Parking Charge Notice from ParkingEye Ltd. - Rental Car - Driver from outside UK

Alexil

Hallo everyone,

I hope I am doing the right thing of simply opening a new thread. I have read through the instructions, the recent posts but found nothing the seemed to match my problem.

Here is my problem:
My parents have recently been to the UK for holidays (14.07.14 - 25.07.14). FYI: We are from Germany. They rented a car from Alamo/Europcar at Heathrow airport. During their stay in the UK (on a sunday) they visited Bournemouth. They wanted to go to McDonalds to pick up some ice cream but McDonalds itself did not have a car park. There was an ALDI car park close by. There you had to register the license plate of your car in the ALDI store. They knew about that and had done that already before. Nevertheless on that sunday the ALDI was closed and my parents were in the need of a parking spot to get to McDonalds. Anyways they saw the signage of the private car park at the entrance and they knew that they had to register the license plate. Since they could not do that (ALDI closed) they checked whether they could get a parking ticket from a machine somewhere but there was no parking machine to be found. Since their English is not that good they did not quite understand the signage at the entrance. They checked again for a machine to pay for their stay but could not find anything. The stayed in the car par for 35 minutes. According to what they have told me many other cars were also parked there so they did not know they were doing something wrong.

My parents returned to Germany and now they received a Parking Charge Notice from ParkingEye Ltd on Saturday, 23/08/2014. Date issued of the Notice is 06/08/2014. The Notice includes pictures of their car entering the car park and the car leaving the car park license plate clearly visible. Discount date for payments was 20/08/2014 so we basically received the letter too late for that. In the Notice it says that the rental company has provided them with the details of the driver and all unpaid parking charges are now recovered from them.

The adress of the ALDI is the following:

Aldi
9-23 Palmerston Rd
Boscombe BH1 4DB

As I said before I have read through some of the most recent posts but nothing seemed to apply to my case. I am little confused now on what we should do. Due to the fact that we live in Germany:
- we cannot talk to the ALDI store manager
- cannot have another look at the signage of the car park
- are quite unaware of regulations and rules in the UK
- cannot appear in front of the court in the UK (if ever required)

I would just like to know what we should do now? Simply pay the fine? Appeal since it took that damn letter two weeks to arrive at our place (I have sent letters from UK and they arrived within 3 days)? Not do anything (but as I read here that is also not the solution)? Or something else...?

I appreciate your help!!

Kind regards,
Alexil

Coupon-mad

I would just like to know what we should do now? Simply pay the fine?

No!!! And it is not a fine.

You can enter an appeal online. So appeal saying that the Notice arrived far too late to be sure who was driving and the person who hired the car (and who is therefore the 'keeper' as defined in the POFA 2012) was NOT the driver. Therefore there is no case against the keeper. If they disagree they need to send you a POPLA code and by the way as you are in Germany you would point out the pointlessness of this entire exercise seeing as the driver will not be divulged and they cannot rely on the POFA 2012 for keeper liability when the letter arrived so late. The fact they had to go through the Hire Firm is not an excuse in the Act, for a late Notice to the keeper.

If they send you a POPLA code we'll help you find the template to use to shut them up!

Well done for finding this forum. We have had other posters from Germany before as well. You can find their threads by putting 'Germany' into the box 'search this forum' just on the right of page one above the top thread (next to 'forum tools' back on page one).

Finally if the Hire firm has taken money from your credit card, dispute it with your card provider because Hire firms in England normally only have hire terms & conditions (t&cs) which relate to real fines. This is not a 'real' fine or penalty. You can refuse the payment to the Hire firm if their t&cs do not support the deduction.

Stroma

Just get them to (or you) to appeal online using the web address provided, use the sticky thread by coupon mad appeal wording, provide the German address and leave it like that. Has the hire company charged them for providing their details?

Alexil

Thank you so very much for the speed reply. :T:T:T

Yes, the hire firm has recently dedcuted 36pounds from the credit card and we had no idea why. So we are going to dispute that payment and will get the monay back via the credit card company. Furthermore we will check the t&cs again of the hire company in the UK just to make sure we are on the right side.

