Vcs - pcn

Shell2015

Hello all,

I finally have an update on this... granted a rather annoying one.

Firstly the landowner simply stopped responding to me after some very friendly and polite initial emails, I can only assume VCS stepped in and told them to ignore us.

I emailed VCS as advised above, including a signed statement from my husband explaining that myself and my son are allowed to handle this for him.

Today we got their response in the post which is to deny our right to appeal as they claim we are outside of the window to appeal the PCN. We clearly appealed based on the NTK both the email title and the first line of the email mentioned this. Which they have ignored. Moreover they pretty much ignored most of the appeal points in there response.

Obviously they are now demanding payment within 14 days, so where do I go from here? (Obviously not going to pay) Contact them again or complain to the IPC they refused to hear the appeal? (I know kangeroo court etc).

I am also aware of the Bevis case but clearly we wont know the outcome of that for a while and if the judgement will apply here.


The email I sent was as follows:

Title: Notice To Keeper

As per your automated response email please find attached a statement signed by ****** stating that myself ******* and ***** will be authorised to deal with this on his behalf.


Dear VCS,
This email pertains to your NTK to ****** dated 0*/01/2015, PCN # *****

Firstly I originally paid Parking Ticket Appeals to handle this on behalf of my disabled husband ********* who is the keeper and was travelling in the vehicle at the time. However it appears that they have wound down the company shortly after this. Please can you confirm if they filed an appeal on behalf of my husband, if they have not please advise me of this and I on behalf of my husband will issue an appeal within 7 days.

If this will take me past any appeal deadline I will instead appeal on the following terms:
1) The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss
2) The signage does not form a contract with the motorist
3) You have no authority to issue charges/penalties
4) The equalities act 2010 applies as I am registered disabled
5) The terms of the car park have changed and you did not obey the IPC code of conduct by clearly warning about the changes.
6) The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 (the 1999 Regulations) also applies to point 5.

I will be more than happy to expand on these and other points should you contact me before any appeal deadline.

The landowner will also be informed of this incident and any counter action will be targeted towards them as they are responsible for all actions of their agents (in this case you VCS).

I was contemplating a formal letter to the landowner pointing out that VCS are ignoring their obligations to offer the appeal etc. Not sure how far that would get me. I do need to make sure they are the owners and not just the managers now I think though.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated. Should post a copy of their response letter?

Redx

I think a counter claim should be started under the EA 2010 , against both VCS and the landowner , by the disabled person (even if you are doing all the work and he is only signing it)

fight fire with fire

so an LBC from him to landowner and VCS, threatening court under the EA 2010

the land registry will give you the landowners details for a small fee

Shell2015

Thanks Redx, would you also advise disputing the fact VCS are refusing to hear the appeal even though it was well within the 21 days of the NTK?

Shell2015

A relative has been assisting with this as well now, they are much better at me than wording things in suitable manner.

We have sent a very strongly worded letter to the landowner, making a number of legal arguments against them including breach of EA 2010. Pointing out the thousands of pounds in lost business since ourselves nor family or friends will use their facilities any longer (or the shops etc on site). We also made it clear that we will take further action if they do not have the charge cancelled.


A letter was sent to VCS pointing out their error in not giving 21 days in breach of their own terms an conditions. We have now had a response which I will summarise the points below( not sure if posting a copy would give too much away):

- Please note we will be pursuing the costs based on the reasonable assumption that the keeper was the driver.
-They will process the appeal as a "gesture of goodwill" and allow appeal to the IAS, even though the driver must appeal within 28 days of the windscreen PCN.
-They quoted the blue badge hand book "off-street car park operators should provide parking spaces for disabled people. However, it is up to the car park owner to decide whether badge holders can park free of charge. Do not assume you can always park for free." (It should be noted that this was never disputed, the dispute was that the terms had changed without any warning to the users of the car park, nor do the new signs say anything about blue badge holders. There is no objection to paying for parking.)

- VCS responses to the basic appeal points:
1) The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss:
- On charges "They represent a sum for liquidated and ascertained damages in respect of a breach of the 'parking contract'." It goes on to mention breach again, then state that its commercially justifiable or they would not be employed to run the carpark.
- It is too late to indicate you are unhappy with the parking charge, we will defend it at the IAS.

2) The signage does not form a contract with the motorist (half answered ?)
- Mention breach of contract again, they claim their terms and conditions are clearly displayed throughout the area. "A person can enter into a contract by expressly agreeing to do so or by acting in such a way that he/she can be said to have implied agreement to enter into a contract."
- Terms and Conditions operable on site were clearly indicated on our signage. Keeper(or as they see it driver) was clearly in breach of these terms and conditions and they did not display a Pay & Display ticket as required


The following points were ignored by VCS:

3) You have no authority to issue charges/penalties
4) The equalities act 2010 applies as I am registered disabled
5) The terms of the car park have changed and you did not obey the IPC code of conduct by clearly warning about the changes.
6) The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 (the 1999 Regulations) also applies to point 5.


Basically they answered one of the appeal points, half answered another one and ignored the rest. Though they did decide to offer us the discount to £60 again as a gesture of goodwill, personally I like to think it is because they don't have a leg to stand on in court.



Obviously we will appeal to the IAS but I wanted to clarify if we can appeal on the following points (obviously the intention is to expand on them), not that we expect to win of course.

