PCN from ParkingEYE

pjhaahl

Hi All,

I've just drafted this to send to ParkingEye in response to a PCN Ive received in connection with an alleged overstay at South Mimms Motorway Services operated by Welcome Break.

[insert your name
and address]

[insert date]
Appeals Department
ParkingEye Limited
PO BOX 565
Chorley
PR6 6HT

Dear Sir or Madam,

Parking Charge Notice: XXXXX
Vehicle registration number: XXXX

You issued me with a parking charge notice on 30/04/2016. I believe it was unfairly and unlawfully issued. I decline any subsequent invitation to name the driver of XXXX, which is not required of me as the keeper of the vehicle. I will not be paying your demand for payment for the following reasons:

• You have not evidenced the alleged contravention occurred.
Quite simply, to say the photographs you have provided within your notice are questionable is charitable at best. The images appear to have been edited/ manipulated. There are a number of discrepancies. If you wish to pursue this matter please supply the original raw images. Please also explain why the registration number appears to differ between photos and in some images, the registration plate shown displays an EU logo where others do not.

• The notice to keeper is incorrect
The Notice to Keeper failed to meet the obligations of Schedule 4 of the POFA Act 2012

- Your Parking Charge Notice;
o was issued after 15 Days
o did not use a correct address for service
o did not advise that the driver is liable for the parking charge and that it has not been paid in full
o did not invite the registered keeper to provide the name and address of the driver and to pass a copy of the notice on to that driver
o did not state whether a notice to the driver was given either to the driver, or placed on the vehicle
o did not specify the maximum additional costs you may seek to recover

Should you fail to uphold my appeal then I will also appeal to POPLA/IAS. You will be expected to provide a full breakdown of your alleged loss, and your full un-redacted contract with the landowner.

If you do reject the challenge and insist on taking the matter further I must inform you that I will claim my expenses from you. The expenses I may claim are not exhaustive but may include the cost of stamps, envelopes, travel expenses, legal fees, etc. By continuing to pursue me you agree to pay these costs.

If you choose to pursue me and enter into any correspondence other than to confirm cancellation of the notice, you also agree to pay my standard communication charges:

£20 per telephone call
£200 per letter
£500 per meeting.

Any communication that does not either confirm cancellation or include a POPLA verification code/IAS appeal information will be reported to the BPA/IPC as a breach of their Code of Practice - the BPA recently issued guidance to all members to remind them of this fact. Such communication may also be deemed harassment and pursued accordingly.

Whilst you come to a decision I expect you to put this matter on hold at your "discount" rate. In the event you do not cancel your notice, you agree that the 14 day period will start at the point a decision has been appropriately communicated, following the conclusion of the appeals process.

For the avoidance of doubt, as directors of the business, I hold the following people personally responsible for the actions of ParkingEye Limited

Mr Daniel James Greenspan of 17 Rochester Row, London, SW1P 1QT
Mr Stephen Sharp of 17 Rochester Row, London, United Kingdom, SW1P 1QT

I note that the directors of Capita Business Services Ltd also record their addresses as 17 Rochester Row. Rather than a case of co-habiting, this suggests an element of cowardice on the part of your directors. I will require their home addresses to enable me to serve court papers on them. If you fail to do so, I will hire a private investigator to obtain their addresses, and you agree to bear the cost of this.

Yours faithfully,


[insert your signature]


One final point which I haven't made in the letter, and causes me a slight difficulty is that they have spelt my surname incorrectly on the PCN, and they have not correctly identified a correct service address for me.

Is my best approach to continue spelling my name incorrectly in the correspondence, and using a care of address, rather than helping them overcome their incompetence?

Thanks in advance for any help

salmosalaris

This looks like a non POFA variant PCN from PE ? They do issue these outside the requisite 14 day POFA window where they are relying on the driver outing themselves . So long as you don't they are stuffed and you will win at POPLA on no keeper liability ( or should !)
PE may well cancel

The photo errors you refer to are because the pic of the reg plate is not a photo but computer generated by ANPR , it is not an enlargement of the accompanying photo of the vehicle

Lose the references to the IPC /IAS

Personally I'd also lose all the rollux at the end of your letter , only write what you intend to see through . This is all you need

Dear PE
Re PCN xxxx

I am the keeper of vehicle xxx . As you have not issued a Notice to Keeper that is compliant with para 9 of schedule 4 of the POFA I cannot be held liable for your alleged charge.
Please cancel your demand or if you reject my challenge issue a POPLA validation code with your refusal .
No further communication will be enteted into

Yours
Reg Keeper

Umkomaas

If you choose to pursue me and enter into any correspondence other than to confirm cancellation of the notice, you also agree to pay my standard communication charges:

£20 per telephone call
£200 per letter
£500 per meeting

This won't put the frighteners on PE at all! They'll just send you a letter refusing to contract on that basis. Then where do you go?

