Liverpool John Lennon airport (again)

Meddler

Received a parking charge today in the post indicating that I stopped on a public highway around the airport and have been charges £60. I did indeed stop, but it was at the barrier at the hire car return as the barrier would not open for the car infront. The lady infront was foreign and struggling to get the automatic barrier to lift. There was a queue of 3 cars waiting to enter and an employee had to come and lift the barrier. The man in the camera van would clearly have been able to see we were all waiting to get through the barrier yet still took a picture of us stopped outside the barrier. He conveniently cut off the car that was at the barrier from the picture but you can still see 3 cars in the queue and the wheels turned on ours in order to get through the barrier. Budget car hire paid the fine without question and charged my card £90, £60 charge and £30 admin fee! I have complained to Budget as its not our fault that barrier would not open and have sent an appeal to thr cowboys who charged us. This is nothing but a clear attempt at extorting money from us and I feel utterly robbed. I imagine I will get nowhere even though you can see we are at the car hire yard. I imagine that the camera watches the barrier and attempts to stitch people who are attempting to enter. I will appeal to POPLA but is there anything else we can do as no offence has been committed, we were simply waiting to enter the car hire yard?

Edna_Basher

Unfortunately, there's no route to POPLA. This charge will have come from Vehicle Control Services Ltd (VCS), an IPC-approved operator.

Your best bet is to tackle Budget head-on for making an unauthorised charge outside of the scope of the terms and conditions of their hire agreement.

Handily, Budget have posted their terms and conditions on their website.

http://www.budget.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/uk-rental-agreement.html

The relevant terms appear in Paragraph 6.

The hire agreement states that the Renter will pay "on demand, all fines and court costs for parking, traffic or other offences (including any costs which arise if the vehicle is clamped)".

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is on your side. Paragraph 69 states that if a term in a consumer contract, or a consumer notice, could have different meanings, the meaning that is the most favourable to the consumer is to prevail.

In your case, the most favourable meaning is that Paragraph 6 of the hire agreement does not apply in this case because no offence has been committed and the charge is not a fine.

Fruitcake

Meddler wrote: »

Received a parking charge today in the post indicating that I stopped on a public highway around the airport and have been charges £60. I did indeed stop, but it was at the barrier at the hire car return as the barrier would not open for the car infront. The lady infront was foreign and struggling to get the automatic barrier to lift. There was a queue of 3 cars waiting to enter and an employee had to come and lift the barrier. The man in the camera van would clearly have been able to see we were all waiting to get through the barrier yet still took a picture of us stopped outside the barrier. He conveniently cut off the car that was at the barrier from the picture but you can still see 3 cars in the queue and the wheels turned on ours in order to get through the barrier. Budget car hire paid the fine without question and charged my card £90, £60 charge and £30 admin fee! I have complained to Budget as its not our fault that barrier would not open and have sent an appeal to thr cowboys who charged us. This is nothing but a clear attempt at extorting money from us and I feel utterly robbed. I imagine I will get nowhere even though you can see we are at the car hire yard. I imagine that the camera watches the barrier and attempts to stitch people who are attempting to enter. I will appeal to POPLA but is there anything else we can do as no offence has been committed, we were simply waiting to enter the car hire yard?

Immediately contact your card provider and put the charge into dispute telling them it is a fraudulent charge.


Budget are part of Avis who are members of the BVRLA. You will need to do some research, but the BVRLA and BPA agreement says that land covered by byelaws are not relevant land. In other words a private parking company cannot collect money from anyone using land covered by byelaws, which the airport is.


Somewhere I have also seen a note from the chairman of the BVRLA saying that it's members must pass on the details of the hirer to a parking company, not to pay the charge.


From the BPA and BVRLA Memorandum of Understanding (my bold.) (Sorry about the formatting.)


https://www.dropbox.com/s/9b0iavad3aqeh28/BPA%20BVRLA%20MoU.pdf?dl=0

Pay particular attention to item 3, Key areas of understanding which tells the rental company what they have to do for a private parking charge to be valid. This they have not done.



3
(1)
In this Schedule “relevant land” means any land (including land above or below
ground level) other than—
(a)
a highway maintainable at the public expense (within the meaning of
section 329(1) of the Highways Act 1980);
(b)
a parking place which is provided or controlled by a traffic authority;
(c)
any land (not falling within paragraph (a) or (b)) on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control.






