Mistook the hours stated on Euro Car Park sign

BlueShoo

Hello there,
I have a parking charge from Euro Car Parks (£85 full fee; £50 reduced 14 days), received today.
It says there is a 120 minute free stay.
I thought it was a 3 hours stay - I guess I mistook a no return within 3 hours as the number of hours stay. I am sure I have parked in that car park for 3 hours many times, with no tickets. I get tired / confused easily / very forgetful - I even set my phone to alarm to tell me to get back to the car, but clearly it was wrong

Can I not pay or get the charge reduced further?

Thank you for any advice

(just incase, I dont need any 'advice' to pull myself together, I am getting therapy to try help!)

Fruitcake

BlueShoo wrote: »

Hello there,
I have a parking charge from Euro Car Parks (£85 full fee; £50 reduced 14 days), received today.
It says there is a 120 minute free stay.
I thought it was a 3 hours stay - I guess I mistook a no return within 3 hours as the number of hours stay. I am sure I have parked in that car park for 3 hours many times, with no tickets. I get tired / confused easily / very forgetful - I even set my phone to alarm to tell me to get back to the car, but clearly it was wrong

Can I not pay or get the charge reduced further?

Thank you for any advice

(just incase, I dont need any 'advice' to pull myself together, I am getting therapy to try help!)

Please read the Sticky thread for NEWBIES then appeal using the BPA template in blue. If unsuccessful you can then make a seond stage appeal to PoPLA. All is explained in the NEWBIES thread.

Do not pay, do not ignore, do not reveal who was driving, never 'phone a parking company.

Quentin

BlueShoo wrote: »

Can I not pay or get the charge reduced further?.....

The object here is not paying at all!

BlueShoo

Thank you Fruitcake and Quentin, I have looked throuhg the sticky thread for newbies and there is so much in there I couldnt find anything specific to misreading signs.

I will try again.

catfunt

It's not just about the signs. Other factors will come into play.

Don't worry if the Newbies thread doesnt make sense at first - you will likely need 2 or 3 reads of it before the info starts to go in.

Fruitcake

BlueShoo wrote: »

Thank you Fruitcake and Quentin, I have looked throuhg the sticky thread for newbies and there is so much in there I couldnt find anything specific to misreading signs.

I will try again.

The BPA template says something like, "I believe the signs were not seen ..."

That's all you need at the initial appeal stage. This assumes that you are not in Scotland or NI, or that the alleged event happened there.

Just copy and paste the template and send it off. Once that is out of the way you need to start looking at recent successful PoPLA appeals if/when your initial appeal is rejected. That's when you hit them about signage as well as several other appeal points that will be valid.

dazster

If the sign really says 120 minutes' max stay, no return within three hours I would argue that the mixture of units is unacceptably confusing. Granted it's not the hardest arithmetic to convert minutes to hours or vice versa, but these signs, in order to properly convey terms to people who might be busy, in a hurry or whatever, should be extremely simple and shouldn't throw confusing things like mixed units at you.

Coupon-mad

BlueShoo wrote: »

Thank you Fruitcake and Quentin, I have looked throuhg the sticky thread for newbies and there is so much in there I couldnt find anything specific to misreading signs.

I will try again.

Why are you looking for something specific when the first appeal suits ALL cases and covers unclear signage in the wording already (because the signs are always unclear). The sticky thread tells you how to appeal as keeper NOT DRIVER - and we win every time v ECP.

Stop looking for a way to word your appeal including some sort of 'excuse' of how you 'misread' the sign.

Send the 'BPA firms' appeal template by online appeal and then read a few Euro POPLA stage appeals as an example, in readiness. Search the forum for 'Euro POPLA' of course, to find them! Remember that's for the second stage in July, when you win.

BlueShoo

Hello again,
So I got the rejection letter with a POPLA code. I have been getting together an appeal to this. On reading other examples I am not sure of the legal points, so may I ask for some 'yes' and 'no' answers to whether I have it right here? I have written it as answers to the statements in the rejection letter.