How were you hoping to enforce it?

pjhaahl

salmosalaris wrote: »

This looks like a non POFA variant PCN from PE ? They do issue these outside the requisite 14 day POFA window where they are relying on the driver outing themselves . So long as you don't they are stuffed and you will win at POPLA on no keeper liability ( or should !)
PE may well cancel

The photo errors you refer to are because the pic of the reg plate is not a photo but computer generated by ANPR , it is not an enlargement of the accompanying photo of the vehicle

Lose the references to the IPC /IAS

Personally I'd also lose all the rollux at the end of your letter , only write what you intend to see through . This is all you need

Dear PE
Re PCN xxxx

I am the keeper of vehicle xxx . As you have not issued a Notice to Keeper that is compliant with para 9 of schedule 4 of the POFA I cannot be held liable for your alleged charge.
Please cancel your demand or if you reject my challenge issue a POPLA validation code with your refusal .
No further communication will be entered into

Yours
Reg Keeper

Thank you. The alleged incident occurred on 01/04 and the PCN / NTK was issued on 30/04, so given it was after 15 days, I agree is probably the strongest part of my argument.

The registration numbers in the photos also appear to differ from each other and the ANPR. In one of the photos the registration appears to contain an N where on the ANPR it appears as an M. The photographs as they stand also do not show up some minor damage to the front end of the vehicle for which I'm the registered keeper. I've seen nothing in the photos so far that gives me confidence that the images are the vehicle that is registered to me. If the raw footage shows the same, I was hoping it might also give me scope to question whether this may be a cloned vehicle and bring ParkingEye's entire system into question.

In some ways I do agree with your sentiment of keeping it short and sweet, but I also think it does make sense to highlight exactly how the Notice to Keeper is not compliant with para 9 of schedule 4 of the POFA. I think the bullet points cover all the breaches, as long as I have interpreted the act correctly and im leaning towards including them - what do you think?

Finally, I could remove the rollux at the end as you put it, and perhaps this would be very sensible. Its probably a good measure of how angry I am that I would see everything through exactly as stated. I've already been to companies house, identified the directors, and the full group structure. I have also looked into employing someone to identify their true home addresses as they have attempted to hide them by providing a service address to companies house. Would you still suggest removing this and let it come as a surprise, or would you keep it in on that basis to provide 'fair warning' ?

Umkomaas wrote: »

This won't put the frighteners on PE at all! They'll just send you a letter refusing to contract on that basis. Then where do you go?

How were you hoping to enforce it?

The way I wrote this does not give them an option to refuse. If they draw me into correspondence by writing to me with anything other confirmation they have cancelled their their unlawfully issued PCN then I would ignore any protestation over my charges and submit an invoice with 14 day payment terms with my response. If they did not pay after 14 days, I would apply interest at the maximum 8% above base rate allowable under UK law. If they do not pay, I would start the process of obtaining a CCJ against them in the small claims court to force them to. I note that none of this wouldn't put the frighteners on and that wasn't my intent. They are no strangers to CCJ's - there is an outstanding one against them even now. My thoughts were that if I can adequately cover my costs, i can invest much more time on taking ParkingEye to task.

Umkomaas

If they do not pay, I would start the process of obtaining a CCJ against them in the small claims court to force them to.

IIRC there have been others who've tried and failed. Costs are limited at the SCC unless 'unreasonableness' can be proved. £200 a letter and £500 a meeting will be laughed out of court.

They are no strangers to CCJ's - there is an outstanding one against them even now.

Can you share the details? The BPA should be interested in this as PE's membership can be affected, as can their ability to access the DVLA database.

pjhaahl

Can you share the details? The BPA should be interested in this as PE's membership can be affected, as can their ability to access the DVLA database.

Not a problem - dates, amounts, court, court reference.

22/04/2016 - £200 - Unsatisfied - CAERNARFON - B8FC98K7
06/02/2016 - £325 - Satisfied - EDMONTON - 3JD11031 - Paid 15/04/2016


If CCJ's impact their ability to access the DVLA database, seems like finding any justification for starting small claims proceedings against them might be a very productive thing to do?

salmosalaris

Whilst understanding your desire to make life difficult for PE I doubt you will .
All that matters to you really is getting the thing cancelled . The reason for the short appeal is deliberate. The more waffle you incorporate the greater the risk of exposing the identity of the driver or giving an assessor justification for tipping the balance of probablity that you as RK were . Your killer point is no keeper liability .
You want PE to cancel or issue a POPLA code , simples.

Umkomaas

pjhaahl wrote: »

Not a problem - dates, amounts, court, court reference.

22/04/2016 - £200 - Unsatisfied - CAERNARFON - B8FC98K7
06/02/2016 - £325 - Satisfied - EDMONTON - 3JD11031 - Paid 15/04/2016


If CCJ's impact their ability to access the DVLA database, seems like finding any justification for starting small claims proceedings against them might be a very productive thing to do?

