Armtrac Security Services

Mousehead

Hi guys,

I'm new to all this and would appreciate some help if possible.
Whilst away on holiday in Cornwall / Devon this July I received an on screen parking fine from Armtrac Security Services, usual pay us now £60 or after 21 days it'll be £100. So I came on to the forum here (fantastically informative btw) and followed the newbies sticky.
I appealed the initial ticket, using the template email, and have now received their email declining my appeal. Armtrac are an IPC registered company and I am now a little concerned at what to do next as it would appear the advice is just to sit and wait?!
I'm a little bit concerned that this is going to turn in to something very costly, more than £100, and am just not sure what the next best possible step is.
I would appreciate any comments and can upload their rejection letter but I expect you may have seen similar before.
Thanks Rob

Captain_Krunch

Post up the rejection letter. Armtrac rejection letters are always good for a laugh especially since they jumped ship to the IPC. Their NtKs do not comply with POFA2012 so as long as you didn't say who was driving they wont know who to pursue. The IPC flowchart says that if the driver is unknown then they assume the keeper is the driver and will continue to pursue however they wont chance court on an assumption. They haven't bothered with court much recently and given the farce that is the IPC they probably wont. You can either make an appeal which will be rejected or ignore and receive junk mail for a period of time. Which car park was it?

Mousehead

Thanks for the quick response. The car park is Stennack Car Park in St Ives and the little is a little long winded but is below. At no point have I said that I was the driver of the vehicle although their email refers to this even though when they asked me to clarify if I was the keeper or the driver I resent the appeal letter with 'Registered Keeper' in bold. I'd be interested to have some feedback on what they've said...

July 2015
Dear Sir,

We are in receipt of your letter regarding Parking Charge Notice (PCN) ******* issued by us to vehicle registration ******* on 8th July 2015 at the Stennack Private Pay and Display Car Park and have noted your comments including that you ************ is appealling this PCN as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. Having carefully considered the evidence provided by you we have decided to reject your appeal for the following reasons.

We have many warning signs located in the car park, including one at the entrance advising drivers what the consequences will be should they breach the parking rules. If you read the warning signs they will tell you that this is Private Land and the issuing of Parking Charge Notices takes place should you park without authority and that the charge will be £100. When parking on Private Land, a motorist freely enters into an agreement to abide by the terms and conditions of parking in return for permission to park.

By parking or remaining on this land the driver entered into a contract with Armtrac and the driver accepted liability to pay the Parking Charge of £100.00 for any failure to comply with the terms and conditions of parking which are clearly stated on our warning signs.

Land owners have the right to set rules for parking on their land and the right to enforce those rules. Here at the Stennack our warning signs are displayed at the entrance and throughout this parking location informing drivers this is Private Land where parking restrictions are in place and they make it clear that a Parking Charge Notice of £100 will be issued if a breach occurs; our warning signs are general ones for multiple sites and are not designed to advertise all the site rules, but they do state:-
ATTENTION! - PRIVATE LAND
TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY - PARKING CHARGE OF £100
Vehicles must fully display a VALID Pay and Display Ticket in the front windscreen so all details can be inspected. Retrospective evidence of authority to park will not be accepted. By parking or remaining on this land, you accept liability to pay the parking charge for any failure to comply with the terms and conditions contained within this sign. (See copies of signage attached).

Also sited here is the Tariff Board which states under the heading: - RULES:-

2/ All vehicles must display a valid ticket at all times;
6/ Return before or on your expiry time;
7/ Infringement of these rules will result in your vehicle being ticketed & you will be subjected to a Parking Charge Notice.
(see copy of Tariff Board and Signage attached)



Authority to park is by way of displaying a Valid (Readable) Pay and Display Ticket; parking here without displaying a valid ticket you become liable for a Parking Charge Notice. It is the responsibility of the motorist to consider and ensure the ticket purchased will adequately cover the stay period that he/she will require, it is also for the motorists to ensure they return on or before the expiry time printed on the ticket; because a Pay and Display Ticket is ONLY valid until the time printed on its face and no longer.

