Should I charge Parking Eye for wasting my time?

MyUsername

This may seem a strange question but where I work we have an ANPR monitored car park where staff members can park for free but everyone else has to pay.

Anyway I recently updated my details for the car park as I had a new car and the car park manager (Parking Eye) started flooding me with parking tickets which my employer's estates department said would likely happen as Parking Eye aren't very good at updating their system. I contacted Parking Eye about this who mentioned that every single one had to be appealed but I found it easier to just contact the estates department to cancel them instead which I have been doing.

Given however its wasting my time having to contact the Estates Department and that I am receiving a large amount of unsolicited invoices from Parking Eye I was wondering what your thought are on sending Parking Eye a recorded delivery letter saying from now on each PCN they send me I will charge them £20 and I would invoice them periodically for this service and that failure to pay would result in civil action.

beamerguy

MyUsername wrote: »

This may seem a strange question but where I work we have an ANPR monitored car park where staff members can park for free but everyone else has to pay.

Anyway I recently updated my details for the car park as I had a new car and the car park manager (Parking Eye) started flooding me with parking tickets which my employer's estates department said would likely happen as Parking Eye aren't very good at updating their system. I contacted Parking Eye about this who mentioned that every single one had to be appealed but I found it easier to just contact the estates department to cancel them instead which I have been doing.

Given however its wasting my time having to contact the Estates Department and that I am receiving a large amount of unsolicited invoices from Parking Eye I was wondering what your thought are on sending Parking Eye a recorded delivery letter saying from now on each PCN they send me I will charge them £20 and I would invoice them periodically for this service and that failure to pay would result in civil action.

You already have the answer ....
"which my employer's estates department said would likely happen as Parking Eye aren't very good at updating their system."

You should advise PE of this statement and warn them that any tickets or harassment will result in a charge per ticket.

Build up your own reasonable amount and if they run true to form and take you to court, you have a counterclaim ready

Half_way

Do you have this [qiuote]park manager (Parking Eye) started flooding me with parking tickets which my employer's estates department said would likely happen as Parking Eye aren't very good at updating their system.[/quote] on record anywhere? email? letter?
if you dont then you should clarify it with your employers estates department.
From there it would clearly be a work issue, and you should Talk to your manager/supervisor and deal with this in company time - not your own time

The_Deep

My thoughts are "bring it on". However, you should warn them of your intention, and £20 per ticket seems a bit steep.

The court values your time at £19.00 an hour, plus stationery postage, photocopying etc.

If they refuse to pay, or ignore your invoices, you can take out a MCOL against them which, if it gets to court, they will need to defend. If they lose it will cost them travel, your time, court costs and the cost of their legal representative's attendance.

MyUsername

I don't think £20 is unreasonable, bearing in mind they think its acceptable to ask for £70 per day for parking which to me seems a bit steep.

beamerguy

MyUsername wrote: »

I don't think £20 is unreasonable, bearing in mind they think its acceptable to ask for £70 per day for parking which to me seems a bit steep.

It's not what you think is reasonable

The Deep said
"The court values your time at £19.00 an hour, plus stationery postage, photocopying etc"

work it around that

Umkomaas

MyUsername wrote: »

I don't think £20 is unreasonable, bearing in mind they think its acceptable to ask for £70 per day for parking which to me seems a bit steep.

Any possible victory is, at best, going to be pyrrhic, unless you can take them for thousands!

What you want is a victory, over-egging the pudding (even marginally) is likely to result in egg on your face. Be sensible and reasonable.

Stonedhouse

Somewhat cynically I would say you should be entitled to charge PE a hell of a lot more - going on the example set on the Bevis case that PE's extortionate charges were justified over what was considered a reasonable loss suffered as the charge reflected a deterrent.... surely a deterrent is needed against sloppy / lame business practices.

Half_way

If you are charging for your tie you need to inform all parties (including the principal) that that is what you are intending to do at the earliest opportunity.
You should be going for the principal as well ( that is whoever hired the PPC) and you should keep an accurate time sheet.


However your case appears to be a work/at work issue.

What i suggest you do is to make sure you have a hard copy of what Estates have told you, and then take a coy of this to your manager and ask them if they will sort this issue out, or should you sort it out now ( during work hours at company expense)
again keep some sort of log, and use this as evidence on how much parking eye are costing the company loss of production/loss of morale, increased worker stress etc etc

MyUsername

I got a barrage of letters from Parking Eye over the weekend saying that all the tickets I had had previously had been canceled after the Estates Department told them to cancel them all and update their system.

Turns out though that Parking Eye didn't listen to the second part and I got another one in the post. Do you think I should send a cease and desist letter to Parking Eye now as they have been told multiple times to update their system and they have had two months to do it. The latest one was send after the ones I got on Saturday that the previous tickets had been canceled.

beamerguy

MyUsername wrote: »

I got a barrage of letters from Parking Eye over the weekend saying that all the tickets I had had previously had been canceled after the Estates Department told them to cancel them all and update their system.

Turns out though that Parking Eye didn't listen to the second part and I got another one in the post. Do you think I should send a cease and desist letter to Parking Eye now as they have been told multiple times to update their system and they have had two months to do it. The latest one was send after the ones I got on Saturday that the previous tickets had been canceled.

WOW ..... What a terrible shame for the scammers, proves they can't walk all over people when they want.

All future rubbish should be responded to ...

"You have been told to update your system. Please ensure you do so before harassment becomes an issue for you"