Parking eye fine, help!

ColliesCarer

Don't worry about that - as you probably know by now they have no right to be trying to extract ludicrous sums of money for an honest error.
Submit your appeal and when you get rejection letter, which is the most likely outcome of a 1st appeal - come back to get help putting together a knock em dead POPLA

platterfish

2 Months after my appeal, I have today received a POPLA code and a rejection letter with all their cases they have won and legal jargon.

I'm reading through the parking cowboys website for information on how to proceed, any advice on how to do so would also be appreciated.

Thanks

Coupon-mad

See the NEWBIES sticky thread post #3, click on 'How to win at POPLA' and copy/adapt a similar example. There's a long or short PE version there.

platterfish

Would this work?
Sorry for asking, its taken some getting my head around and I'm still not sure!

Re: ParkingEye fake PCN, verification code xxxxxxxxxx

I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal a recent parking charge from ParkingEye, I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:

1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss

The £90 charge asked for, far exceeds the cost to the landowner. There was no damage nor obstruction caused so there can be no loss arising from the incident. ParkingEye notices allege 'breach of terms/failure to comply' and as such, the landowner/occupier (not their agent) can only pursue liquidated damages directly flowing from the parking event. Given that ParkingEye charge the same lump sum for a 15 minute overstay as they would for 150 minutes, and the same fixed charge applies to any alleged contravention (whether serious/damaging, or trifling as in my case), it is clear there has been no regard paid to establishing that this charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

This charge from ParkingEye as a third party business agent is an unenforceable penalty. In Parking Eye v Smith, Manchester County Court December 2011, the judge decided that the only amount the Operator could lawfully claim was the amount that the driver should have paid into the machine. Anything else was deemed a penalty.

The Office of Fair Trading has stated to the BPA Ltd that a 'parking charge' is not automatically recoverable simply because it is stated to be a parking charge, as it cannot be used to state a loss where none exists. And the BPA Code of Practice states that a charge for breach must wholly represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss flowing from the parking event.

2) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers

ParkingEye do not own the land mentioned in their Notice to Keeper and have not provided any evidence that they are lawfully entitled to demand money from a driver or keeper. Even if a contract is shown to POPLA, I assert that there are persuasive recent court decisions against ParkingEye which establish that a mere parking agent has no legal standing nor authority which could impact on visiting drivers.

In ParkingEye v Sharma, Case No. 3QT62646 in the Brentford County Court 23/10/2013 District Judge Jenkins checked the ParkingEye contract and quickly picked out the contradiction between clause 3.7, where the landowner appoints ParkingEye as their agent, and clause 22, where is states there is no agency relationship between ParkingEye and the landowner. The Judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the parking contract was a commercial matter between the Operator and their agent, and didn’t create any contractual relationship between ParkingEye and motorists who used the land. This decision was followed by ParkingEye v Gardam, Case No.3QT60598 in the High Wycombe County Court 14/11/2013 where costs of £90 were awarded to the Defendant. District Judge Jones concurred completely with the persuasive view in ParkingEye v Sharma that a parking operator has no standing to bring the claim in their own name. My case is the same.

3) Flawed landowner contract and irregularities with any witness statement

Under the BPA CoP Section 7, a landowner contract must specifically allow the Operator to pursue charges in their own name in the courts and grant them the right to form contracts with drivers. I require ParkingEye to produce a copy of the contract with the landowner as I believe it is not compliant with the CoP and that it is the same flawed business agreement model as in Sharma and Gardam.

If ParkingEye produce a 'witness statement' in lieu of the contract then I will immediately counter that with evidence that these have been debunked in other recent court cases due to well-publicised and serious date/signature/factual irregularities. I do not expect it has escaped the POPLA Assessors' attention that ParkingEye witness statements have been robustly and publicly discredited and are - arguably - not worth the paper they are photocopied on. I suggest ParkingEye don't bother trying that in my case. If they do, I contend that there is no proof whatsoever that the alleged signatory has ever seen the relevant contract terms, or, indeed is even an employee of the landowner, or signed it on the date shown. I contend, if such a witness statement is submitted instead of the landowner contract itself, that this should be disregarded as unreliable and not proving full BPA compliance nor showing sufficient detail to disprove the findings inSharma and Gardam.

