2 Parking Eye tickets

Redx

so get on with the popla appeals and stop getting sidetracked

an overstay is all it was , the landowner is unlikely to be out of pocket , the charge is not a gpeol anyway because with PE it never is

Coupon-mad

Wire_Fan wrote: »

Aaahh, the template letter I used, that's where it comes from, thanks for that.

I say I'm not paying, and they say they're not paying............

Of course - this is no different than all the hundreds of other posters who got that sort of drivel, and then beat PE at POPLA. Don't miss the deadline.

Wire_Fan

Here's a draft of my POPLA appeal letter - feel free to pull it to bits, the important thing is that it wins (x 2)


POPLA Verification Code:
Vehicle Registration:
Parking Company:
PCN Ref:
Alleged Contravention Date and Time:
Date of Notice:
Parking Charge Amount:
Car Park:

Dear POPLA Assessor,

I'm the registered keeper of the vehicle above and I am appealing against theparking charge above, I believe I am not liable for the parking charge on thegrounds stated below, I would ask that all points are taken into consideration.

1. Non genuine pre-estimate of loss
2. No contract between driver and ParkingEye
3. Flawed contract with landowner/Authority to issue PCN's
4. Unlawful penalty charge
5. Business rates
6. ANPR accuracy
7. ANPR usage

1. Non genuine pre-estimate of loss - The Amount of £100 demanded byParkingEye is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The estimate must be basedupon loss following from a breach of the parking terms. This might be, forexample, loss of parking revenue or even loss of retail revenue at a shoppingcentre.



Thisis a pay and display car park, and £3 was paid for up to 3 hours of parking.The PCN was issued for going approximately 20 minutes over the time limit paidfor. The charge for up to 4 hours of parking was £3.60, so the amount beingclaimed by ParkingEye is clearly not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. By thetime the car park was vacated it was well after 6pm and the car park was almostempty and the large majority of the local retail establishments were closed forbusiness. The reason for parking there in the first place was to spend over £90in 2 of the local retail establishments, so at no time did the local retailpremises lose out. I request ParkingEye to provide a full breakdown of howthese costs are calculated - all these costs must represent a loss resultingfrom the alleged breach and the pre-estimate of loss must add up to the exactamount demanded of £100.

As in previous cases the parking company has included day to day running costsof the business (for example Wages, Uniforms, Signage erection, Installation ofANPR cameras, Office Costs, Maintenance Costs) - these would have occurred hadthere been a breach or not and therefore may not be included in this pre-estimateof loss. I am also aware that ParkingEye may not include the POPLA fee in apre-estimate of loss.

Given that ParkingEye charge the same lump sum for a 20 minute overstay as theywould for 200 minutes, and the same fixed charge applies to any allegedcontravention (whether serious/damaging, or trifling as in my case), it isclear there has been no regard paid to establishing that this charge is agenuine pre-estimate of loss.

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

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

It would therefore follow that this charge is Punitive and a Penalty, and hasan element of profit included that are not allowed to be imposed by parkingcompanies.

2. No contract between driver and ParkingEye

The parking company needs to prove that the driver actually saw, read andaccepted the terms, which means that I and the POPLA Assessor would be led tobelieve that a conscious decision was made by the driver to park in exchangefor paying the extortionate fixed amount the Operator is now demanding. Theidea that any driver would accept these terms knowingly is perverse and beyondcredibility.



Also,please refer to the attached letter that I received from ParkingEye, where theyclearly state in paragraph 4 ”You have not formed any legally binding contractwith ParkingEye”. With this in mind, surely ParkingEye now no longer have acase to claim any charges?

3. Flawed contract with landowner/Authority to issue PCN's - ParkingEyedo not own this car park and are merely agents of the landowner or legaloccupier. In their notice and rejection letters ParkingEye have provided mewith no evidence that they are lawfully entitled to demand money from a driveror keeper. I put ParkingEye to strict proof to POPLA that they have the properlegal authorisation from the landowner to contract with drivers and to enforcecharges in their own name as creditor in the courts for breach of contract. Idemand ParkingEye produce to POPLA the contemporaneous and unredacted contractbetween the landowner and the ParkingEye.

In ParkingEye v Sharma, Case No. 3QT62646 in the Brentford County Court23/10/2013 District Judge Jenkins checked the ParkingEye contract and quicklypicked out the contradiction between clause 3.7, where the landowner appointsParkingEye as their agent, and clause 22, where is states there is no agencyrelationship between ParkingEye and the landowner. The Judge dismissed the caseon the grounds that the parking contract was a commercial matter between theOperator and their agent, and didn’t create any contractual relationshipbetween ParkingEye and motorists who used the land. This decision wasfollowed by ParkingEye v Gardam, Case No.3QT60598 in the High WycombeCounty Court 14/11/2013 where costs of £90 were awarded to the Defendant. DistrictJudge Jones concurred completely with the persuasive view in ParkingEye vSharma that a parking Operator has no standing to bring the claim in theirown name. My case is the same.

If ParkingEye produce a 'witness statement' in lieu of the contract then I willimmediately counter that with evidence that these have been debunked in otherrecent court cases due to well-publicised and serious date/signature/factualirregularities. I do not expect it has escaped the POPLA Assessors' attentionthat ParkingEye witness statements have been robustly and publicly discreditedand are - arguably - not worth the paper they are photocopied on. I suggestParkingEye don't bother trying that in my case. If they do, I contend thatthere is no proof whatsoever that the alleged signatory has ever seen therelevant contract terms, or, indeed is even an employee of the landowner, orsigned it on the date shown. I contend, if such a witness statement issubmitted instead of the landowner contract itself, that this should bedisregarded as unreliable and not proving full BPA compliance nor showingsufficient detail to disprove the findings in Sharma and Gardam.