1. Firstly we have not discussed who the driver is and obviously we won’t, so by assuming my husband was the driver but seeking his details from the DVLA as the keeper, are they in breach of POFA 2012 for this? (He was obviously travelling in the car at the time to allow use of the blue badge)

- They have not provided a "period of parking"
- The initial NTK seems to have omitted the mandatory wording regarding how the keeper is liable. Again stating "they will persue the keeper as the driver".

2. Sign does not form a valid contract, insufficient terms and conditions etc.

3. Only sign anywhere near the entrance is the same as those placed infrequently around the site. It is also on the wrong side of the road and too high to be visible when driving into the car park. Thus insufficient/unsuitable entrance signage.

4. Breach of IPC guidelines as terms were changed without any additional signage warning of this.

5. Breach of EA 2010, their only change in terms was to start charging disabled users but gave no warning of this to said users. We still contend the signs say nothing about blue badge holders, nor about disabled users within the terms and conditions at the top of the sign.

6. Contract with the land owner not provided, VCS are not the landowner so have suffered no loss etc.

7. GPEOL applies as this is a breach of contract not a contractual term as stated on the signage and in correspondence. Moreover while with the BPA/POPLA the average costs from VCS were £15-20 (evidence from prankster- parking-prankster.com/excel-parking.html). Thus £100 is an illegal penalty charge, Unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations 1999 applies.

I also noticed in one thread that we should request proof of the independence of the solicitor hearing the appeal.


Is there anything else we could include in the appeal? Or anything listed above which we should remove?

Any further advice would be appreciated.

Zero_Gravitas

In the last six months or so, we have only heard of two appeals to the IAS that have been upheld. One was at an airport, and so what not relevant land as far as POFA was concerned, and in the other case the appellant refused to show us their appeal....


However, what we do know is that the IAS appeal service in not independent, not transparent, and regularly chooses to ignore both the law and the IPC Code of Practice. In short, it's a Kangaroo Court and the general consensus is that an appeal to the IAS is frankly, a waste of time.


On the other hand, in the extremely unlikely event that VCS would be stupid enough to try court with this, it would be useful to be able to demonstrate that you had behaved reasonably and had not simply ignored VSC.


So, my advice would be to write back to VCS thus:


"Dear VCS,

Thank you for your kind offer of allowing us an appeal to the IAS. However, we will not be taking up this offer, as there is sufficient evidence now available to suggest that the IAS is neither independent, transparent or fair.

You now have two choices. Either cancel the invoice; or serve correctly issued court papers within 28 calendar days of receipt of this letter (which will be deemed to be received two days after posting - and a certificate of posting will be obtained). If nothing has been received by this time the matter will be considered closed. Any response from you outside of the two options outlined above will be considered harassment and appropriate action will be taken.

Yours,

Print your name here"

It might just be worth waiting until one of the regulars is able to add their opinion, and of course if VCS chose option 2, then come back here for further advice.

Shell2015

Thank you for the advice Zero, I will wait and see if any of the regulars reply with similar advice.

I fully agree that the IAS is not independant, however I wonder how much suitable evidence is available to prove to a judge, that this was a good enough reason to skip the IAS appeal.

It is a shame that other person did not want to share the appeal, I assume they made at least one very good point. Obviously my intention will be to post the appeal here, before I send it. Also once we have resolved with the landowner side I will post that correspondance too.

I think unless the advice has changed across the board we will press ahead with the IAS appeal, purely to be seen as doing everything we can, in case it does go to court.

It does seem as though VCS are pushing court more recently I know there is a big one expected in Scotland, I am not sure if that applies here in England though.

Thanks again

Herzlos

I'd still make an appeal to the IAS, even if you preface it with a statement along the lines of you knowing it's not actually independent.

It gives them something else to mess up which you can show to a court should it get that far, and I'd assume that since even they know how iffy it is, they won't want their arguments to be seen by a judge as it'd blow any shred of credibility out of the water.

If nothing else it makes their rejection ratio look worse and costs them some time to handle the appeal. You never know, you might hit the 20% of accepted appeals lottery and be done there.

Herzlos

Shell2015 wrote: »

It is a shame that other person did not want to share the appeal, I assume they made at least one very good point.

It's not that didn't want to share the appeal, to reinforce the kangaroo nature, success appeals don't bother to say *why*, just something like "your appeal has been upheld". Not that copying the appeal text from a successful one helps anyway, someone sent in 2 identical appeals (same site, situation and appeal wording), first one got accepted and the second rejected. It really is a lottery.

Shell2015

Herzlos wrote: »

I'd still make an appeal to the IAS, even if you preface it with a statement along the lines of you knowing it's not actually independent.

It gives them something else to mess up which you can show to a court should it get that far, and I'd assume that since even they know how iffy it is, they won't want their arguments to be seen by a judge as it'd blow any shred of credibility out of the water.

If nothing else it makes their rejection ratio look worse and costs them some time to handle the appeal. You never know, you might hit the 20% of accepted appeals lottery and be done there.

Thankyou for the response Herzlos, we have started to draft the IAS appeal, not that we expect to win regardless. We have written some points ourselves using older appeals as a template and used some chunks of one CM wrote, hopefully she will not mind. It is worded much better than anything we could write I am sure. I will post it with images once it is done.

It looks like the landlord does not want to play, they forwarded everything on to VCS and will wait for their advice (granted nice of them to bother letting us know this time). So I am guessing we will be ignored until we go for the last resort of a letter before court action for EA 2010 breach.

Redx

have a look at this winner too

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5195073

use what you like from it