G24 Parking Ltd. - Post-Beavis

Umkomaas

Templated response - have seen it before. They have a bank of pre-prepared statement blocks they copy and paste depending on what you have written to them.

http://www.pepipoo.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t101588.html

G24 have never pursued a court case in their life, and most feel they are not wanting their business model exposed in a court. So you could turn the tables on them by issuing a 'issue court papers within 21 days as you wish a Judge to determine the enforceability of their charge, otherwise if they don't have the bottle for it, cancel their charge against you and crawl back under their stone' kind of letter. I think you can be quite bullish in hitting back. Bombard them in the same manner they bombard other victims!

Almost a quarter of a million tickets issued in 2.5 years and never a single court claim made by them. Says it all!

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/G24.html

fisherjim

Demand an itemised breakdown of their "liquidated damages".

The_Deep

What about v.a.t.?

If, as they claim, this is contractual charge, it is a fee for parking, and thus vatable. Have they accounted for vat on their paper work?

Ask them for a vat invoice. If they ignore your request, (which they probably will), it is a useful stick with which to beat them if it ever gets to court.

More reading here

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

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

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

If you suspect tax evasion report it to the fraud hot line here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5087925&highlight

Carthesis

Umkomaas wrote: »

Templated response - have seen it before. They have a bank of pre-prepared statement blocks they copy and paste depending on what you have written to them.

http://www.pepipoo.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t101588.html

G24 have never pursued a court case in their life, and most feel they are not wanting their business model exposed in a court. So you could turn the tables on them by issuing a 'issue court papers within 21 days as you wish a Judge to determine the enforceability of their charge, otherwise if they don't have the bottle for it, cancel their charge against you and crawl back under their stone' kind of letter. I think you can be quite bullish in hitting back. Bombard them in the same manner they bombard other victims!

Almost a quarter of a million tickets issued in 2.5 years and never a single court claim made by them. Says it all!

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/G24.html

Interesting. Thanks for that.

I think I shall just throw an invoice back at them, as detailed in my original letter, and state that this is being issued as they have insisted that I have formed a contractual relationship with them, and hence the schedule of fees and T&Cs contained in my original letter are also valid, and that the invoice is being issued as they have failed to comply with my requests for additional documentation to verify the veracity of their spurious claim, and because they have failed to refute several of the points I put forward in my original appeal.

Carthesis

The_Deep wrote: »

What about v.a.t.?

If, as they claim, this is contractual charge, it is a fee for parking, and thus vatable. Have they accounted for vat on their paper work?

Ask them for a vat invoice. If they ignore your request, (which they probably will), it is a useful stick with which to beat them if it ever gets to court.

Thanks for reminding me. The VAT invoice was something I asked for in the original letter.

Umkomaas

If you do invoice them, don't put any 'daft' figures in like £250 ph and £100 per letter as if you do sue them it will be bounced out of court by a Judge.

The agreed court hourly rate is £19 for a litigant in person, so use that (it will indicate to them that you know something about the correct process) and invoice sensible, real amounts for postage and stationery.

But if you are going to that trouble, what's Plan B if they ignore your invoice(s)?

Carthesis

Umkomaas wrote: »

If you do invoice them, don't put any 'daft' figures in like £250 ph and £100 per letter as if you do sue them it will be bounced out of court by a Judge.

The agreed court hourly rate is £19 for a litigant in person, so use that (it will indicate to them that you know something about the correct process) and invoice sensible, real amounts for postage and stationery.

But if you are going to that trouble, what's Plan B if they ignore your invoice(s)?

I knew that, but thanks.

The original letter laid out the charges, based on the court rate, as 4 hours for dealing with a response to my original appeal that did not include the requested documentation, which is justified as an amount of time required to prepare the response letter (3 hours), and an amount of time to generate the invoice (1 hour).

Plan B, if i can be bothered to follow it through, would be to issue a Small Claims case against them for non-payment. The original plan - which has worked before - was to make it more expensive for them to pursue me than the charge is worth.

In reality, I'll issue them the invoice, which they'll ignore.

I'll then issue a follow-up invoice, with an additional charge for non-payment and re-issue of an invoice, which they'll ignore.

I'll then issue a final notice, which I presume they'll ignore.

I'll then probably leave it simmering in the background, just in case I get a debt recovery letter from them, or they decide to take me to small claims themselves, in which case i shall throw it in as a counter-claim.

fisherjim

And of course you can also smile at the fact your dog with a bone attitude is costing them; time, money, and effort in just reading your replies!;)

The_Deep

I thoroughly approve of this method of dealing with these companies.


It is a pity that so many are too tired, too busy, or too stupid to play them at their own game.

Carthesis

Just for the information of others (and my own reference later on when I have to write the response and invoice), all taken from the IPC CoP (http://www.theipc.info/resources/brandings/brandmedia_2_Code-of-Practice.pdf):

PART A:
2. Conditions
2.4 If you obtain and process vehicle Keeper Data you are obliged to:
2.41 Be registered with the Information Commissioner

PART B:
3. Automatic Number Plate Recognition
3.3 You must ensure there are appropriate manual checks in place to ensure correct registration details are used to obtain keeper details from the DVLA.

PART B:
8. Charges and Terms and Conditions
8.1 All Parking Charges issued by you must be reasonable and enforceable under any applicable legal provisions. If your charges amount to damages you should be able to demonstrate how such charges are calculated for each site as a ‘genuine pre-estimate of loss’ in order to be able to justify the amounts. More information on Charges can be found in Schedule 5

PART B:
11. Holding Yourself out as the Authorities
11.1 You must not state or imply you have any government or regulatory powers if this is not the case.
11.2 You must ensure your company stationery and all other forms of correspondence or communication do not describe any charge which may be issued to a driver in terms that imply you have any authority as defined above by use of such words as ‘fine’ or ‘penalty’, nor must the term ‘PCN’ be used unless it has been previously defined as reference to a ‘Parking Charge Notice’

Interestingly, the IPC CoP makes reference to a 'fee' that is payable to the IPC - by the PPC - for use of the IAS. Might always be worth submitting an appeal to IAS for that reason alone, similarly to PoPLA, as it costs them money and remains non-binding on either driver or keeper.

Also, for obvious reasons, PPCs are obliged to be registered with the Information Commissioner for access to DVLA data. I'm wondering if it's worth requesting a copy of the G24 Data Protection Policy, just as another hurdle for them to jump through. Plus it'll cost them money to supply and post it, or at the least to argue why they don't need to supply it.