Parking Eye and overseas victims

gyncy

They got my address from the car hire company, though it's not accurate. I'm a citizen of a non European, non Commonwealth country and I don't live in the UK. Can I safely ignore any letters they send me? Or can/will Parking Eye pursue me in a British court?

Dee140157

An expert will be along later I am sure, but I suspect there would be no keeper liability. So you would probably be safe to ignore. But let someone else guide you on this.

The issue would be more with your car hire company and any charges they have made on you regarding with passing on your information to Parking Eye as they will have received a Notice to Keeper previously and discharged their liability by naming you. Has this cost you extra? If so you may consider challenging this coast spending on the terms and conditions of your contract with them.

HO87

In theory PE could pursue you but in order to do so they would need the permission of the court for an out-of-jurisdiction service. The additional court applications this would require coupled with the substantial costs involved in obtaining and evidencing service of documents overseas, and the complete lack of any means of securing the defendant's attendance at court is, in my view, extremely unlikely to be regarded as a practical proposition. Especially when one considers that all of this would be brought to bear to secure a purported debt of just £170 or thereabouts.

At present none of the private parking companies has issued proceedings for Scottish residents who have received their tickets south of the border so the chance of them going after a non-UK resident is pretty unlikely.

Umkomaas

And putting a LPC law school kid on a plane wouldn't be cheap

da_rule

I'm surprised they're even bothering to pay the extra to send the letter abroad.

Stroma

I would put a fairly large wager that they will pursue the hire company, they will go back to them and try and get money, the hire company will likely cave and pay, then they will charge your card the cost of the ticket and an admin fee. So ensure that doesn't happen and insist they don't pay it and charge you. Immediately dispute any charge on your card if it happens.

Guys_Dad

To avoid the Hire company hitting your card, you could admit to being the driver. On balance, saving the charge and admin fee from the hire company outweighs any downside for admitting you were the driver.

Put in a standard appeal asking for cancellation or a POPLA code, but advising them that you are an overseas resident who rarely visits the UK and that, should you lose at POPLA which you think highly unlikely, you are outside the jurisdiction of the English courts.

gyncy

Thanks for these great comments - interesting that they might try to go after the car hire company. My research was leading me to believe that the car hire company has discharged their legal obligations after they pass on the address. Why do they have the right to debit the credit card on file after that?

da_rule

gyncy wrote: »

Thanks for these great comments - interesting that they might try to go after the car hire company. My research was leading me to believe that the car hire company has discharged their legal obligations after they pass on the address. Why do they have the right to debit the credit card on file after that?

The hire company have discharged their liability, but the parking company may chance their hand and try to argue that as the 'debt' cannot be recovered from you that the hire company is liable. They will be gambling that the hire company do not care about/know the law.

You will probably find a clause in your hire agreement that any loss suffered by the hire company (including fines/charges etc incurred by you in the hire vehicle) will be charged to you, using the card details you gave to them at the time of booking.

Stroma

I would put my house on that they mention penalties/fines/congestion charges/tolls and nothing about invoices from parking companies

Coupon-mad

gyncy wrote: »

Thanks for these great comments - interesting that they might try to go after the car hire company. My research was leading me to believe that the car hire company has discharged their legal obligations after they pass on the address. Why do they have the right to debit the credit card on file after that?

As others have said they have discharged liability but just extend ONE response to ParkingEye (online so it costs you nothing) in order for them to 'know' that you exist and are a real driver's name & address. That way they cannot have any excuse at all to pretend they have reason to write to the Hire firm again.

So I would send an adapted version of the template appeal (in the NEWBIES thread at the top of the forum) changed to state 'I am the hirer of this car and...'. I would also add a point #4:

You have my address for service so you cannot legally revert to the Hire company now. If you do bother them again now that they have discharged their potential liability under Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012, I will immediately report you to the DVLA and BPA and Trading Standards, among others. You will notice that I am not in the UK and as such you have no action possible against me as driver. I suggest you save the postage and cancel this charge. Or you can reject but then you'd have to send me a POPLA code which would be a complete waste of money for you when you can see I know the score and would be very happy to waste your time with POPLA despite my Country of residence.

Then I would also email the Hire company to show them that you have appealed and to reconfirm that PE have no business to bother them again (but if they do, you are not liable to pay if 'Hire company' make an error and settle despite it not being up to them any more - and if this happens you will NOT be paying).

Finally I would contact your card issuer and make sure the Hire firm haven't taken an admin fee (applicable normally ONLY to 'real penalties' which this is not) and also to remove any authority for the Hire firm to debit any monies from now on as your business is concluded. That way any attempt to take payment will be refused by your card provider.