Help please - MET Parking Services refusing to give me a POPLA code

maffyteacake

Hi all,

I live around London, went camping down to cornwall for a few days in July and it turned out to be absolutely freezing. Long story short, I went into the McDonalds in St Austell to warm up and use their wifi since I couldn't get any phone reception (and yes, I did buy food first! ) It was around 6am on a Sunday, so there was only one or two other cars in the car park, and I guess I went over the time restriction a bit, because I recieved a parking charge reminder notice in the post at the end of August (didn't have anything on my car window).

I don't know if the original letter got lost in the post or something, but the reminder letter did still say on the back I could appeal within X number of days - I looked up the process here and sent them the template appeal notice. They wrote back to me telling me that the time limit to appeal had expired, but gave the completely wrong date (28th March 2013, I'm not a time traveller!). I wrote back again telling them to improve their reading skills, politely of course, and either uphold my appeal or give me a POPLA code.

I got their response this morning, and they reiterated that oops, it was a typo, but I still can't appeal with them....but the still didn't give me a POPLA code, or anything that looks like a POPLA code.

Does anyone know what I should do from here?

Thanks in advance!

Nodding_Donkey

Complain to the BPA. All details in the newbie thread

Coupon-mad

And if you don't get a POPLA code after complaining then just ignore the letters like we always used to before POPLA existed as an option. MET don't do court (obviously you wouldn't ignore court papers but it won't happen). Make sure you don't say who was driving in all complaints and representations.

And read the Newbies sticky FAQs thread at the top which also covers debt collector letters. I assume the template appeal was the one that was in the Newbies thread last month, not the version in any MSE Article, so you haven't said who was driving? If so, good. Quite possibly the car park may be covered by Port byelaws anyway if it's near the Harbour, which means there is no keeper liability possible. Even if it's not a Port byelaws car park, the fact that MET never served a Notice to Keeper means there is still no keeper liability as you can see in Schedule 4 (linked in the Newbies thread). They had to send a NTK. You can't be liable in law, as keeper, in this case.

maffyteacake

Thanks to you both. I used another template email reminding MET that refusing to give a POPLA code is a breach of the civil procedure rules, and I've just got another form letter back stating "you must appeal within 28 days of the offence".

I now plan to complain to both the BPA and to McDonalds directly, and of course I'm saving all this correspondence just in case something does come of it.

bazster

maffyteacake wrote: »

Thanks to you both. I used another template email reminding MET that refusing to give a POPLA code is a breach of the civil procedure rules, and I've just got another form letter back stating "you must appeal within 28 days of the offence".

I now plan to complain to both the BPA and to McDonalds directly, and of course I'm saving all this correspondence just in case something does come of it.

Did it really say "offence"?