Parking Eye "LETTER BEFORE COUNTY COURT CLAIM" with new reference to CPR 17.1

Coupon-mad

Don't ask! Just bombard them with emails even though they will say there is no point. Loads of posters here are 'email tennising' PE right now.

bod1467

Wouldn't letters (if OP is happy to go that route) not just extend the process further (time wise)?

Indeed, do both - reply to them in writing, and email them to thank them for their previous letter and to advise that you have replied in writing.

castle347

Hi everyone. So here's my draft letter in response to their latest one (see post #39). As ever, any advice on changing anything much appreciated.

Dear xxxx

Re: ParkingEye -v- xxxxx

Thank you for your letter dated xxxx

In my first letter to you, dated xxxx, I stated clearly that I disputed the payment you have claimed. As far as I am concerned, this constitutes a rejection of the charge.

There is absolutely no legal impediment which prevents you from considering this rejection. The 28 day rule you quote in your last letter to me is an arbitrary time allowance that you have decided.

You state:

"As you failed to make an appeal to ParkingEye within the 28 days outlined in the Parking Charge, ParkingEye was denied the opportunity to consider the appeal and therefore a POPLA code could not be issued to you."

I am asking you to allow yourself the opportunity to consider my appeal, once again. To be completely clear, I reject your charge and would like to make an appeal. If you reject my appeal, please issue me with a POPLA code.

My appeal to you is based upon the following two points:

1. There is no genuine pre-estimate of loss.
2. You have no legal standing to make the claim.

Despite what you say in your last letter to me, I still contend that because there is no option to purchase a ticket for the car park in question, you made no loss of income. All of the costs that you list unfortunately cannot be used to justify any loss of income.

Your original PCN alleges 'breach of terms'. If this is the case, the landowner of the parking area (not their agent) can pursue liquidated damages directly related to the alleged breach. So it would be acceptable for the owner of the retail park car park to approach me directly and ask for a reasonable sum based upon the loss of revenue due to my overstaying at the car park. For example, they might be able to state that because I overstayed, it prevented other cars from parking. I would of course challenge this vociferously - the car park was almost empty both at the time of parking and at the time I left. In any case, the point I am trying to make is that this is the only possible charge that can be levelled against me. There is no option to purchase pay and display tickets at this car park, so there is no loss of revenue in any other way.

The DfT Guidance and the BPA Code of Practice require that a parking charge for an alleged breach must be an estimate of losses directly related to the incident. You cannot change this requirement so you have no option but to show me your genuine pre-estimate of loss for this charge, not the list in your last letter. That is not a pre-estimate relating to the specific incident.

The British Parking Association Code of Practice uses the word 'MUST':
"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.''

In addition, publicly available information shows that you, ParkingEye, made over 600,000 (629,181) keeper requests to the DVLA in your 2011/12 financial year and your 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. The figures for 2012/13 are over 700,000 (720,090) and £12.6 million, giving a maximum cost per ticket of approximately £18. As not every cost of running the business is attributable to processing tickets, the average cost must be even less. Thus the parking charge of £85 cannot be a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

Regarding my second point, I believe that you, ParkingEye have no proprietary interest in the land, so do not have any legal standing to make contracts with drivers in your own right, nor to pursue charges for breach in your own name. In the absence of such title, you must have assignment of rights from the landowner to pursue charges for breach in your own right, including at court level.

You have not produced this proof of this assignment, despite me asking to see it in my previous letter. This is an appropriate time to disclose the document, as you have issued me with a Letter Before Action.

As you have not produced it, I have no proof that such a document is in existence. I contend that you probably hold a bare licence to supply and maintain (non compliant) signs and to post out 'tickets' as a deterrent. A commercial site agent for the true landholder has no automatic standing nor authority in their own right which would meet the strict requirements of section 7 of the BPA Code of Practice.

As I see it, in your next letter to me, you have to send me a copy of assignment document which proves you have authority to make the claim. Alternatively, you can accept my appeal and drop the charge. Another alternative is that you reject my appeal and issue me with a POPLA code.

Also, in your next communication with me, please can you send me a valid email address, so that we can continue any necessary correspondence online. This not only saves paper and is therefore better for the environment but also establishes a permanent record of all exchanges. You can contact me by email at xxxx

Yours sincerely

Xxxxx

Coupon-mad

You don't have to ask for a valid email address, just send that (above) by email:

[EMAIL="enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk"]enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk[/EMAIL]

I know that's the one and I know they will reply. Also by emailing you can send them the link I have included below!

The only change I would make is that I would add the following:

' Small claims must be a matter of last resort and this is certainly not the case if you should now issue proceedings to me when the fact is, I sent representations months ago when you first mentioned a claim. You are well aware of my dispute and the recourse of POPLA is certainly open and does not need 'extraordinary circumstances' in order to be applied. ParkingEye is not an Airline but seeing as you have brought up wording from an irrelevant EU Law I will now mention one that is relevant to your appeals process. I draw your attention to the fact that European law has moved forward and ADR such as POPLA will very soon have to be available to consumers for a period not less than a year. Your Trade Body, the BPA Ltd., is well aware of the Directive on Consumer ADR - Directive 2013/11/EU:

http://europeanjusticeforum.org/storage/ADR- EU OJ.pdf

''4. Member States may, at their discretion, permit ADR entities to maintain and introduce procedural rules that allow them to refuse to deal with a given dispute on the grounds that:
(e) the consumer has not submitted the complaint to the ADR entity within a pre-specified time limit, which shall not be set at less than one year from the date upon which the consumer submitted the complaint to the trader;''

For ParkingEye, who are undoubtedly the largest AOS member in the BPA's stable, to still be hiding behind your arbitrary '28 day appeal rule' is not a fair business practice under the circumstances. I would submit that your pursuit of this matter involves various breaches of the CPUTRs and UTCCRs and shows no regard for European consumer law, let alone for the customers of your retail client.. Your communications from the outset, from the signage to the Notice to Keeper and afterwards, have been far from open and transparent and fail to even inform customers of the retailer that they are in fact exempt from your punitive charges if they simply show a receipt over £30 . If I had known this when I first received the Notice from you I would have been able to resolve it fairly and quickly but instead you fail to inform consumers and now you are attempting to bully me into submission with a threat of court.

