Parking Eye fine

misfitlove

Hi Guys,

Hoping you can help me although it's an odd one. in the Dec I went to concert in manchester, and Parked at a parking eye operated car park. I saw it was paid for parking and read that it was £5 for 6 hours. I paid the amount stuck the ticket in my car then ran off as I was late.

A week later i recieved the 'fine'. Stating that I had either overstayed or not purchased a valid ticket but it did not tell me specifically only pictures of when I parked and when I left, which was 5 hours 31 mins, leaving me to believe I was still well within the allocated time.

I eventually found the old ticket in my car, proving I paid £5 however the time seems to have ran out at 20:00 hours. I got the ticket at 17:29, and it seems like 2 hours and 31 one minutes is a very odd amount of time for £5 to purchase.

I seem to vaguely remember reading something about a reduced fee for cars parked after a certain time, but as I said I was in a hurry and paid my £5 and left thinking if anything I had extra time! I can only guess there is a reduced rate for cars parked after 8pm and I must have needed a separate ticket for after that time possibly?

I sent an appeal letter but rather than getting one back with the popla reference I have only had a letter demanding to know who the driver is. I'm unsure how to respond and would appreciate some help at this point, have been following the forums up til now.

Thanks in advance.

P.s living far away from manchester - aka 4 hours drive, I cant easily go back and dispute the parking notice, or check the signage and what the £5 would have actually bought me.

Redx

you dont have to name the driver , so report them to the bpa and dvla for not issuing a popla code and for insisting you name the driver

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

everything you need to know is there

keep that ticket for now but dont show it them , also bear in mind this is an invoice , not a fine

should be easy enough to beat at popla, then you pay nothing

Coupon-mad

I sent and appeal letter but rather than getting one back with the popla reference i have only had a letter demanding to know who the driver is. I'm unsure how to respond and would appreciate some help at this point, have been following the forums up til now.

Try this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63971066#Comment_63971066

Send that to PE, in your words though.

And send a quick email to the BPA and DVLA managers (email addresses for Steve Clark and David Dunford are in the NEWBIES READ THIS FIRST sticky thread) to lodge another complaint about Parking Eye as they have only just been reminded that they MUST NOT do this! It contravenes the BPA CoP:

see here http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co...n-limited.html

''The British Parking Association Limited have issued the following guidelines to all members.

“the following practices may be considered as Code breaches and must not be continued:
• Asking the motorist to enter into additional correspondence to obtain a POPLA code
• Failing to include a correct and/or valid POPLA Code within the Rejection correspondence
• Issuing a POPLA Code with a date identifier which is significantly different from the date of rejection
• Appearing to indicate that the issue of a POPLA Code is conditional on driver details being supplied “

misfitlove

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the help, I did as you said and now have my Popla code and intend to spend my weekend drafting up a letter to them.

Hoping I win, however parking eye have sent a lot of scare-mongering evidence with my appeal code showing just how many times they have won at court as 'pre-estimate loss' has not been viewed as a valid point.

But I assume these wins at court are due to people who lost at or didn't appeal at the popla stage?

x

Redx

you will also find there is nothing in the pack about how many they have lost in the last 6 months at POPLA or in court ! ie:- tunnel vision and very one-sided

just draft up your popla appeal and make sure you include the winning appeal points

Stroma

Yep they are being very economical with the truth here, they have lost hundreds of times at popla with that defence, and we know of a lot of cases where they have lost at court on this and other points, you never go to a court on one defence point

misfitlove

Ahh I figured as much.

When I have finished my Popla draft is there anywhere specific to post it to just so I can get a bit of feedback to see if I'm heading in the right direction?

I'm also a bit wary after reading that PPCs often look through these forums to gain evidence towards specific cases so don't want to give them anything that might implicate me at the appeal stage.

Many thanks in advance.

x

Stroma

Just post it here, they will get to see it so don't worry about it, you won't be submitting it unless it's a winning one

misfitlove

Extremely good point!

Well here is my very first draft, taken from a few different letters i've read on this site and pepipoo. I'm sure it could do with some tightening up so any comments welcome.