1. ...car park is operated by ...(ANPR) - cameras capture an image ... and calculate their length of stay. Your vehicle was parked longer than 2 hours, therefore the notice was issued correctly and the charge remains payable.
> My Reply: The PCN shows two photographs, originating from ANPR, of only the vehicles number plate; there is no in-photo details of date, location or landscape to show exactly the scene in which the vehicles number plates were photographed. I do not accept this as adequate evidence.

2. Be advised that there are a number of signs around the car park indicating the restrictions of the site and it is the responsibility of the driver to read them when parking...
> My Reply: Upon investigating the site, the signage is exceptionally inadequate / inappropriate, and appears quite deliberate so as to have the claim afterwards that signage is provided. This has been proven by a photograph supplied by euro car parks, included in the appeals rejection Ref: *********, of a sign which is clearly very obscure and impossible to read. [this is not in my reply, but the photo really is hilarious, A5 size but so pixelated that you cannot read it]
Furthermore there is no evidence that any of those signs were positioned between the alleged contravening parked car and the pedestrian entrance. The car park in question is within a complex of a supermarket with a cafe, a petrol station, a restaurant and 5 major stores - signs should be very clear and numerous for customers. But upon investigation they are not; one has to go and search for a sign, and then be within a couple of feet to be able to read the terms of the parking. Therefore, no contract with the driver could have been made.

3. ... Euro car parks has written authority to operate and issue parking charge notices on all of our locations from the landowner.
> My reply: Euro car parks have not provided proof of title in this land and no BPA compliant landowner contract assigning rights to charge and enforce in the courts in their own right ... [plus quotes of BPA CoP paragraphs 7.1 & 7.2 ???]

4. ... any person who makes contract his own name without disclosing the existence of a principal, or ... disclosing the fact that he is acting as an agent on behalf of a principal, renders himself personall liable on the contract ... (Fairlie v Fenton (1870) LR 5 Exch 169). .....
.... Euro car parks do not need to provide evidence of a driver ..... under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012... have the right to persue a claim.
> My Reply: Again, no contract could have been made between Euro car parks and a driver, as already explained. But also, the appeals process has been contradictory: the PCN threatens that a failure to respond with an appeal or payment will incur civil action being taken against the keeper of the vehicle within 28 days; yet the rejection of my appeal threatens that a keepers response to the PCN 'renders himself personally liable' for the charge and that action will be taken anyway - this is clearly unfair practice.

5. ... it is the registered keepers responsibility to inform of the full name and address within 28 days beginning with the day after the notice was given.
> My Reply:
Firstly, the PCN was received 7 days after the letters date; giving me in total 7 days notice, and not the 14 days stated, in which to respond. The euro car parks website also makes it very difficult to make an appeal, by obscuring the location of the appeals section, and by having such a restricted text box in which to make an appeal that one cannot even read one sentence complete. This is clearly deliberate tactics aimed to delay and disrupt the ability to appeal.
Also, no keeper liability is established under POFA 2012, whereby:
1. Paragraph 8(2)(f) of the Act states that a notice to keeper must : “…warn the keeper that if, at the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice to keeper is given—
(i)the amount of the unpaid parking charges … has not been paid in full, and
(ii)the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver,
the creditor will (if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met) have the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid"
2. Paragraph 8(4)(b) of the Act states that the notice must: “be given by…. sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.”
>> The rejection Ref: **** was issued 36 days after the PCN, quoting the 28 days of the Act to start from the date of the PCN - therefore Euro car parks have lapsed their own deadline.

I really appreciate your help! :T

Coupon-mad

[plus quotes of BPA CoP paragraphs 7.1 & 7.2 ???]

and 7.3 certainly.

Posts 7, 8 and 9 here below, show an example POPLA appeal which just won:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5470992

There is no reason why you can't word yours as a 'reply' to the rejection letter as long as you get all the points correct. For example your draft wrongly quotes para 8 of Schedule 4 of the POFA (only relevant for a windscreen ticket followed by postal NTK) whereas you need to show non-compliance with para 9 like in the linked example.

BlueShoo

Oh thankyou for pointing that out! :j