Pizza Hut Parking Charge Notice

RobinHill

I am a disabled who has need to use a wheelchair. On the 18th October myself, my wife and 5 children (3 are foster children), part of a party of 13, in three vehicles visited Pizza Hut, Cornelian Way, Blackpool. We arrived at 17:45 and the receipt checked us out at 19:46. The two hours was due to the size of the party and the time taken to serve us all. We all finally left the car park at 20:02.

Ours and one of the other vehicles received a PCN for £60 (£100 > 14 days) from Civil Enforcement Limited. We parked displaying my Blue Badge immediately in front of the restaurant door some 15 feet away. Unfortunately as it was dark we all failed to see the signage about the restrictions nor did Pizza Hut staff draw our attention to this, especially given that they knew how long we had been dining.

It is further complicated in that we had a hire car whilst ours was in for warranty work. The hire company received the fine and has provided a copy to ourselves. I understand that the hire co. has forwarded our details to CEL and we are to await correspondence from them. However in the interim I was advised to write to CEL (see attached).

Advice very much appreciated.


Dear Sir/Madam,

Ref. <charge ref. / reg. no.>

The above vehicle is a Europcar hire car made available to ourselves whilst our own was in for repair.

On the 21/11/2014 we received correspondence from Europcar of a Parking Charge Notice (31/10/2014) for when we visited Pizza Hut, Cornelian Way, Blackpool on the 18/10/2014. As recorded we arrived at 17:45 and departed shortly after 20:00.

There were 13 of us in the party with three vehicles parked in the Pizza Hut car park. I am disabled and a wheelchair user and together with my wife and five children (three of which are foster children) we then entered the restaurant entrance, which was a distance of approximately 15 feet immediately in front of where we had parked. It was dark when we arrived and we failed to see the signage, nor did Pizza Hut staff draw our attention to any restriction especially given they knew how long we had been dining, something they have since apologised for.

Given the size of the party it took quite some time to serve all our meals. This resulted in us being in the restaurant until 19:46 which is the time on our receipt. Given the party size, my disability, and my friend's son who is completely immobile with cerebral palsy, it took us around 10-15 minutes to finally leave the car park.

We have spoken to AAAAAAAAAAA (01253 NNNNNN) who are managers at the Pizza Hut restaurant and they confirm our visit, and will provide whatever assistance or information that you may require.

We understand that our details have been forwarded to yourselves by Europcar and that the charge is in the process of being re-issued to us, however we would be grateful for your consideration of the above and hope that the charge will be waived.

Should further information be required then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you

<our names supplied>

Coupon-mad

Yes that's perfectly reasonable to send, seeing as they already know it's a hire car. I like the way you have said 'we' and avoided saying who was driving.

I would send a complaint to the CEO of Pizza Hut (not just a local complaint) to get this cancelled, and/or a complaint on their facebook page or send them a Tweet. Make the problem more public, Pizza Hut have cancelled these before.

If that doesn't work, then I know of a journalist working on a Documentary for the New Year, currently looking for disability-based PPC cases where people have 'overstayed' through no fault of their own and yet the PPC has not cancelled the charge. If you would want your case featured if it's not cancelled after your efforts, send me a pm and an email address and I will put you in touch with her. Naming & shaming often works and CEL deserve the bad publicity.

RobinHill

Thank you Coupon-mad. Yes the "we" bit was intentional even though the recent legislation change allows the registered keeper to be held liable. I was concerned as to how the law holds up here if we are unable to declare who was driving and the reg. keeper being the hire co. Note that we haven't provided CEL with our address since the original notice (to the hire co.) requests that the hire co. should forward the hirer's details to CEL.

I trust that we can just hold station until / if CEL contact us? Should they do so then we planned to appeal citing the "damages / contractual sum" topic and also where relevant the lack of a VAT declaration.

I did think about Twitter as I have heard of such usage before but unfortunately I don't know how to use it, but I am sure the kids do!! Will pursue.

Thank you again, and yes should be required we would be interested in the documentary.

Coupon-mad

even though the recent legislation change allows the registered keeper to be held liable.

Not with CEL it doesn't! They don't have the prescribed wording from the POFA 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 9 in their Notice. They have never used a POFA-compliant version in the 2 years since the law was passed. So, no keeper liability. It's actually none of Europcar's business because of that fact.

IMHO you should be giving a name and address on the letter, just not saying who you are...