Please view our photographic evidence of your vehicle at payarmtrac.co.uk showing a photo taken by the Patrol Officer at 14:53hrs of the (Pay and Display) ticket displaying an expiry time of 14:33hrs which confirms the issue reason, as stated on this PCN ‘Ticket Expired’. We have also included a selection of these photos with this letter.

In your appeal you state ‘disproportionate and pre-estimate of loss’. In response to this; the terms and conditions of parking at the Stennack are clearly advertised on the warning signs, these signs are displayed at the entrance and throughout this parking location informing drivers that this is a ‘Private Pay and Display Car Park’ and they make it clear that the charge will be £100. By parking on this land the driver entered into a contract with Armtrac and agreed to being issued with a Parking Charge Notice of £100 should a breach occur; the Consumer Contract Regulations do not apply to this contract. If the claim is an agreed contractual term then the Appellant has agreed to pay and the Operator does not have to show loss. If the claim is for breach; recent case law has made it clear that loss is only relevant where the Operator claims an amount that is unconscionable. As the amounts claimed by Armtrac Security Services are similar to the claims considered appropriate in the recent court case of Beavis v Parking Eye, we subsequently find your comments to be irrelevant.

We have placed our warning signs in accordance to where the land owner has permitted them to be sited and ensure that all signs are clearly visible to the motorist. All land owner details and the contracts that we hold with them are protected in our officer under Data Protection/Client Confidentiality; our Data Protection number is Z3283271. Therefore we are unable to supply you with written evidence of our contract (which includes authorisation to act on the landowners behalf to collect monies due). Our contracts with the land owner enable Armtrac Security Services to patrol the land, issue a PCN to any vehicle parked in breach of the site rules and to pursue all PCNs through to and including issuing Court proceedings if necessary. However we feel that having our warning signs sited on their land should be sufficient evidence for the motorist. We will produce a copy of the contract if requested by a Judge in a Court of Law should this remain unpaid and we decide to recover via the court process.

Regarding the ‘drop hands’ offer; we Armtrac Security Services have a legal basis for claiming the charge, you the Appellant have none for claiming your ‘costs’ and there is no provision for withdrawing from this contract; the contract came into force when the driver parked and the charge was valid immediately.

We have a duty to the land owners who contract us to carry out periodic patrols on their behalf to ensure the rules are adhered to. At the time of inspection the Patrolling Officer noted the ticket had expired and had allowed a ‘grace period’ of 19 minutes before issuing you with this PCN in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of Parking displayed on the signage.

It is the driver’s responsibility to ensure that a Valid Pay and Display ticket is displayed. We have followed the guidelines correctly and these rules are put in place by the land owners, not ourselves and our officers are instructed to enforce them. Unfortunately we are unable to accept mitigating circumstances and we cannot cancel a PCN if the reasons for issuing it were correct.

Your Pay and Display ticket expired here at 14:33hrs it was 19 minutes later at 14:52hrs when the Patrol Officer correctly issued you with this PCN.

Please Note – please be aware that we would need to be a member of the BPA in order to offer you to appeal to Parking On Private Land Appeals; Armtrac Security Services decided not to renew our membership with the British Parking Association (BPA) and therefore as of midnight on the 28th February 2015 we became a member of the alternative Accredited Trade Association known as the Independent Parking Committee (IPC). New members are required to undertake a period of Probationary Membership of at least 6 months. This is to allow new members to continue their operations as usual during their transitional period.

We have considered and rejected your appeal therefore you now have the option to appeal to the Independent Parking Committee (IPC) as explained below.


you now have 3 options from which to choose-

pay the parking charge notice of £60.00 within 14 days, after which time the discounted rate will no longer apply and the parking charge notice will rise to £100.00.

make an appeal to the independent appeals service (ias); if you believe this decision is incorrect; you are entitled to appeal to the IAS.

