Wye Valley Visitors Centre PCN (ParkingEye)

Half_way

I will have a look at the website later, however it is probably wrong in that respect, as the visitor centre is liable for the actions of its agents, in this case parking eye.

Million_Percent

Ok so this is the letter I'm planning to send to WVVC. Comments welcome.


Dear [owner]

I am forced to make an official complaint to you to because the behaviour and practices of your agent, ParkingEye, are upsetting, itimidatory and will drive away genuine WVVC customers in the long run. You can no doubt guess that I have received a letter from ParkingEye purporting to be some kind of parking ticket/fine.

Firstly, let me be clear, this letter is not a complaint about the principle of paid parking. I have no problem with paying a fair price for access to a safe, convenient parking facility. I fully understand that paid parking is an appropriate way for a business such as yours to generate revenue. Indeed, the parking tariffs in place in your facility are perfectly reasonable in my view.

I am the registered keeper of a vehicle that was used to visit your facility on [date]. The driver of the vehicle on this day, having happily visited your facility on many previous occasions when parking was free of charge, did not expect to pay for parking and was therefore not looking for signage related to this. There is no barrier on the car park or any other obvious indication that paid parking is now in force. As soon as the driver realised that payment for parking was required, they immediately purchased a ticket for 4 hours parking. However, the driver had no way of retrospectively knowing exactly what time they had entered the car park. The driver and their party enjoyed a pleasant visit to your facilities as paying customers and left the car park in the belief that they had paid the correct fee for parking and unaware of any problem. Unfortunately, ParkingEye’s unhelpful but highly sophisticated system recorded an 18 minute overstay and they have now, out of the blue, issued me, as the registered keeper of the vehicle, with a ‘Parking Charge Notice’ demanding payment of £100. I am now expected to have to explain the driver’s actions to a third party private company with whom I have had no dealings, no contract, yet are demanding a lot of money from me. I find this totally unacceptable.

Beyond the fact that the ParkingEye system is poorly signposted, confusing and unhelpful to your customers, I would like to point out to you that the British Parking Association’s Code of Practice (which ParkingEye should be abiding by) states a requirement that 2 grace periods are applicable in this parking scenario: The first grace period (specified by the CoP to be a ‘reasonable’ length of time – in my view should be at least 10 minutes) applies before the parking period begins to allow the driver to park, read the signage and purchase a ticket. The second grace period (specified by the CoP as a minimum of 10 minutes) applies at the end of the parking period to allow the customer to return to their car, load up and leave the car park. I trust you can see from this that a PCN should not be issued for an overstay of less than 20 minutes. In this case, I am being pursued for an excessive, disproportionate, punitive and downright unfair charge.

I am very upset and increasingly angry about this episode. Your innocent, paying customers who are trying to play by the rules and pay the correct parking fees are being exploited by a parking system that is deliberately designed to be as unhelpful and intolerant as possible for the purpose of encouraging mistakes. Your customers are being used as a cash cow for unfair profiteering by a predatory company whose only interest appears to be squeezing as much revenue as possible through zero-tolerance, bullying tactics. It is not ‘parking management’ to have ANPR cameras on site, yet no entry/exit barriers, no management of spaces, no attendants, no checking of disabled spaces and no consideration of individual customer needs and circumstances.

Given the above, and considering that landowners are ultimately liable for the actions of their agents, I would like to ask you to intervene with ParkingEye on this occasion and request they cancel the Parking Charge Notice as referenced above. As their client and the landowner, I understand you have the capacity to do this.

Further, I would urge you to carefully consider how the behaviour and practices of ParkingEye reflect on your business and impact on your customers. I would hate to think that a great family friendly facility such as yours would develop a bad reputation based on the poor practice of a parking management company. However, the reality is, any customer who receives an unfair PCN from ParkingEye will not remember the great day out they had at your facility but will only remember being harassed for £100 for staying a few minutes too long in the car park. Is that the lasting memory you want to leave with your customers?