On xx/xx/xx, Parking Eye issued a parking charge notice because the above vehicle was allegedly recorded on their automatic number plate recognition system as having stayed in the xxxxxx car park for x hours x minutes and had issued a fine due to the driver not paying the sufficient amount for the parking ticket and/or failing to purchase a ticket.

As the registered keeper of the vehicle I appealed this PCN stating that the 'driver' had indeed purchased and displayed a valid ticket, at a cost of £5 for 6 hours parking at xxpm on this date, and so wished to see evidence proving that the driver had not bought a ticket or had exceeded the allotted time of which Parking Eye did not provide.

I am also appealing on the following grounds:

1. The demand for a payment of £100 as noted within the Parking Charge is a punitive amount that has no relationship to the loss that would have been suffered by the Landowner, contravening the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997. I also consider the PCN to be a penalty because Parking Eye Ltd have alleged a breach of terms and conditions and yet have not quantified their alleged loss (which cannot include business running costs nor the POPLA fee), nor have they provided evidence as to exactly how the driver was in breach of the parking conditions.

The BPA code of practice states:

19.5 If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay
is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge
must be based on the genuine pre-estimate of loss that
you suffer.

19.6 If your parking charge is based upon a contractually
agreed sum, that charge cannot be punitive or
unreasonable.

Therefore, these 'charges' for an alleged 'breach' are in fact unlawful attempts at penalties, as was found in the case of Excel Parking Services v Hetherington-Jakeman (2008) also OB Services v Thurlow (review, February2011) and in the case with the same Operator, Parking Eye v Smith (Manchester County Court December 2011). Parking Eye will not be able to refute this fact - however many pages of evidence they may send to POPLA – and so this punitive charge is therefore unenforceable in law.

I require Parking Eye Ltd to provide a detailed breakdown of how the amount of the 'charge' was arrived at.

If the pre-estimate of loss contains any of the following, then I contend that these are the costs of running a business and I require Parking Eye to confirm to POPLA whether or not the pre-estimate of loss contains some or all elements of
• Erection and maintenance of the site signage.
• Installation, monitoring and maintenance of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems.
• Employment of office-based administrative staff.
• Membership and other fees required to manage the business effectively including those paid to the SPA, DVLA and ICO.
• General costs including stationery, postage, etc.


2. I do not believe that the Operator has demonstrated a proprietary interest in the land, because they have no legal possession which would give Parking Eye Ltd any right to offer parking spaces, let alone allege a contract with third party customers of the lawful owner/occupiers. In addition, Parking Eye Ltd's lack of title in this land means they have no legal standing to allege trespass or loss, if that is the basis of their charge. I require Parking Eye Ltd to demonstrate their legal ownership of the land to POPLA.


3. I believe there is no contract with the landowner/occupier that entitles them to levy these charges and therefore has no authority to issue parking charge notices (PCNs). This being the case, the burden of proof shifts to Parking Eye Ltd to prove otherwise so I require that Parking Eye Ltd produce a copy of their contract with the owner/occupier and that the POPLA adjudicator scrutinises it.

4. Even if a basic contract is produced and mentions PCNs, the lack of ownership or assignment of title or interest in the land reduces any contract to one that exists simply on an agency basis between Parking Eye Ltd and the owner/occupier, containing nothing that Parking Eye Ltd can lawfully use in their own name as a mere agent, that could impact on a third party customer.

5. The notice to keeper is not compliant with paragraph 9 (2)(h) of schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 in that it does not identify the creditor . The operator is required to specifically "identify" the creditor not simply name them on it .This would require words to the effect of " The creditor is ..... " . The keeper is entitled to know the party with whom any purported contract was made. This they have failed to do and thus have not fulfilled all the requirements necessary under POFA to allow them to attempt recovery of any charge from the keeper.

