Receiving 2 Parking Tickets in a Week - Help Needed with Thanks

SunnyJane

I'm a newbie to this column. After reading through many posts in this section, I get more and more confused, so decided to come and write what happened to me. Any help from any kind people would be greatly appreciated.

The first parking fine letter I received was from ParkingEye and the incident was iccurred at an ALDI car park. I parked the car and bought something from ALDI. After I received its letter, I wrote back to ParkingEye telling them that the goods only cost less than a pound so I paid by cash, got a receipt but then later couldn't find it. I told ParkingEye this as a truth and said they may check with CCTV footages at parking site and at the ALDI cash point. Both would confirm that I did buy something from the supermarket as a genuine customer. However, today I received a letter from ParkingEye saying my appeal was unsuccessful, and that I either pay for the fine or write to POPLA to appeal.

My questions are as follows;

1. Is it worth for me appealing to POPLA?
2. Is there an appeal letter sample for my circumstance, e.g. I already wrote back to ParkingEye and appealed, but failed, and now it escalated to POPLA appeal stage?
3. What lessons for me to learn should such circumstance happened again? I saw some advice in the forum telling people to write to ParkingEye or similar company, by without revealing driver's name?

The second parking fine incident was happened in another supermarket. I uncarefully entered the car park twice in 2 hours - the car park's T&C says 'no return in 2 hours'. I didn't buy anything at the 1st time, but bought something the 2nd time from the supermarket, and kept the receipt.

My question is as follows;

1. Is there any appeal letter sample for such circumstance?
2. What lessons to learn? For example, shall I take photographs of car park signages etc.?

Any advice and help from people who experienced the same thing would be deeply appreciated.

Many thanks!

HO87

Welcome to MSE.

Despite what you think your situation is exactly the same as everyone else. However, the reason why people become lost on that point is because they need to bend their mind around the fact that the important facts here are not their individual circumstances but the legal cracks through which the likes of PE crawl in order to be able to operate. Focus on those facts not your own situation. The personal facts are, sad to say, practically irrelevant.

Now, please take some time to read through the Newbies thread - Click Here.
This thread contains sample POPLA appeals and all the guidance you will need. It will take a while to read through but well worth it - after all it will save you the ticket cost and a potential trip to court.

Answers:

1 - Yes
2 - Yes (see above)
3 - There are (see above)

Same applies to the second ticket.

Redx

also note that these are not FINES, they are parking charge invoices

also, they do not use cctv cameras on the car parks, they use anpr cameras and they are not going to ask any supermarket for cctv footage of the tills

read post #2 , put out of your mind the "what happened" and concentrate on beating them at their own game, but using legal rebuttals

ColliesCarer

Hi SunnyJane,
few questions for you
Did both these parking charges occur in England or Wales and are you a resident of either of those countries? If yes then see advice below.

Can I suggest that you first check your POPLA code is valid by using the POPLA code checker - you will find it in post #3 of the link HO87 gave you. The checker will tell you the date by which you must submit an appeal to POPLA.

If you have quite a bit of time before that deadline deal with the 2nd ticket 1st - see below.

If you don't have much time then deal with the POPLA appeal first.

Re: the 2nd charge – was it a windscreen ticket or a postal notice and how long ago did you get it? Which Parking company was it?

If it was a windscreen ticket wait for a postal notice - once you have the postal notice (or if you have it already) submit a 1st appeal to the 2nd parking company - for which you will find a template 1st appeal letter on post #1 of the link HO87 included.

SunnyJane

Thanks all for your kind replies. Also many thanks for all who have contributed in any way they can in this forum. Though it's a very disgusting thing, we still have to fight together.

After spending a few days reading and digging out many posts, I prepared a POPLA appeal letter as follows. Could anyone have a read and give me some advice? Many thanks in advance.

*****

Dear POPLA

I appeal against the decision of ParkingEye to issue a Parking Charge Notice (xxxx) and their rejection of my appeal to them.

