Underpaid unknowingly

nigelbb

The_Deep wrote: »

Let us look at this with our sensible hat on shall we.

The fee was £3.30, either, due to human error or machine failure. they claim than you owe them 10p, and because of this, they want £100.

Does anyone think that they are going to take you to court for that?. Even if they did, what is the likely reaction of the judge?

The main reason why this case would never be seen in court is that the PPC is Highview who have never taken a motorist to court.

BaBa

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Try this:




Dear Sirs,

Re: Flawed POPLA decision regarding your client Highview's PCN xxxxxxx

I write in response to your letter dated xx/xx/17.

It appears that your clients have withheld material information from you. It is a fact that POPLA made an error in an irrational decision regarding the above PCN. POPLA agreed that only the driver could be liable but also agreed that they were not satisfied that the driver had been identified. Therefore, because Highview choose not to rely upon the POFA 2012, they are unable to hold a keeper like myself liable for the actions of an unidentified driver.

If you have evidence of the identity of the driver, please let me have that evidence by return so I may pass your letters to that person.

In the absence of such evidence, the fact remains that I cannot be held liable under any applicable law. At the time of this error by POPLA, I complained to the independent POPLA scrutiny Panel, ISPA. For your information and in case the BPA failed to tell your client, ISPA shared my concerns and this was the reply:

Dear xx xxxxx,

Thank you for your email dated 10 June 2016 regarding the appeal
decision you received. Our director is currently on leave and I am
writing to you in her absence to inform you of the outcome of your case review.

One of our Independent Assessors, Charlotte Holland, has investigated your complaint and looked at the processes applied to your appeal. She has identified a concern with the processes followed in your case. That concern will be reported to the ISPA Board and to the BPA and Ombudsman Services. As you are aware, ISPA cannot overturn an appeal decision.

Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention.

Best wishes,

EB
Board Secretary to ISPA

Whilst ISPA were never able to overturn wrong decisions by POPLA, as stated in that reply, the BPA will be aware of the findings in this case and no doubt Highview can ask their Trade Body for clarification, to avoid pursuing the wrong party and opening themselves up to the possibility of being sued for continuing to harass me and processing my DVLA data without reasonable cause.

Now that you are aware that this POPLA decision was reviewed by ISPA who shared my concerns that the decision was unsupported by the applicable law, I trust you will advise your client to cancel the charge. Any further processing of my data from this point on will be deemed harassment, as well as a serious breach of the strict terms of the KADOE contract, which (where the POFA does not apply) only provides keeper data for the single purpose of enquiring as to the identity of the driver. That excuse has been more than exhausted and abused by your client and to pursue me now certainly fails to meet the high bar of 'reasonable cause' nor can it possibly be held to meet the DPA Principles.

Consider this a formal objection to processing of my data, under Section 10 of the DPA.

Kindly warn your clients that I intend to sue them for data misuse, should they now refuse to cease storing and processing my DVLA data and the private details relating to of this vehicle. As a first step, should I receive any further demands about this matter - including letters from your firm - I will be making a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner about Highview, using ISPA's findings and the provisions of Schedule 4 of the POFA as evidence to support my concern, as well as my honest account of the significant distress and harassment that I have suffered as a result of this unwarranted demand.

I look forward to hearing within 21 days that your client has deleted my data and cancelled the charge.

yours faithfully,

Thanks Coupon-mad, really appreciate all of your help and guidance.

nigelbb wrote: »

The main reason why this case would never be seen in court is that the PPC is Highview who have never taken a motorist to court.

Yes the records do suggest that to be the case, though I'll defend my position as if they were the most litigious of PPCs, just in case.

Umkomaas

BaBa wrote: »

Yes the records do suggest that to be the case, though I'll defend my position as if they were the most litigious of PPCs, just in case.

It's never going to happen - not unless you are their very first.

Rewind - it's never going to happen!

BaBa

Having sent a response based upon the suggestion kindly provided by Coupon-mad, I've received a very quick reply from Highview today as follows:

Dear BaBa

Thank you for your letter concerning the above parking charge notice which has been passed to us by our Solicitors.

We can confirm that this charge notice remains outstanding and unpaid at the amount of £125.

Should payment of this amount not be received, the matter will escalate accordingly.

Yours sincerely

Highview

Umkomaas

Should payment of this amount not be received, the matter will escalate accordingly.

You can sit passively and wait to see if they carry out their threat (extremely unlikely, but it's the balance of 6 years you will be waiting) or you fly straight back at them by inviting them to serve court papers on you within 14/21 days or you will consider the matter closed.

You never know what might happen in the next 6 years, many PPCs are going through their back catalogue of outstanding PCNs and are issuing court papers many years later.

By getting your punch in first, it will make it more difficult for them to defend a position some years hence, when asked by a judge 'You had the opportunity to do this, at the invitation of the defendant, x years ago, why are you bringing it before me now?'

BaBa

Umkomaas wrote: »

You can sit passively and wait to see if they carry out their threat (extremely unlikely, but it's the balance of 6 years you will be waiting) or you fly straight back at them by inviting them to serve court papers on you within 14/21 days or you will consider the matter closed.

You never know what might happen in the next 6 years, many PPCs are going through their back catalogue of outstanding PCNs and are issuing court papers many years later.

By getting your punch in first, it will make it more difficult for them to defend a position some years hence, when asked by a judge 'You had the opportunity to do this, at the invitation of the defendant, x years ago, why are you bringing it before me now?'

Thanks Umkomaas, and I see your point, though I feel that the material facts of the case in respect of them not even having sought keeper liability are sufficient in themselves to allow an easy conclusion that there is no case to answer and that the charge isn't valid.

It also appears to me that Highview certainly don't consider and possibly don't even read anything that has been written within responses to them, from the first appeal onwards.

If they were pedantic, they could also respond to such a challenge by saying that they warned of escalation rather then the issuing of court papers and only considered the latter at a later date.

Strangely though, whilst they refer more ambiguously to escalation, the previous letter from the solicitor clearly referred to them having been instructed to proceed to the issue of court papers without further communication should I not pay the spurious and invalid charge (even though the letter didn't contain any 'notice before action' wording as would be required as far as my understanding goes)

Umkomaas

the previous letter from the solicitor clearly referred to them having been instructed to proceed to the issue of court papers without further communication should I not pay

Yeah, right! Let's see them put their money where their mouth is! You'd achieve fame as Highview's very first court case.

You may just have to put up with debt collector hassle as you see out the balance of the 6 years. I'm more for smacking a bully on the nose, to see just how brave they really are.

yotmon

As they used to say on the old music hall stage "Eee, what a to do"!

Having read all of this thread, it epitomises the whole sorry mess of the sordid private parking world.

When Highview 'cashed up' for the evening, the till wasn't down, it was spot on, no monies were owed. Yet they believed that they had spotted a so-called error, a deficit of 10p that actually never existed.

Instead of leaving it well alone, they have set in motion what must be one of the worst comedy of errors I have read on here for a very long time - which was only compounded further by the rather bizarre decisions of Popla. And they wonder why people emigrate !

Coupon-mad

I feel that the material facts of the case in respect of them not even having sought keeper liability are sufficient in themselves to allow an easy conclusion that there is no case to answer and that the charge isn't valid.

Agreed - expect this 'escalation' to mean more of the same DRPlus hysterical letter chain, maybe ZZPS using solicitor letter heading again...big wow!