6. The BPA code of practice contains the following:
21 Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR)
21.1 You may use ANPR camera technology to manage,control and enforce parking in private car parks, as long as you do this in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner. Your signs at the car park must tell drivers that you are using this technology and what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for.
21.2
Quality checks: before you issue a parking charge notice you must carry out a manual quality check of the ANPR images to reduce errors and make sure that it is appropriate to take action. Full details of the items you should check are listed in the Operators’ Handbook.
21.3
You must keep any ANPR equipment you use in your car parks in good working order. You need to make sure the data you are collecting is accurate, securely held and cannot be tampered with. The processes that you use to manage your ANPR system may be audited by our compliance team or our agents.
21.4
It is also a condition of the Code that, if you receive and process vehicle or registered keeper data, you must:
• be registered with the Information Commissioner
• keep to the Data Protection Act
• follow the DVLA requirements concerning the data
• follow the guidelines from the Information
Commissioner’s Office on the use of CCTV and ANPR cameras, and on keeping and sharing personal data such as vehicle registration marks.
21.5
If you want to make use of the Keeper Liability provisions in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012 and you have not issued and delivered a parking charge notice to the driver in the car park where the parking event took place, your Notice to Keeper must meet the strict requirements and timetable set out in the Schedule (in particular paragraph 9).
I have had no evidence that Parking Eye have complied with these BPA Code requirements for ANPR issued tickets so require them to evidence their compliance to POPLA.

8. The BPA code of practice also says
'20.14 When you serve a Notice to Keeper, you must also include information telling the keeper the ‘reasonable
cause’ you had for asking the DVLA for their details.'
The PCN says 'either/or' of 2 different contraventions as a generic catch-all. This does not comply with the BPA code point 20.14.

I therefore suggest that this Parking Charge notice is invalid and I am not liable for the parking charge.

Signed.....



Like I said it is very rough so any help is greatly appreciated.:)

4consumerrights

Not too bad for a first attempt - does need some work though.

Layout: Start by listing in bold the points you are raising then again as a separate heading with your details.

Opening paragraph - change the wording slightly to say that the driver on the day in question did indeed purchase the ticket (if you have a copy attach to appeal) therefore no terms were breached and Parking Eye are making a false allegation in this instance. -

No loss to landowner occurred.....

The following needs amending/simplifying - you don't need to instruct them what to include!

[STRIKE]I require Parking Eye Ltd to provide a detailed breakdown of how the amount of the 'charge' was arrived at.

If the pre-estimate of loss contains any of the following, then I contend that these are the costs of running a business and I require Parking Eye to confirm to POPLA whether or not the pre-estimate of loss contains some or all elements of
• Erection and maintenance of the site signage.
• Installation, monitoring and maintenance of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems.
• Employment of office-based administrative staff.
• Membership and other fees required to manage the business effectively including those paid to the SPA, DVLA and ICO.
• General costs including stationery, postage, etc.[/STRIKE]


There is more specific wording on the core POPLA appeals thread started by Guys dad (sourced via Newbie thread).

Points 2/3/4 can all be done under one heading and you have missed out vital wording:

You require Parking Eye to supply a full un-redacted contract to demonstrate that they have the requisite legal standing to pursue parking charges as a creditor through the courts.

A signed witness statement paragraph is also required as being not reliable of course.

You appear to have combined aspects of POFA and ANPR, the latter can be detailed as a separate paragraph.

Work on the suggestions above and post up a second draft.:)

hoohoo

Add points at the beginning so the assssor can see your killer arguements

Eg
1) A ticket was purchased for the stay
2) The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss

etc

Also, in the pre-estimate of loss bit add:

The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. ParkingEye made over 600,000 keeper requests to the DVLA in their 2011/12 financial year and their accounts show the total cost of running the entire business to be £9.4 million. This limits the average cost per ticket to a maximum of £9.4m/600,000, or approximately £16. As not every cost of running the business is attributable to processing tickets, the average cost must be even less. ParkingEye's claim that the average cost per ticket is £53 is therefore provably false.

And in the contract bit add

ParkingEye have previously attempted to deceive POPLA and the courts by submitting witness statements which used photocopied signatures; were signed by people other than the witness; referred to contracts which were dated after the parking event. Any landowner witness statement should therefore be treated as on the balance of probabilities as being false.