I have outlined the basis of my appeal below:

1. The charge is a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss'.
The amount of the charge is disproportionate to any alleged loss incurred by ParkingEye. The charge is therefore punitive, contravening the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997. I also consider the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) to be a penalty because ParkingEye have alleged a breach of terms and conditions and yet have not quantified their alleged loss. The £70 charge asked for, far exceeds the cost to the landowner who would have received £0.00 from any vehicles parked as the car park is free to use.

In the appeal Parking Eye did not address this issue, and has not stated why they feel a £70 charge is an appropriate pre-estimate of loss. For this charge to be justified a full breakdown of the costs Parking Eye has suffered as a result of the car being parked at the car park is required and should add up to £70. Normal expenditure the company incurs to carry on their business (e.g. provision of parking, parking enforcement or signage erection) should not be included in the breakdown, as these operational costs would have been suffered irrespective of the car being parked at that car park.

2. Proprietary Interest:
As the registered car 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. 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. The driver expects Parking Eye to prove that they are not in breach of section 7.1 of the BPA code.


3. I contend that ParkingEye are only an agent working for the owner and their signs do not help them to form a contract in their own name. I believe that there is no contract with the landowner/occupier that entitles ParkingEye to levy these charges and therefore they have no authority to issue PCN’s. I would also request that they demonstrate a copy of the parking contract, the accompanying handbook and all other documents relating to the contract between ParkingEye and ALDI.
Even if ParkingEye were to produce a basic contract which 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 ParkingEye and the owner/occupier, containing nothing that ParkingEye can lawfully use in their own name as a mere agent, that could impact on a third party customer.

4. The Signage does not comply with BPA requlations
The BPA code of practice contains the following, regarding 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 believe the signs and any core parking terms and conditions that the parking company are relying upon were too high and too small for any driver to see, read or understand when driving into this car park. I believe the signs failed to properly and clearly warn/inform the driver of the terms in this car park as they failed to comply with the BPA Code of Practice appendix B. I require the operator to provide photographic evidence that proves otherwise.

I have had no evidence that ParkingEye have complied with these BPA Code requirements for ANPR issued tickets and therefore require them to evidence their compliance to POPLA, by specifically producing contemporaneous records to evidence that the ANPR technology used in this car park.have complied with data policy, and that the cameras used have received in 2014, regular maintenance and checks to ensure that the timing and detail of any images captured were accurate on the day of this event.

5. Parking Eye cannot set a separate term or condition for the use of the car park themselves or impose any parking charges based on the BPA Code of Practice without having a separate condition within their own client contract to offer parking to visitors at a higher price. I'm assuming they have that right otherwise they would be in severe non compliance to the BPA Code of Practice which may well impact upon their continued ability to access the DVLA database for registered keeper details. However the law of contract or tort of trespass would apply in either of these cases anyway.

6. The PCN and subsequent documents I received from Parking Eye had no reference to VAT shown on it. If it was an invoice for payment of a service contract, it must show VAT details on it, i.e. for parking services amount owed £x + VAT at 20% = £y. Since there is no mention of VAT it must therefore be presumed to be nil or zero rated which would be the applicable rate for a fine or penalty, which of course is non compliant with the BPA Code of Practice which states that the use of fine or penalty may not be used. That doesn't legitimise the use of a more convenient term though. If the amount demanded were a contractual charge then it fails the test for that based entirely upon the wording on the ticket. It MUST show the VAT details of the company in accordance with the BPA Code of Practice. As it does not, it therefore cannot be a breach of an alleged contractual arrangement.

Yours faithfully,

SunnyJane

Forgot to mention earlier on - Does the fact that I did buy something from the supermarket but then lost my receipt matter to this appeal? Do I need to mention in the POPLA that it's a fact. I have no paper proof but can get my colleague who sat in the same car write a 'vitness statement'. Is that going to help at all?

Thanks all for your advice. Really appreciated! :-)

Coupon-mad

SunnyJane wrote: »

Forgot to mention earlier on - Does the fact that I did buy something from the supermarket but then lost my receipt matter to this appeal? Do I need to mention in the POPLA that it's a fact. I have no paper proof but can get my colleague who sat in the same car write a 'vitness statement'. Is that going to help at all?

Thanks all for your advice. Really appreciated! :-)

No, not relevant to POPLA. Your appeal above is fine!