Read the BPA Code of Practice - Section 4 et seq and use paras 4.2 and 4.3 to form the basis of a complaint to the BPA as to why PE are still members of the BPA AOS in view of the unsatisfied CCJ against their name.

If they can't comply with court requirements what right have they to demand motorists to comply with their self-serving contractual requirements? Why are they still able to access DVLA data?

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS_Code_of_Practice_October_2015_update_V6..pdf

Stir the pot!

pjhaahl

Whilst understanding your desire to make life difficult for PE I doubt you will .
All that matters to you really is getting the thing cancelled . The reason for the short appeal is deliberate. The more waffle you incorporate the greater the risk of exposing the identity of the driver or giving an assessor justification for tipping the balance of probablity that you as RK were . Your killer point is no keeper liability .
You want PE to cancel or issue a POPLA code , simples.

True! and I did take that on board after I calmed down a bit following your post. I went with your option to kick off the appeal.

I've also contacted Welcome Break's parking team and I have asked them to instruct ParkingEye to drop this matter on a commercial basis. They referred me back to the ParkingEye appeals process. The person sending the emails to me did so anonymously and refuses to provide name or contact details so we can have a 2 way conversation.

I also thought it worth trying Hitachi Capital as they own the vehicle as it is leased. I found information I wasn't expecting. It turns out that despite being the keeper of the vehicle, I am not registered as such. Hitachi have a policy of setting themselves as the registered keeper for their whole fleet (common practice apparently)

I asked them if their in house legal function could support me in progressing the appeal on the basis they are the registered keeper. They considered, took my points on board, and then said they won't help me! They agreed to provide me with the original NTK and their response though.

I've just received it and it is en exact copy of the PCN I received with the same errors and omissions. The alleged incident was 01/04, they issued the original PCN 06/04, Hitachi received it 15/04 (it is date stamped). What is not clear is when Hitachi responded to ParkingEye

Do they have any argument around 'transfer of liability' i'e if Hitachi notified them on 29/04. would 14 days apply from that date, or is this irrelevant and would it be their problem to provide me with a NTK within 14 days of the alleged offence to establish keeper liability.

I also have some concerns with Hitachi's covering letter to me. They stated
"We have provided the following details to the provider as the current driver of the vehicle. We do not confirm whether you were driving or not at the time of the offence"

If they have used the terminology "as the current driver of the vehicle" rather than Hirer/keeper, have they not effectively committed libel - couldn't this be taken as confirmation despite their attempt to reassure me via the second sentence? Have they also accepted an offence has occurred given that 'alleged' didn't appear.?

I've no doubt ParkingEye will not cancel the charge immediately and it will go to POPLA. I contacted but was careful not provide any information. They attempted to obtain my name and address under some pretence around the Data Protection Act. I quoted the PCN number and asked for written confirmation of the appeal I submitted on line to be sent to me at the email address I gave. They refused, and Sarah said the only thing she could give is 'her word', which doesn't hold any weight with me as you'd expect.

I spoke with three people
George - Who pulled the Data Protection Act Stunt
Natalie - on extension 419 (after George hung up on me)
Sarah Neill - Supervisor, who has "No problem working for ParkingEye" apparently!

Stir the pot!

It gives me yet another avenue, and if it creates a headache for ParkingEye. I've no hesitation in using their CCJ's to raise a complaint with the BPA - I will review the act and draft my complaint.

salmosalaris

Ok so you're not the registered keeper. That throws a diffeeent light on it , my mistake for jumping to conclusions . You need some advice on lease/hire and POFA and there are some on here ( Edna Basher is one ) who is more au fait with that than me . There are certain strict requirements under POFA regarding this.

pjhaahl

Ok so you're not the registered keeper. That throws a diffeeent light on it , my mistake for jumping to conclusions .

To be fair I jumped to the same conclusion. My understanding was that the Registered Keeper is not necessarily the owner of the vehicle and this statement appears on V5 docs. The usual keeper should be the registered keeper - otherwise what's the point in making the distinction.

Read the BPA Code of Practice - Section 4 et seq and use paras 4.2 and 4.3 to form the basis of a complaint to the BPA as to why PE are still members of the BPA AOS in view of the unsatisfied CCJ against their name.

If they can't comply with court requirements what right have they to demand motorists to comply with their self-serving contractual requirements? Why are they still able to access DVLA data?

I've read the entire document and I can't see anything in 4.1 / 4.2, or anything elsewhere in the code that I could link back to 4.1 / 4.2 to construct an argument as to why CCJ's should prompt a reciew of their membership / access to DVLA data.

Are you seeing an angle I'm not? am I missing something ? Nice thought and I agree with the sentiment, but cant see any mileage in it at the moment