In order to appeal, you will need your parking charge number, your vehicle registration and the date the charge was originally issued. Appeals must be submitted to the IAS within 21 days of the date of this letter, visit .theias.org for full details.

Please note that if you wish to appeal to the IAS you will lose the right to pay the charge at the discounted rate of £60.00 and should the IAS's decision not go in favour you will be required to pay the full amount of £100.00.

if you choose to do nothing and the parking charge notice remains unpaid after 35 days the matter may be passed into other hands for collection.
Yours Faithfully

Fruitcake

Redact your name and vehicle registration from your post, pronto. Parking companies read these forums.

Fruitcake

That rejection is all bluff and bluster. Your choices are, appeal and have it rejected by a kangaroo court. This will however cost the parking company money so it is what I would do. If you appeal and it is rejected, you then go into ignore mode for six years unless you get real court papers. This is extremely unlikely.


Alternatively you can start ignoring now.


Either way you will get demands for payment, debt collectors letters, letters with BOLD SCARY RED WRITING, offers to pay a lower amount, and then silence for a while. It may start again a few months or years later but eventually they will give up unless you see a squadron of flying pigs delivering court papers.

The_Deep

If they are claiming contractual charge, they have to account for v.a.t. If they do not, then it has to be damages for a breach of contract, (no vat). You may ask for a vat compliant invoice, but are unlikely to get one, use this as a stick to beat them with and mention it on your appeal to IAS.

Once you have your anonymous kangaroo refusal from the IAS the game is virtually over as the reasons for the refusal will be so perverse, so divorced from normal dispute protocols, and so flawed in law, they could never allow a copy to be produced in court, Vat stuff here.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5087925=


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5033796=


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5195437


If you suspect tax evasion go here


https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/reporting-tax-evasion

Guys_Dad

I agree with the Deep. You MUST write to them demanding a VAT compliant invoice as they have confirmed that their charge is NOT a disguised penalty but an actual charge for parking. You are not refusing to pay but as you may be in a position to claim back the VAT, then a VAT compliant invoice should be sent prior to any payment being made and you need this in order to consider the matter further.

This places them in Morton's fork. They don't pay VAT on these charges, claiming they are in effect penalties and not parking charges - at least they do to HMRC. So if they now claim it is for a parking charge (as against a disguised penalty) then the worry is that the HMRC will come after them for loads a money.

see opening bit of this case for a more detailed explanation http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/186.html

Mousehead

Thanks again for the replies guys and I appreciate this may sound a little slow but what do I actually send to the IAS or will they contact me?! I have contacted Armtrac for VAT information so will wait to hear a response now...

Redx

Mousehead wrote: »

Thanks again for the replies guys and I appreciate this may sound a little slow but what do I actually send to the IAS or will they contact me?! I have contacted Armtrac for VAT information so will wait to hear a response now...

you wrote that in post #3

ie:- YOU will submit a bespoke appeal online to the IAS including all evidence etc, within 21 days of the letter

so a bespoke appeal to the IAS

nobody will contact you, its up to you to lodge a bespoke appeal to the IAS if you so wish (nb:- there are NO templates for this)

so

1) you log an online appeal with the IAS, promptly

2) the IAS will not initiate contact you, but debt collectors probably will

if you do log an appeal, the IAS will contact you with their decision

Mousehead

Hey guys, sorry its been a few weeks since my last update but I appealed to the IAS as recommended and guess what... the predicted 'appeal dismissed' e-mail has arrived. I guess its just a waiting game now to see if they follow it up with any actual court action :-/

bod1467

Might be useful to post your (redacted) appeal and the IAS decision, so we can see what abuse of law they've used this time.

(Ignore the "this decision is confidential" or whatever other bullocks they may have said - it's rubbish and not enforceable).