POPLA Appeal help please - Athena ANPR (Lidl car park) 1 April 2014 at 10:16AM in Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking 83 replies 12.3K views

Coupon-mad

I am back from my jaunts to Newquay and the West Country now, and I like that POPLA appeal!

Interesting new signage from Athena - we will have to watch out for that in helping newbies because the POPLA appeal did need to be well written and that one is. I will add this link to the NEWBIES thread examples of 'How to Win at POPLA' as I think it will!

Shepss

Coupon-Mad , thank you so much for your reply.I'll keep everyone up to speed with developments.

trisontana

da_rule wrote: »

Is there a way to pay for the 'parking' on site (i.e. a pay and display machine). If not then might it also be possible that the company have also failed to mitigate their loss by providing a way to pay the 'fee' without resorting to PCN's?

That so-called "agreement" seems to be open-ended so, according to that sign, once you have paid that £90 you can stay there for ever.

ColliesCarer

Hi Shepss,
Hope you're feeling better and had a good Easter.

Thought you might be interested in this thread by OP minimii123 who was also snared by Athena at a Lidl store and used your POPLA for her appeal with some minor adjustments.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4952698

Anyway minimii123 also sent an email of complaint to the CEO of Lidl and has just received confirmation that her charge has been cancelled.

As your Lidl's is now closed for renovation and you have been unable to speak to the store manager I wondered whether you might also want to send an email to the CEO - see post #7 of minimii's thread for email addresses for the ceo and Lidl's press office.
If you decide to do so and want comments on your email before sending post it up for fine tuning.
Regards
CC

Shepss

CC , just logged on again after a break and saw your comment.Many thanks! I'll take a look when I've more time tomorrow. See a specialist on the 16th so hope I will be able to go ahead with the first of the ops as a lot of pain at the moment. Good Easter with ( local ) family though thanks.

ColliesCarer

Hi Shepss,
It might also be worth taking a look at this thread by OP flossy1208 whose POPLA appeal against Athena is soon to be assessed.

Flossy used the template Athena appeal (in How to Win at POPLA) as the basis and has just received Athena's evidence pack in response to the POPLA appeal submitted.

Flossy has done a very good letter to go to POPLA pointing out certain flaws and irregularities in that evidence which could come in useful for you with a few mods because they'll probably send the same evidence pack out in response to yours.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4935878

Good luck on the 16th
CC

Shepss

CC . Thanks again for your support. Regarding an email to Lidl's CEO and their press office , I haven't yet read the thread but did think about doing something on the following lines. Everything is truthful and above board and what actually happened so I don't see why not. Here it is :- ' Dear Sir , I was very disappointed to receive a £90 parking charge from Athena ANPR for an alleged parking contravention at your Lidl ……… car park on ……..
What saddens me is that both my wife and I are elderly , well into our seventies and awaiting operations and not very mobile because of this. We are fairly regular customers of Lidl and on the day concerned my wife took longer than usual in your store. Although we overstayed by twelve minutes I actually left the car park and came back and then circled around waiting for my wife and at no time actually occupied a space during the twelve minutes I was told we had overstayed. I was not able to complain to the store manager regarding the charge at the time because the store is currently closed for refurbishment. I have appealed against the charge but would be grateful for your intervention and cancellation of the charge on our behalf and I thank your in anticipation of this.'
I did it very quickly as I remembered it but can make adjustments as necessary. Yes , I'm more concerned about my meeting with the specialist on the 16th than the POPLA meeting , but it would be nice to get them off my back in advance with an email to the CEO. The bit about the car circling and my leaving the car park is relevant I feel and makes me angry because I was actually parked for about 55 minutes. How many times does this sort of thing happen and poor souls pay up I wonder? And it would still have happened if it had been one minute over instead of twelve! Thanks again for bearing with me.

prosnap

Did you tell them that you would both be taking your business elsewhere?

The only way these supermarkets are going to wake up to what is going on is if they think it is costing them money!


.

Shepss

Good point prosnap , I could work that in perhaps but maybe I've given the CEO enough vibes. I might amend it slightly and say that my wife took longer because of her condition though. It annoys me because I don't abuse the parking system , I appreciate there is only so much space , there is no margin for error though even if just a couple of minutes.

Coupon-mad

A strong complaint email/letter about this sort of unlawful harassment by a PPC against an elderly/slower customer, looks more like this (scroll to post #13):

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=79515&st=0

or this, post #8:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4630975

or this which was written to go to a PPC but which shows you the Equality Act 2010 wording which protects your wife as a shopper:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=63814146#post63814146

I wrote all of those examples - and it's worth you knowing that elderly people and those with a longterm medical condition (which you must be if awaiting operations) are covered by the Equality Act. It's not about whether people have a Blue Badge or anything like that - it's the law. So I say be more forceful with your complaint.