I would like to thank you in advance for any help you are able to provide in this matter and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Redx

excellent complaint letter , well done

Half_way

To fluffy try something like ( but not the same) as this

To whom it may concern at Wye valley visitor centre Re parking charge notice ref____ issued by your agents Parking eye.
I am the registered keeper of vehicle ______ which was issued with a parking charge notice by your agents Parking eye demanding the sum of £60.
I note on your website that you state "that it is not the business of Wye Valley Visitor Centre staff to give customer support on this issue. " however you are jointly and severely liable for the actions of your agents, in this case Parking eye limited, and I am minded to report this miss leading statement to the advertising standards agency
Myself, my family, friends, and associates have been regular visitors to Wye valley visitors centre over the years and we have all enjoyed the facilities on offer, such as the Free car parking, so we were extremely surprised to see that the car parking is now charged for, and this new charging system was not bought to our attention upon entry.

As soon as it was discovered that parking is now chargeable a ticket was purchased for a four hour stay totalling £4


We were further shocked to discover a parking charge notice from your agents, Pakring eye demanding the sum of £60.

After much researching into this parking eye, we are shocked and horrified that you believe it appropriate to allow an un regulated predatory company of such poor repute as parking eye to operate on your car park on your behalf, whilst parking eye may say they follow a BPA code of practice, the British Parking Association limited is not a regulatory body and the code of practice has no legal standing. The British Parking Association is no more than a private trade association whose sole purpose is to further the aims of its members who make vast sums of money by issuing parking charge notices.
The Appeals service, POPLA is funded by the BPA, and the a majority of the board members of a so called scrutiny body (ISPA) recently resigned.

As you should no doubt be aware I am far from happy with this situation, and i do not appreciate having my time wasted as a result of your negligence in allowing an aggressive predatory parking company such as parking eye to operate in your car park(s)

As you are jointly and severely liable for the actions of your agents you must now take the following action:

1: The immediate cancellation of the parking charge notice
2: The removal of the miss leading statement on your website "that it is not the business of Wye Valley Visitor Centre staff to give customer support on this issue."
3: the issuing of a full and un redacted apology by yourselves over this issue.

As part of your duty of care to members of the public, you should have carefully research Parking eye, and ANPR systems,. form this you should have realised that ANPR systems are notorious for miss reads and faults, and parking eye have an extremely bad reputation,it only takes a quick search on google, try "parking eye sue parents of sick child" for more.

I look forward to your response on this, within the next few days and a confirmation from you that the items listed 1-3 have been addressed.

The_Deep

Far too wordy imo, and too in your face. I doubt that the recipient will read it.

Coupon-mad

Redx wrote: »

excellent complaint letter , well done

I agree, I like the letter - admittedly I also write wordy complaints. They work for me! Also do an online challenge as keeper in similar vein.


:T

Million_Percent

Thanks Half_way. I have made some amendments to my letter based on your suggestions, however I want to keep the overall tone less confrontational. I want to get these guys on my side not have them think I'm threatening them. They have a good business that is well liked by the local community. I want to try and emphasise to them that PE will ultimately lose them customers.

Redx

agreed, a combination of the two that is more like an aggrieved customer is better than a full on confrontation , if you dont ask , you dont get , and dont forget to include the blue text template to PE as keeper on their website, possible adding an extra line that the BPA CoP clause #13 will be used as well as other legal points in any future appeals or defences (so they know you have checked)

Guys_Dad

The fact you paid is swamped by the rest of your letter. Put it in bold at the beginning of a paragraph, so it stands out.

Your appeal to Parking Eye will almost certainly depend upon signage. It's no good writing "Beyond the fact that the ParkingEye system is poorly signposted, confusing and unhelpful to your customers" without being able to prove it with photos.

The Grace argument will not work either. You exceeded the 1st period of up to 10 minutes by your own admission.

Certainly your best bet is the letter to the landowner.

Million_Percent

So I've sent the letter to the landowner and submitted an appeal letter via the PE website. Let's see what happens.