(3)
For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(c) the parking of a vehicle on land is “subject
to statutory control” if any statutory provision imposes a liability (whether criminal
or civil, and whether in the form of a fee or charge or a penalty of any kind) in respect
of the parking on that land of vehicles generally or of vehicles of a description that
includes the vehicle in question.
(4)
In sub-paragraph (3) “statutory provision” means any provision (apart from this
Schedule) contained in—
(a)
any Act (including a local or private Act), whenever passed; or
(b)
any subordinate legislation, whenever made, and for this purpose “subordinate legislation” means an Order in Council or any order, regulations, byelaws or other legislative instrument.

Redx

just to be clear

POPLA has not been an option with VCS or JLA and their other sites like RHA for about 15 months!

not since they went to the dark side of the IPC who use the IAS (a kangaroo court)

the NEWBIES thread goes into great detail about the differences between those 2 options, and why

neither VCS nor the IAS will uphold your appeal, yes its a money making sc@m that appears every week on here, plus its been on watchdog and rip off britain and in the ECHO and other newspapers etc

we understand you are annoyed, but no appeal will win, so unless it goes to court in the next 6 years it wont get resolved at all

but that hire charge admin fee can be clawed back because of the unfair contracts laws and also because the hire company have not followed the BVRLA guidelines from about 2 years ago

plus you were not given the opportunity to appeal so they dont deserve the parking charge either, they should have named the hirer and left it to the PPC and the HIRER to sort out , so claim the lot back as a disputed charge

if BUDGET cannot learn the rules, they lose money

Meddler

Thanks for the replies, seems like the best route is direct with the hire car company with their ignorance to BVLRA rules. Its unbelievable that these companies can get away with this type of behaviour. No offence was committed, we had to stop as we were in a queue to enter through the barrier. Its ridiculous but thanks again for the advice.

Redx

keep all evidence and paperwork for a judge, just in case a court case happens, even if its by you against budget (small claims court)

if they are so stupid to pay it after all the time they have had to get their ducks in a row and read the BVRLA advice then they deserve all they get

The_Slithy_Tove

Meddler wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, seems like the best route is direct with the hire car company with their ignorance to BVLRA rules.

AND your card company, as already suggested.

AND, in this instance, you should put in a strong complaint direct to JLA, picking the most senior person that you can. Point out that THEIR contractor is issuing these charges to cars stopped at a barrier, which is despicable. Demand to know what they intend to do about such obvious scamming behaviour. I doubt you'll get anywhere with them, as they are part of the scam (see many threads on Pepipoo which clearly demonstrates that they are using fudge and obfuscation to avoid having to admit that the whole system is based on a big LIE).

Ralph-y

also please read though the following blog

Parking Prankster

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/

he has done much good work on the JLA / VSC scam

and may well be interested in you case

good luck

Ralph:cool:

Coupon-mad

The BVRLA offers a dispute resolution service I seem to recall, check that option out because this is wrong. On Airport land there can be no keeper liability due to byelaws, as it's not 'relevant land'. Also VCS do not use POFA versions of Notice to Keeper letters anyway, they state that they are pursuing the DRIVER.

So Budget WERE NEVER LIABLE, only the driver alone (if at all) and it wasn't their business to pay. Edna Basher also nailed it with the advice given to you at first. All of these arguments should be used to complain to the BVRLA and ask them about their ADR procedure.

yotmon

If this type of behaviour is being carried out by employees of VCS, then it shows how they are now ruling the roost down a JLA and don't give a flying wotsit who they upset ! They are getting too cocky for sure chancing their arm with tactics like this.

It makes you wonder whether employees of Budget are in with the scam - was it really the 'foreign Lady' causing the problem or was their barrier failure part of the skulduggery.

This must be one for the Echo to run a story on - then wait for the JLA spokesman come out with the normal drivel about '"The driver will have had to pass over 30 signs stating its a no stopping zone blah blah blah". Sorry matey, it won't wash !!

hoohoo

The Prankster has now blogged this
http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/will-hurley-and-john-davies-member.html


Here is the BVRLA web page for dispute resolution, which couponmad referred to

http://www.bvrla.co.uk/advice/guidance/using-bvrlas-conciliation-service