Euro Car Parks & Sainsbury's -PCN

Guys_Dad

Just moving your car from one bay to another doesn't reset the clock.

In general, we help people who receive swingeing charges. Many of my colleagues don't judge the people we help, but all I would say to you is that if sufficient office workers used Sainsbury's car park as a free car park, then that would prevent genuine shop and go shoppers from doing their shopping and would cost Sainsbury money.

So if you think it is ok to sneak-park then that's your business but I don't blame those regulars who usually rush to help from hanging back on your thread.

unit_g83

Hi guys,

Thanks for the posts - only just seen them, I don't seem to be receiving email notification.

Guys Dad - thanks for your comment, and appreciate your stance, and I agree with it. I'm not one of the people who 'sneak-park'. I'm always purchasing from Sainsburys (lunch, groceries, fuel), and I don't move the car from bay to bay as I don't need to - I always need my car to get around London for work. Just want to clear up that I am always a paying customer.

I have seen people who sneak park - crazy, just drive right in, park their car and walk right out.

In either case, even with all shoppers and sneak parkers, the car park is still not even half full. I don't know how many bays but there's several hundred. Just wanted to clear up that I'm not doing anything sneaky or dodgey here..

The issue is that I visit this store regularly to purchase, and their system can't identify this. This has led to me receiving said PCNs

Thanks again for the help/comments!

unit_g83

Good afternoon all,

I have received a second letter from Control account stating they are looking to start litigation against me for a CCJ. As usual, they have mentioned options on how to pay the fine before this happens.

Any advice on what I should do in this circumstance?


Thank you!

da_rule

Who is the letter from sorry? Control Account (this lot: http://www.controlaccount.com/Home.html)?

If so, they are only debt collectors and cannot start legal proceedings against you, only their client (Euro Car Parks) can. You have two options; continue to ignore or send them a letter saying that the amount is disputed and you will not pay and that they should send the file back to their instructing client and that you will consider any further contact from them to be harassment.

If you receive a Letter Before Claim (sometimes called a Letter Before Action or a Letter Before County Court Claim) from Euro Car Parks then this should not be ignored. There is a section in the Newbies sticky thread dedicated to dealing with these letters.

bazster

Well if you've complained to Sainsbury's there isn't much else you can do.

Control Account are not solicitors and cannot take legal action against you, it's just lies and bluster. It's very, very rare for Euro to take legal action as they have had their hands badly burned in the past. They might chance it for, say, 10 tickets but very unlikely they would have a go for two. So just ignore unless and until you receive official, stamped court papers (very, very unlikely).

And it's not a fine.

unit_g83

Evening all,

Sorry I have been unable to reply until now. Firstly thank you for your help, it's really appreciated.

Just some info on the communication thus far:

1. Letters out to ECP and Control account based on templates provided on these forums

2. Emailed Sainsbury's CEO

3. Reply received from CEO office advising they will not overturn the PCNs, and that no CCTV is available to prove I was not "sneak-parking", that I should pay the PCNs. No acknowledgment/admittance that the ECP monitoring system is flawed

4. Further strong emails from me to the CEO and the case manager they have assigned to look at my issue.

5. The Control account letter received (as mentioned in my previous post) follows a template letter they received from me advising they should refer the file back to ECP, and not contact me again as it will be harassment.

6. Am awaiting additional responses from Sainsbury's CEO office and the case manager (I believe they sub-contract this too!)

I find it crazy that they are siding with ECP, considering they even admitted they have no CCTV to back up my argument. If they can't prove I didn't overstay (as I maintain) how can they prove that I did? Surely this is now case of guilty until proven innocent?

If this really doesn't sort itself out in the next set of emails, would it be a bad decision for me to paste the entire email thread, including full contact details of all people communicating with me (blanking out my own of course), to facebook/twitter? I did say in my first email to them that I am so disgusted by this situation that I would make it known to all people I know, and take it to social forums.

Thank you once again, am surprised how many people are out there so ready to help others with these issue. Wonderful to have such help!

Coupon-mad

Bottom line is, this is ECP who don't do court. I have ignored them myself in the past, before POPLA existed. Nothing happened except the Control Account letters, it was all very boring. The sky doesn't fall in and in six years or more on this forum, the only time I can recall ECP trying a single small claim was when a guy had about 10 tickets and they were blinded by the money and forgot they didn't know how to do court. They failed and gave up.

bazster

I hope your second letter to Sainsbury's made the point that it's for them to prove you "broke the rules", it's not for you to prove that you didn't. All they have is the word of the ECP ticket grunt, and we all know how reliable and trustworthy parking company employees are.

unit_g83

Good morning all,

Just an update. Sainsburys really do not understand the issue - well they do, but they can't bring themselves to say the monitoring system is flawed. This is so tiring.. One of the things sainsburys went along the lines of "the system works, but customers must wait a reasonable amount of time before returning to the car park".

I asked them directly if they were saying that all their customers must meet criteria - i.e. wait a minimum amount of period between their purchases at sainsburys?

Obviously sainsburys declined to respond to this question. In any case, ECP have rejected my appeal and sent me a popla code. Should I proceed with the popla appeal? This is all so draining..

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Coupon-mad

Yep go to 'How to win at POPLA' in post #3 of the NEWBIES thread; this is the home straight!

As I gather yours was a windscreen PCN, not a postal ANPR spy camera one, use and adapt any 'windscreen PCN' version you see which is about a free car park and go through changing anything not relevant and putting ECP instead of the operator's name in the version you are adapting.

You can show the draft here - please don't start a new thread - we will see it if you reply here.