The BPA code of practice contains the following:

7 Written authorisation of the landowner
7.1 If you do not own the land on which you are carrying out parkingmanagement, you must have the written authorisation of the landowner (or theirappointed agent) before you can start operating on the land in question. Theauthorisation must give you the authority to carry out all aspects of themanagement and enforcement of the site that you are responsible for. Inparticular, it must say that the landowner requires you to keep to the Code ofPractice, and that you have the authority to pursue outstanding parkingcharges, through the courts if necessary.

4. Unlawful penalty charge - Since there is no demonstrable loss ordamage yet a breach of contract as been alleged, it can only remain a fact thatthis 'charge' is an attempt at extorting an unlawful charge to impersonate aparking ticket. ParkingEye could state the letter as a invoice or request formonies, yet they choose to word it as a 'Charge Notice' in an attempt for it tobe deemed as a official parking fine such as the ones issued by Police and localauthorities.

5. Business rates - As the car park is being used for the purpose ofrunning a business by ParkingEye, which is entirely separate from any otherbusiness the car park services, and generates revenue and profit forParkingEye, I do not believe that ParkingEye has declared the running of theirbusiness venture at this location to the Local Valuation Office and LocalAuthority for the purpose of the payment of Business Rates.

I put ParkingEye to strict proof that they have so registered the business theyare operating at West Street, Southport car park with the Valuation Office andto provide proof that Business Rates are being paid to the Local Authority, orto provide proof or explanation of their exemption from such Business Rates.

6. ANPR accuracy - Under paragraph 21.3 of the BPA Code of Practice, itrequires parking companies to make sure ANPR equipment is maintained and incorrect working order. I require ParkingEye to provide records with dates andtimes of when the equipment was checked, calibrated, maintained andsynchronised with the timer which stamps the photo to ensure the accuracy ofthe ANPR images. This is important as the parking charge issued is foundedentirety on 2 photos of my vehicle entering the car park and leaving the car parkat specific times. It is vital that parking eye produce evidence in response tothese points and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from theflawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss recently in ParkingEyev Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said theevidence from ParkingEye was fundamentally flawed because the synchronisationof the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and theOperator could not rebut the point.

So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require ParkingEye toshow evidence to rebut the following assertion. I suggest that in the case ofmy vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remoteserver added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and donot have a common "time synchronisation system", there is no proofthat the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image. The Operatorappears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so"live" is not really "live". Hence without a synchronisedtime stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with anaccurate time. Therefore I contend that this ANPR "evidence" from thecameras in this car park is just as unreliable and unsynchronised as theevidence in the Fox-Jones case. As their whole charge rests upon two timedphotos, I put ParkingEye to strict proof to the contrary.

7. ANPR usage - Under paragraph 21.1 of the BPA Code of Practiceit states 'You may use ANPR camera technology to manage, control and enforceparking 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 driversthat you are using this technology and what you will use the data captured byANPR cameras for'

ParkingEye fail to operate the system in a 'reasonable, consistent andtransparent manner'. As ParkingEye place signs too far from the entrance to seeon arrival, there is no opportunity for drivers in moving traffic at theentrance to be 'informed that this technology is in use and what the Operatorwill use the data captured by ANPR cameras for'. I contend that as well asbeing unreliable, this is a non-compliant ANPR system being merely a secrethigh-up spy camera - far from 'transparent' - unreasonably 'farming' the datafrom moving vehicles at the entrance & exit and neither 'managing,enforcing nor controlling parking' since the cameras are not concerned with anyaspect of the actual parking spaces, nor any parking event at all.


This concludes my appeal, I respectfully request that my appeal be upheld andthe charge be dismissed if ParkingEye fail to address and provide the necessaryevidence as requested in the points highlighted above.


Yours Faithfully,

bod1467

I assume formatting issues are because you have cut-n-pasted from Word.

Remove item 5 ... it doesn't really add anything useful, as it is not something POPLA can decide on.

hoohoo

Wire_Fan wrote: »

Am in the process of drafting my popla appeal for you guys to scrutinise. Came home tonight to find a very 'odd' letter from PE going on about REJECTION OF INVALID INVOICE.

I never sent them an invoice! It's obvious it's a standard letter (unsigned, dear sir/madam, etc) but what the hell are they on about?

This is a standard PE template letter used if you say you will charge them if you win at POPLA.

Their website says they process 30,000 items of mail a week and as we all know on this forum, their internal QA leaves a lot to be desired.

If you never sent them a note that you would be charging them, then either the data entry drone pressed the wrong button and generated this by mistake, or the slap-em-and-wrap-em drone put the wrong bit of paper in the wrong envelope. Or perhaps it was all the computer's fault.

hoohoo

If you have plenty of time left, slap them in a week apart. Then even in the unlikely event you lose one, you can correct that in the second one.

But you won't lose, unless the way popla rules on these things changes 180 degrees

bod1467

Chances are PE won't even defend once they see that it's a forum-aided appeal.

Wire_Fan

Appeals against both charges posted on the POPLA website today - wish me luck!

How long does it normally take for them to make decisions by the way?

Wire_Fan

Ooops, meant to say, letter was as above (x 2) with point 5 on business rates.

Wire_Fan

Ooops, meant to say, letter was as above (x 2) with point 5 on business rates.

Sorry, rushing this - I meant to say WITHOUT point 5!!