I will mention your case to Kathy who is researching the Documentary and with whom I have exchanged several emails already. If and when you want to give me an email address I can pass it on to Kathy as they need a 'face' (real person's experience) to show the issues of what happens to people.

Fruitcake

Since this was a hire car, make sure Europcar don't charge you extra for telling the PPC your details. If they do then you need to complain to them and contest the charge. If you paid for the hire by credit card you can call the card issuer and put the extra charge into dispute.


Come back here and post on this same thread if you do have problems with an extra charge that you may not know about until you get the hire bill or CC statement.

RobinHill

Hello Fruitcake, The hire co. did try to charge £36 administration but believe that this is on hold pending the outcome. We have instructed the hire co. that they should not pay the fine as we intend to appeal and that they should supply our details to CEL as requested by the notice.

Coupon-mad: Thank you for the details on the POFA 2012. Apologies when I originally said "write", I should have written "email" ie. the correspondence was by email (receipt of which was acknowledged). Does this change matters ie. should I forward our address?

Thank you.

Coupon-mad

Yes, an email with no postal address is sometimes ignored and they may then write to Europcar again.

You could also spell out in the next email :

'Further to my last email, here is my postal address and I know for a fact you cannot establish keeper liability due to your lack of prescribed wording in your Notice - so if you bother Europcar again and it leads to any loss for us, we will be reclaiming it from you or Pizza Hut. And we have already complained to the CEO of Pizza Hut about this unwarranted intimidation.'

Fruitcake

RobinHill wrote: »

Hello Fruitcake, The hire co. did try to charge £36 administration but believe that this is on hold pending the outcome. We have instructed the hire co. that they should not pay the fine as we intend to appeal and that they should supply our details to CEL as requested by the notice.

Coupon-mad: Thank you for the details on the POFA 2012. Apologies when I originally said "write", I should have written "email" ie. the correspondence was by email (receipt of which was acknowledged). Does this change matters ie. should I forward our address?

Thank you.

The outcome is irrelevant. The hire car governing body, BVRLA, state that the hirer's details should be passed to the PPC if a ticket is received. Thirty six quid is an unreasonable charge for just for sending an email to the PPC with your details, and there will be nothing in the hire Ts and Cs about payments arising from parking on private land. It will only mention things like lawful penalties which this isn't.
As I said, if you paid by credit card, make sure it is the card issuer you are dealing with about this unauthorised charge, not Europcar.
I've beaten two of these hire company charges, and a private PCN and a council PCN that the hire company had paid.

Half_way

A lot of people don't know the difference between a fine and a private parking charge.

A lot of hire companies also dont know the difference.

couple the above with the fact these people are often employed at hire companies and you get the reason why they decide its a fine, and therefore they believe they are able to pay it and/or charge an admin fee to the hirer as its in the T&Cs.

You said

Hello Fruitcake, The hire co. did try to charge £36 administration but believe that this is on hold pending the outcome. We have instructed the hire co. that they should not pay the fine as we intend to appeal and that they should supply our details to CEL as requested by the notice.

Generaly when dealing with hire companies and their clueless staff you should go to great pains to avoid the use of the words fine, and penalty and spell it out to the hire company that this is neither a fine or a penalty, but a disputed speculative charge between the driver and the parking company.
It may take some effort before this sinks in, but you can also take it as an opportunity to spread the word. If the staff dont know what a private parking charge realy is, then how many of them will/have fallen victim to the whole charade in the past, or may fall victim to them in the future

RobinHill

Coupon-mad: Thank you. Just FYI ... we only have a photo copy of the main front page of the notice issued to Europcar, and we are assuming any "legal" wording may or may not be on the rear of the notice which we have not yet seen. We did not want to provide CEL an opportunity to react specifically and change the wording by raising these points before it had been re-issued to ourselves. I suspect that we may be being overly cautious here? I trust we should now furnish CEL with our address rather than waiting / assuming that Europcar have done so?

Fruitcake: Thank you and yes, should it be required I would challenge the £36 in the manner you describe. The car was provided to us by the original third party insurance co. (someone crashed into us over 2 years ago but had not been repaired correctly). Consequently they could only send us an invoice, which ludicrously was described as a "local authority traffic violation"!!

Coupon-mad

It's not on the rear of the Notice. How many times do you think we've seen an entire CEL NTK in the 2 years since the POFA? Hundreds. Give them your address and follow the advice already given.