I will be sending a copy of this email to your client, the Management of the retail park in question. They need to know that your pursuit of an extortionate charge for your own profit in a free retail park where you have made no loss is nothing to do with 'parking space maximisation' (the flawed model you are known to sell to your clients routinely, as if it's some sort of 'service' rather than the well-documented practice akin to a protection racket that ANPR 'enforcement' really respresents). Your retail clients need to see for themselves the damage you are causing to their customer base - not your customers of course, so you don't have any reason to care - and they need to understand before they lose the faith of local families, that your agenda is about nothing but profit and penalty. Your existence in this retail car park is a blight on repeat custom and your claim as an agent - who must act upon the wishes of the retailer and must surely cancel charges when they affect genuine customers - is of no merit whatsoever. '


Then send a copy to the Management of the Retail park even if you've rattled their cage already. Rattle it again. If you do have a receipt or Bank Statement showing purchases then attach a pic or scan of that proof of purchase as well, to both the complaint to the retail park and to this email to PE.

Don't send a letter, start the email tennis that others have done and make sure the ball is constantly knocked back into PE's court.

castle347

hey thanks a lot for that information - I will definitely add it. Think I will have to still post a letter, as it's the only way I've been communicating with them, so seems a little rude to switch it up without any notice at all. Will post this one and then take up email.
Thanks a lot!

castle347

Hello, this is a message for Coupon Mad...
Just properly reading your last post and that European Directive is very interesting so I will definitely include it in my letter.

Re the point about sending a copy to the manager of the retail park, unfortunately I did not purchase anything in the retail park that day, so am unable to provide scans or pictures of receipts. So I'll not follow that up, but will definitely mention the other bit - thanks a lot for that.

trisontana

castle347 wrote: »

Re the point about sending a copy to the manager of the retail park, unfortunately I did not purchase anything in the retail park that day, so am unable to provide scans or pictures of receipts. So I'll not follow that up, but will definitely mention the other bit - thanks a lot for that.

That's the stupidity of having to provide "proof of purchase" to try and get a ticket cancelled. Haven't these PPCs ever heard of "browsing" or "shopping around"?

castle347

Received a reply today via email:

The body of the email stated:

Dear ******,



Please find attached response to your letter dated *******. A copy has also been sent by post.



Should you wish to contact ParkingEye by email, please respond to info@parkingeye.co.uk.



Kind Regards,



ParkingEye Team

Attachment:


Sent by email to **********@*****.com

** 2014

Dear ******

Re: ParkingEye-v-*******

We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated ******. We note the further points you have raised in relation to Alternative Dispute Resolution. We would respond as follows:

POPLA

Whilst we appreciate that you dispute the charge, we rejected your representations on the basis that you have provided no compelling reason why the charge should be cancelled. Despite this, should you provide us with further information or evidence in support of your appeal, we will consider this.

However, we must still maintain that unless "extraordinary circumstances" apply, we are unable to issue you with a POPLA code at this stage of proceedings. As previously advised, a POPLA code can only be issued in instances where the motorist has submitted an appeal to the operator within 28 days of the date the Parking Charge was received. Further information relating to when an appeal can be made to POPLA, including the requirement to first make representations to the operator within 28 days, can be found at http://www.popla.org.uk/receivedaPCN.htm.

Allowing for 2 working days for postage, the Parking Charge Notice issued to you on 7 March 2014 was received on or around 12 March 2014. You submitted your appeal to ParkingEye on 6 May 2014. Therefore, as more than 28 days had elapsed, ParkingEye is unable to issue you with a POPLA code unless "extraordinary circumstances" are involved.

Directive on Consumer ADR - Directive 2013/11/EU

Whilst the Directive has not yet been incorporated into UK Law, we are confident that we are compliant with the requirements of this Directive.

In any event, we would draw your attention to paragraph 2, Article 2 of the Directive which states:

"This Directive shall not apply to:

(b) procedures before consumer complaint-handling systems operated by the trader".

It is therefore contended that the Directive, should the same become incorporated into UK law, would not apply in these circumstances.

Furthermore, despite the "28 day appeal rule" being imposed by POPLA, we consider this timeframe provides ample opportunity for a motorist to collate and submit evidence as part of an appeal.

Please be advised, once again, that any concerns you have raised in relation to the charge being a genuine pre-estimate of loss and ParkingEye's standing to make a claim will be dealt with by our enforcement team separately.

Your sincerely

Rachel Ledson
ParkingEye Limited


Are they on the ropes?
I think I can pretty much send the exact same letter back as I did last time? Should I also state categorically the reason for overstaying (I went to an art gallery and lost track of time)?

castle347

hello
just bumping this reply from PE in case it has been missed
thanks
castle

Umkomaas

You need to put in a strong complaint to the BPA and DVLA (email addresses in post #6 of NEWBIES sticky); there is nothing that prevents the issue of a POPLA code at any time. Even judges have required one to be issued months afterwards as an alternative to court appearance. PE have been the main 'lucky recipient' of such orders!