ParkingEye charge for overstaying at retail park

Kavafy

Hi everyone,

After reading through a load of posts I thought I'd share my situation to see what the experts recommend.

• I was caught on camera parking for 3h11m in a retail park car park, in England, in my car. There are small but visible signs saying the limit for free parking is 3 hours. 11 minutes over the limit.
• This took place on 30/12/13 and I received the invoice for £100 yesterday, 8/1/13. It has photos of the car with the timings written on them.
• I have one receipt from that day but I don't think I can cover the full time spent. The receipt is from the early part of that time - probably the first hour.
• The invoice does not talk about a "breach" of contract so I am worried that the NGPEOL defence will not work.
• Here is what the wording is:

By remaining at the car park for longer than the stay authorised or without authorisation, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the signage, the Parking Charge is now payable to ParkingEye Ltd (as the creditor).

• I am not sure what this is asserting exactly but it seems to be saying that I have effectively agreed to pay £100 by staying longer than 3 hours.
• I have already tried complaining to the manager of the shop in question but he was not interested and basically said it was my fault for taking too long.

Does anyone have a view on my next steps?

Thanks very much to all.

K

SevenTowers

Kavafy wrote: »

Hi everyone,
I have already tried complaining to the manager of the shop in question but he was not interested and basically said it was my fault for taking too long.
K

That is quite disgraceful, but don't let it drop there, complain, bitterly to his head office and take your business else where.

Just follow the advice in the Newbies thread;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822

Appeal to PE, when they reject, forum guided appeal to POPLA wit 100% gurantee of winning.

IS there anybody with a disability/breast feeding mother etc invoved? if so they (PE/Shopowner) could be in big trouble.

Redx

please read the most important thread NEWBIES - READ THIS FIRST near the top of the forum

its a sticky thread about the 4th one down

you are allowed a grace period of about 10 minutes or so to park anyway , and in any case the charge is not a GPEOL

once you have checked similar threads against PE on the same car park, especially winners, come back with your next appeal stage to PE , making sure this is done within their time limits for appeal

also check you received the postal NTK within 14 days of the date of the incident too

also complain to the landowner too, never mind any shops

4consumerrights

Which retail park is this- you can search the name using forum tools. Many of the large retail shopping parks have managing agents in place such as Savills / ESH etc on behalf of the landowner - complaints to them are usually very effective at getting the charge cancelled.

Check out coupons other excellent sticky thread - Successful complaints..... (also linked in Newbie thread).

And yes an Appeal to Parking Eye as Registered Keeper without identifying the driver (keep in third person) needs to be sent within the time frame ...

eg:

PCN
Reg No:

Dear Sirs,

I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle and deny all liability to pay the parking charge sent to me on .............

I appeal liability on the following grounds:

Your charge does not represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss for the alleged breach as there is no charge for parking at the site and the driver was a genuine customer that day. (copy receipt from one shop enclosed)

Your signage is not BPA compliant and the driver did not enter a contract with you on the day in question.

The alleged overstay breaches the minimum grace periods allowed by the BPA's code of practice and also the ANPR system is flawed due to there being no synchronised live timings between taking the photographs and stamping the time via a computer.

Parking Eye is merely acting as an agent on behalf on the landowner and does not have any proprietary interest in the land in question nor does it have the requisite authority or legal standing to pursue these charges through court.

In view of the above, I invite you to cancel this parking charge now, however should you refuse then a POPLA code should be supplied by return.

The points raised in my letter will form the basis of my POPLA appeal, and as you are aware that in every case where no genuine pre-estimate of loss is challenged, POPLA upholds the appeal in favour of the appellant.

I look forward to receiving your written confirmation by return, however should you continue to pursue this matter, then please be aware I reserve the right to raise my own claim for damages should my POPLA appeal be successful. These costs will include my time at a court rate of £18 per hour in dealing with this matter at POPLA and any subsequent time spent in further pursuing the payment of my costs. The costs I may claim are not exhaustive but will include postage, stationery, travel and legal costs, and by continuing to pursue this parking charge, you agree to these charges, when I prevail.

Yours faithfully


squiggle name (don't let them see real signature)

registered keeper

Coupon-mad

SevenTowers wrote: »

IS there anybody with a disability/breast feeding mother etc invoved? if so they (PE/Shopowner) could be in big trouble.

Indeed they could, if so. Hopefully the OP has now read the 'Private parking ticket? Newbies please read this first!' guidance a couple of times & understands the simple appeals process using examples of pre-written templates, suitably tweaked.

Kavafy

Hi all,

Thanks very much for your help. Let me say first that I most certainly did read the newbie thread and several examples of letters. I wouldn't want you to think that your effort is going to waste - it isn't and it's so heartening to see some fightback against these punitive charges.

There was no-one disabled or breastfeeding in the car. I will try again with the shop (in Brent Cross South Retail Park) and see what happens.

My concern is what I said in my first post - that the letter doesn't talk in terms of breach of contract so perhaps the NGPEOL defence doesn't fit this case. With that said, I suppose it can't do any harm to try multiple lines of defence and see what sticks, so I have today sent a letter to ParkingEye using their online form. I used the points set out by 4consumerrights in their post with some additional bits that I found on the forum, so thank you all for that. How to I use the forum "thank" system?

I'll let you know what happens - thanks again.

K

4consumerrights

My concern is what I said in my first post - that the letter doesn't talk in terms of breach of contract so perhaps the NGPEOL defence doesn't fit this case.

Parking Eye know they are beaten at POPLA every time for no GPEOL. All their parking charges (todate) have been for breach of terms and conditions so they are probably trying to disguise this fact - another predatory tactic, no doubt.

How to I use the forum "thank" system?

- simple just click on the blue button labelled thank on bottom of posts!

Coupon-mad

PE charges are for breach of contract and (currently) 'no GPEOL' wins 100% of the time. So send a normal online short appeal as keeper, then when you get a POPLA code, use an example POPLA appeal as linked in the 'How to win at POPLA' link.

Kavafy

Hi all,

So, as you can see, I had my first appeal to ParkingEye rejected and they have issued a POPLA code. After scanning through the forums I can see a POPLA appeal pretty much ready-written (the Morrisons one here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63857139#Comment_63857139), so I'm going to use that, but I wondered if it would be useful to share with the forum some of the precedents that ParkingEye cite in their letter to me.

They reference the finding of District Judge Dodd in ParkingEye vs Mr Shelley (2013), where the judge cites Lord Justice Colman in Lordsvale Finance vs Bank of Zambia (1996) QB 752:

"[the question is whether] the function of the provision was to deter a party from breaking the contract or to compensate the innocent party for breach..."

It strikes me that this must be a template letter from ParkingEye as I can't see how they're going to argue with a straight face that a £100 charge for an 11-minute overstay is fair compensation rather than a deterrent.

They make an argument about commercial justification which involves setting out their business model and need to make a profit. And yes, they also cite Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v New Garage and Motor Company [1915] AC 79.

Also, it seems from the letter that they are monitoring the activity on these and similar forums and there is even some text quoted from one of them.

Sorry if you know all this already. Let me know if you need more. Unless I hear differently I'll send a version of the appeal above this weekend.

Best,

K

hoohoo

You should point out to POPLA that according to publically available information ParkingEye's true cost per charge is somewhat less than £15

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/why-are-parkingeye-giving-incorrect.html

Coupon-mad

We do know all about PE's letter re 'look how many cases we can cite' drivel. It changes nothing, we think they doth protest too much! They'll still lose on no GPEOL.