4)The signage was not compliant with the BPA Code of Practice so there was no valid contract formed between ParkingEye and the driver

I submit that this signage failed to comply with the BPA Code of Practice section 18 and appendix B. The signs failed to properly warn/inform the driver of the terms and any consequences for breach. Further, because ParkingEye are a mere agent and place their signs so high, they have failed to establish the elements of a contract (consideration/offer and acceptance).

Any alleged contract (denied in this case) could only be formed at the entrance to the premises, prior to parking. It is not formed after the vehicle has already been parked, as this is too late. In breach of Appendix B (Mandatory Entrance Signs) ParkingEye have no signage with full terms which could ever be readable at eye level, for a driver in moving traffic on arrival.

5) ANPR Accuracy and breach of the BPA Code of Practice 21.3

This Operator is obliged to ensure their ANPR equipment is maintained as described in paragraph 21.3 of the British Parking Association's Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice. I say that Parking Eye have failed to clearly inform drivers about the cameras and what the data will be used for and how it will be used and stored. I have also seen no evidence that they have complied with the other requirements in that section of the code.

In addition I question the entire reliability of the system. I require that ParkingEye present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show my vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that this Operator must produce evidence in response and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss recently in ParkingEye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence from ParkingEye was fundamentally flawed because the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point.

So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require ParkingEye to show evidence to rebut the following assertion. I suggest that in the case of my vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remote server added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and do not have a common "time synchronisation system", there is no proof that the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image. The operator appears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so "live" is not really "live". Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with an accurate time. Therefore I contend that this ANPR "evidence" from the cameras in this car park is just as unreliable and unsynchronised as the evidence in the Fox-Jones case. As their whole charge rests upon two timed photos, I put ParkingEye to strict proof to the contrary.

I request that my appeal is upheld and for POPLA to inform ParkingEye to cancel the PCN.

Yours faithfully,

THE REGISTERED KEEPER

Dee140157

Two things I would say

1) lose the word fake in the opening sentence for the appeal. (It is genuine legally in the sense that it IS a PCN that PE sent you. It's only fake if eg someone else sent it to you pretending to be PE)

2) make a brief bullet point of the main points before you go into detail. Makes life easier for POPLA assessor. We like to help them hone in on a winning argument.

It looks good to me, but I am still a novice on POPLA appeals. Let someone else confirm.

Redx

Dee140157 wrote: »

Two things I would say

1) lose the word fake in the opening sentence for the appeal. (It is genuine legally in the sense that it IS a PCN that PE sent you. It's only fake if eg someone else sent it to you pretending to be PE)

2) make a brief bullet point of the main pions before you go into detail. Makes life easier for POPLA assessor. We like to help them hone in on a winning argument.

It looks good to me, but I am still a novice on POPLA appeals. Let someone else confirm.

I agree, other than that it seems to have what it requires

so remove the word fake and add numbered bullet points just above the main body of the explanatory text

ColliesCarer

P E try to claim their charges are commercially justified and therefore do not need to be a GPEOL, so I would suggest you expand your not a GPEOL point and add at the end the text in the quote box (from Coupon-mad's template "chuck everything at them" appeal against P E) to cover that point

No doubt ParkingEye will send their usual well-known template bluster attempting to assert some ''commercial justification'' but I refute their arguments. In a recent decision about a ParkingEye car park at Town Quay Southampton, POPLA Assessor Marina Kapour did not accept ParkingEye's generic submission that the inclusion of costs which in reality amount to the general business costs incurred for the provision of their car park management services is commercially justified. ''The whole business model of an Operator in respect of a particular car park operation cannot of itself amount to commercial justification. I find that the charge is not justified commercially and so must be shown to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss in order to be enforceable against the appellant.''
My case is the same and POPLA must be seen to be consistent if similar arguments are raised by an appellant.

bod1467

As it is PE, the very fact of sending in a POPLA appeal will likely win it for you. (They are not currently contesting POPLA appeals).

Stroma

bod1467 wrote: »

As it is PE, the very fact of sending in a POPLA appeal will likely win it for you. (They are not currently contesting POPLA appeals).

I amend that, they are currently not defending the ones with genuine pre-estimate of loss or others such as signage, once they realise someone appeals on mitigation they will send something to popla.

platterfish

Thank you all so much for all your help.

My appeal came back as allowed.

Thanks