to Parking Eye would be those involved in sending out the Parking Charge Notice, i.e. a sheet of paper, a few microlitres of printer ink, an envelope, the cost of postage and about five minutes of someone's time. Charging £100 for this is outrageous.

Finally your allegations here are based upon two ANPR images supposedly showing the vehicle entering and leaving the car park at specific times. There was in fact no sign of the actual vehicle on either picture as they were nothing more than black squares showing disembodied vehicle number plates. You have already had at least one case dismissed due to faulty synchronisation between your cameras and timers and so I would question the accuracy and maintenance of your equipment in this case also.

Since there was clearly no demonstrable loss to anyone and as no contract ever existed you are required to cancel this charge with immediate effect. Alternatively, I expect you to send me a POPLA code so that I can take this appeal further.

Umkomaas

Soft appeal is fine; it's highly unlikely to deliver anything other than a rejection and a POPLA code. If anything it's longer than most and possibly not all of it is essential, given the purpose of it. But you do need to make it clear this is your (one and only) appeal to PE; you don't want protracted correspondence saying they need more information before they can make a decision.

So please make this clear, either at the start or at the end of your appeal.

HTH

Absolutely_Fuming

This might be a stupid question but I presume it's free to me to appeal to POPLA?

Coupon-mad

Yes of course. And you can say what you like about the signs, you know they'll be stupidly high, unlit and not compliant with the Dept for Transport requirements for an MSA (Motorway Service Area) because PE signs always are like that.

If you search this forum for the acronym MSA you will find previous POPLA appeals tailored specifically for such a site where the DFT has signage rules...but no need for that yet, the POPLA win will be in 2014.

Umkomaas

Absolutely_Fuming wrote: »

This might be a stupid question but I presume it's free to me to appeal to POPLA?

Absolutely, but it costs the PPC £27 + VAT, and the BPA around £100 per appeal

And, the other thing to bear in mind is that the POPLA decision is binding on the PPC, but (in the highly unlikely even of losing) NOT on you.

But, you're not going to lose as long as you work alongside advice from here and show us your draft before submitting it to POPLA.