PCM Parking Charge at Hayes and Harlington Station

System

Does this change anything regarding my appeal? I've already sent the email now

No. PCM are there to enforce the landowners' rules. Those rules say you have 10 mins. PCM acknowledge they have been ripping people off by paying a bill sent to them recently.

You may be able to send another if they fail to cancel.

Timothea

Gooston wrote: »

Should you obtain the registered keeper's data from the DVLA without reasonable cause (e.g. if you do not fully comply with the IPC Code of Practice in terms of signage at this site, for example) please take this as formal notice that I reserve the right to sue your company and the landowner/principal, for a sum not less than £250 for any Data Protection Act breach.

For the avoidance of doubt, I do not give you consent to process data relating to me or this vehicle, whether you have already obtained it or not. I deny liability for any sum at all and you must consider this letter a Section 10 Notice under the DPA. You are required to respond within 21 days.

It is clearly stated in your contract, regarding the location in question "10 Min Max Drop & Collection around station area - no unattended vehicles at anytime". Therefore, your employees are in breach of your own contract as the vehicle never stopped for this duration. I will be formally writing a letter of complaint to my local MP regarding this scam, of which he is also aware of.

You seem to have these paragraphs in the wrong order. I suggest you amend them as follows.

It is clearly stated in your contract with the landowner/principle, regarding the location in question: "10 Min Max Drop & Collection around station area - no unattended vehicles at anytime." Therefore, you are in breach of this contract, as the vehicle never stopped for this duration, nor was it ever unattended. I will be writing a letter of complaint to my local MP regarding this scam, of which he is already aware.

As you have obtained my personal data from the DVLA without reasonable cause, you are in breach of principles 1 and 2 of the Data Protection Act. I demand that you immediately cease and desist from processing my personal data, except to confirm to me that you have and will comply with my demand. Please consider this to be a Section 10 Data Subject Notice under the Data Protection Act, which requires you to respond within 21 days.

If you fail to comply fully, for example by continuing to demand money from me or by passing my personal information to a third party, I reserve the right to sue your company and the landowner/principal, for a sum not less than £250.

Timothea

Gooston wrote: »

I've already sent the email now

It seems a bit odd that you posted up an email that you intended to send and then sent it before you received any comments. Why did you bother posting it up in the first place?

Gooston

Mistake, but I don't see anything wrong with what I sent. I'm going to add your section about breach of Data Protection if the refuse to cancel. I thought I didn't have grounds to appe with the sign there but I was wrong. I didn't mean to undermine anyone

Timothea

If we know who the landowner/principle is (I haven't looked at the contract) then there may be a way to get this cancelled, as well as helping others in the future. I suggest that the keeper sends the following letter to the landowner/principle.

Dear Sirs,

Your agent, PCM, is issuing large numbers of parking charge notices at Hayes and Harlington station to unsuspecting customers, in breach of its contract with you, by not allowing your customers to drop off / pick up passengers, even when it's only a matter of seconds. PCM then obtains the personal information of the vehicles' registered keepers from DVLA without reasonable cause and issues each of them with a £100 parking charge notice. This is exactly what has happened to me.

It is clear from your contract with PCM, which was revealed at a recent court hearing, that you wish to allow customers to be dropped off or picked up at Hayes and Harlington station. I therefore request that you instruct PCM to cease and desist from targeting your customers in this way. Please confirm to me that this has been done with 14 days.

PCM doesn't care about your customers, except to farm them for as much money as possible.

The Data Protection Act provides data subjects with a legal remedy when a data controller processes personal data unlawfully, by way of damages and compensation for distress. Recent case-law (i.e. Halliday -v- Creation Consumer Finance Limited [2013] EWCA) supports a quantum of £750 for a single breach of the Data Protection Act. As PCM is your agent, you are jointly and severally liable for its unlawful actions.

If PCM does not immediately cease and desist from processing my personal data, and cancel its penalty charge notice to me then I hereby give notice that I will commence legal action against PCM and you for compensation and damages, including punitive or exemplary damages. I would prefer not to do this but I will be left with little choice if you don't call off your dogs.

Yours faithfully,

[squiggle]

Your name, address and contact details

Timothea

The PCM contract was signed with Ballymore Group. There are 48 UK companies registered at Companies House for their address: 4th Floor, 161 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SJ.

Gooston

Timothea wrote: »

If we know who the landowner/principle is (I haven't looked at the contract) then there may be a way to get this cancelled, as well as helping others in the future. I suggest that the keeper sends the following letter to the landowner/principle.

Dear Sirs,

Your agent, PCM, is issuing large numbers of parking charge notices at Hayes and Harlington station to unsuspecting customers, in breach of its contract with you, by not allowing your customers to drop off / pick up passengers, even when it's only a matter of seconds. PCM then obtains the personal information of the vehicles' registered keepers from DVLA without reasonable cause and issues each of them with a £100 parking charge notice. This is exactly what has happened to me.

It is clear from your contract with PCM, which was revealed at a recent court hearing, that you wish to allow customers to be dropped off or picked up at Hayes and Harlington station. I therefore request that you instruct PCM to cease and desist from targeting your customers in this way. Please confirm to me that this has been done with 14 days.

PCM doesn't care about your customers, except to farm them for as much money as possible.

The Data Protection Act provides data subjects with a legal remedy when a data controller processes personal data unlawfully, by way of damages and compensation for distress. Recent case-law (i.e. Halliday -v- Creation Consumer Finance Limited [2013] EWCA) supports a quantum of £750 for a single breach of the Data Protection Act. As PCM is your agent, you are jointly and severally liable for its unlawful actions.

If PCM does not immediately cease and desist from processing my personal data, and cancel its penalty charge notice to me then I hereby give notice that I will commence legal action against PCM and you for compensation and damages, including punitive or exemplary damages. I would prefer not to do this but I will be left with little choice if you don't call off your dogs.

Yours faithfully,

[squiggle]

Your name, address and contact details

From the contract it looks like it's a company by the name of Ballymore Group who's General Manger goes by the name of George Proctor. I will send this letter first thing Monday morning if this is the correct recipient.

Timothea

The contract was signed a long time ago. The signatory has probably moved on. You should always send the first letter to the Chairman or the Company Secretary, i.e. an office-holder, rather than a named person.

Given that Ballymore Group isn't actually a company, I would send it to the Chairman.

You should also amend the letter to give the full company name of PCM in the first sentence, i.e. Parking Control Management (UK) Limited. Ballymore is a large group and they probably won't know who 'PCM' is.

Remember, the letter has to be from the registered keeper.

Update: It looks like the landowner is Ballymore (Hayes) Limited and the Company Secretary is David Nicholas Pearson. The address is the same. Still send the first letter to the Chairman at Ballymore Group. It would be nice to know the ultimate parent company for the Ballymore Group.

twhitehousescat

Ballymore United Kingdom
161 Marsh Wall
London E14 9SJ
United Kingdom

Tel. +44 20 7510 9100
Fax. +44 20 7510 9110

Email info@ballymoregroup.com

Timothea

Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? The stuff you can find is amazing! It's only when the stuff you want to find is pre-Internet that you realise how difficult it was before.

Anyway, I have a suspicion that the ten-minute drop off and pick up time at Hayes and Harlington station is a condition of the planning permission granted to Ballymore (Hayes) Limited for the High Point Village development next to the station. Otherwise, why would Ballymore include those very precise terms in its contract with PCM UK?

The problem is that the original planning permission was approved on 11 November 2008, which is before planning applications were fully computerised. As a result, I can't access the documents on the hillingdon.gov.uk website. Time to make a planning enquiry, methinks.