As mentioned I will write an online appeal to ParkingEye Ltd. I will check the mad appeal wording from the 'Sticky Thread' by Coupon and will adapt if necessary or simply leave it like that and just include our adress in Germany. I also found the link for the online appeal!

Once there is an update I will let you know! But thank you again for your very quick help!

Jim_AFCB

Ah, good old ALDI Boscombe. Catches a few people out, that one. Anyone using the car park outside of ALDI opening hours is easy prey for Parking Lie... er.. Eye.

Worth carefully checking the T&Cs of the hire company. They often state that they will claim back fines and penalty charges from the hirer - but this is NOT a fine or penalty charge and have no right to pay this on your behalf, thus denying you your right to appeal.

The charge they have made is more likely in this case to be an admin charge for passing your details to Parking Eye, however.

bod1467

Jim_AFCB wrote: »

The charge they have made is more likely in this case to be an admin charge for passing your details to Parking Eye, however.

Which is still probably not covered by the T&Cs. I believe the BVRLA guidance also makes that point clear.

Alexil

Hello everyone!

Thank you all again for the replies and your help. Here is a little update in my case now:

- On 25/08/14 I wrote an online appeal on behalf of my parents using the wording provided in this forum. So far no message from ParkingEye Ltd. with regards to the appeal
- ParkingEye Ltd has sent another letter to inform us about the still outstanding ticket/invoice. Nevertheless the date issued of the second letter was the 15/08/14 and it arrived in Germany on 08/09/14 but as I wrote before we received the first letter on 23/08/14 so 8 days after they issued the second letter. All I did now is to ignore the second letter.
- We have received confirmation from Europcar that the £36 were indeed a administration charge for providing our details to ParkingEye Ltd. The interesting thing: It took Europcar itself about two weeks to find out why they charged us these £36. Anyways: we have told our credit card company to get the amount back. Nevertheless I am currently looking for the T&C of Europcar that support our case. All I found so far is this excerpt of the T&C provided on their website at the moment:

Europcar strongly recommends that you carefully read this information available at the Europcar counter.!
You are liable for all fees, taxes, fines and penalties incurred in connection with the use of the Vehicle and for which Europcar is charged, unless they have arisen through the fault of Europcar.!

My problem with this is that it seems vary broad and vague and I am asking myself and now you if I can still protest the administration charge of Europcar by pointing out that the ParkingEye Ltd thing is neither a "fee, a tax, a fine nor a penalty"?

Thank you again for your help and support!

Once I have more information/news or once I get a reply from ParkingEye Ltd. I will let you know.

Greetings from Germany!

bazster

You really need a copy of the rental agreement that was signed.

As for the wording you quote:

- I suppose it could be argued that a ParkingEye charge is a "fee"

- However, it's irrelevant because that wording is specifically concerned with fees "for which Europcar is charged". Europcar has not been charged, it has merely passed on the hirer's details

- That wording makes no provision for an admin charge.

Alexil

Hello to you all!

I am back! This means I have received an answer from ParkingEyeLTD regarding my online appeal. Parking EyeLtd advises me that my recent online appeal was unsuccessful... of course!

Now they sent me a long long letter with all kinds of quotes about cases in the UK and their judgement and so on. Their letter also includes a POPLA - Parking on Private Land Appeals form. I would like someone to have a look since I do understand what their are writing me but I would like to know if this is a standard reply or especially written for our case.

Also I am starting to get a little worried! We don't want to go to the UK to court! I am a little afraid that this is going further than we can actually go. I would like to know what happens when we loose? What will we have to pay? Does the amount increase or does ist stay the same? Also what are the next steps? Now is the POPLA thing and what would happen afterwards? What is the procedure?

And what would we have to do with this POPLA now? What do we need to write or so on...

Thank you so much for your help!

Best wishes from Germany!
Alexil

bazster

I wouldn't do anything if I were you. A county court in the UK can't hear a case against a resident of Germany, so just forget about it.

How's it going with the "admin fee"?

Alexil

Regardingt the admin fee: We have now requested from Europcare to send us the rental agreement and is does not look that good. As I understand the English contract language Europcare has now covered itself against all kinds of cases. I can send you the PDF but I am nuot sure how to do that!

I have made extracts of the paragraphs of interest... but as a new user I am not allowed to post pictures...