Parking Eye fine

misfitlove

Cheers Guys, Will get busy amending!

x

misfitlove

Ok second draft, I think I included most of the changes but have taken out the last part in the ANPR bit as it probably wasn't relevant as I didn't receive a windscreen ticket.

I've added bullet points, and the paragraphs about a redacted contract, and also the falsified witness statement.

I still have the ticket from the day of the incident, however as previously stated in my opening post the time it ran out was 8pm, even though it clearly states £5 was paid (so should have been valid until 11:29pm). Should I still include it in the appeal? I am more than certain now that a reduced night - time rate must have started at 8pm meaning I probably needed to buy another ticket then rather than my £5 covering me for 6 hours as previously thought. However without a picture of the rate card at the machine it's difficult to prove and just makes it look like the car had overstayed it's welcome. (And thus still a breach?)

Any second draft here it is....


As the registered keeper of vehicle xxxxxx I am appealing the PCN number xxxx on the grounds that;

● A valid ticket was purchased and no breach has occurred.
● It is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
● Parking Eye Ltd have not provided evidence that they have authority to issue PCNs for this land.
● The PCN received did not identify the creditor.
● There was unclear signage relating to the use of automatic number plate recognition.
● The PCN did not specifically outline what breach had occurred and failed to provide specific evidence of said breach.


On xx/xx/xx, Parking Eye issued a PCN because the above vehicle was allegedly recorded on their automatic number plate recognition system as having stayed in the xxxxx car park for x hours xx minutes and had issued a PCN for 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 on this occasion had indeed purchased and displayed a valid ticket, at a cost of £5 for 6 hours parking at xxpm on this date, and thus no breach had occurred. As the registered keeper I asked for evidence proving that the driver had not bought a ticket or had exceeded the allotted time of which Parking Eye did not provide.

As the registered keeper 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.

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.

As the registered keeper I require Parking Eye Ltd to provide a detailed breakdown of how the amount of the 'charge' was arrived at not including usual business costs that would still occur outside this matter.


2. As the registered keeper I do not believe that Parking Eye has demonstrated a proprietary interest in the land, because they have no legal possession which would give Parking Eye any right to offer parking spaces, let alone allege a contract with third party customers of the lawful owner/occupiers. In addition, Parking eye'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.

As the registered keeper 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. As the registered keeper I expect Parking Eye to prove that they are not in breach of section 7.1 of the BPA code.

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.

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.

As the registered keeper I therefore ask 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.


3. 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.

4. 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.

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.

5. 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.

Coupon-mad

That's fine except I would get rid of '● The PCN received did not identify the creditor' because PE Notice DO use that word now (have done since May 2013).


PE will probably fold straight away!

misfitlove

Ahh thank you!

I very evidently took parts from other drafted letters I had found that bore the same relevance to my ow case.

Will be sending off in the morning once fully finished and printed out.

Thank so much for all the advice, I will of course keep you updated on the outcome.

X

misfitlove

As promised guys I did say I would keep you updated, and as you will probably not be too shocked to learn.... my appeal was granted!

By all accounts Parking Eye, did not even bother to contest the appeal.

"The operator has not produced a copy of the PCN, nor any evidence to show a breach of the conditions of parking occurred, nor any evidence that shows what the conditions of parking, in fact, were"

So there it is. I'm extremely relieved and want to say a HUGE thank you to all the threads I've read on these PCN's and all the people who took their time to help me with my particular case. You guys are amazing!

So obviously I'm very happy about the outcome, but will be so much more cautious about parking my car in future and will be checking everything like a hawk.

Lesson learned.

xx

Coupon-mad

PE keep bailing out at POPLA now when they see our wording! Well done and thanks for updating.